WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.600 Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take complex 00:00:02.600 --> 00:00:05.200 piles of information and turn them into essential, 00:00:05.339 --> 00:00:08.660 engaging knowledge just for you. Today we are 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:11.419 plumbing the depths of a figure whose legacy 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:14.859 is, well, it's so monumental it often overshadows 00:00:14.859 --> 00:00:17.969 the man himself. John Winston Ono Lennon. Exactly. 00:00:18.210 --> 00:00:20.570 He was the founder of the Beatles, half of maybe 00:00:20.570 --> 00:00:22.629 the most successful songwriting partnership in 00:00:22.629 --> 00:00:25.309 history with Paul McCartney. And really the most 00:00:25.309 --> 00:00:28.309 recognizable yet often contradictory voice of 00:00:28.309 --> 00:00:31.170 the 1960s and 70s counterculture. It's so necessary 00:00:31.170 --> 00:00:33.990 for us to look at John Lennon beyond, you know, 00:00:34.030 --> 00:00:36.950 the peace signs and the anthems. His life, so 00:00:36.950 --> 00:00:39.929 tragically cut short at just 40 years old, was 00:00:39.929 --> 00:00:42.670 this continuous, almost chaotic cycle of reinvention 00:00:42.670 --> 00:00:46.200 and confrontation. So our mission today is really 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:48.640 to analyze the layers beneath the fame. Yeah, 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:51.420 we're delving into the surprisingly complex and 00:00:51.420 --> 00:00:53.960 frankly traumatic personal history that forged 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:56.320 his unique artistic voice. We're talking about 00:00:56.320 --> 00:00:58.399 the painful relationships, the radical artistic 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:00.920 shifts. The deep commitment to conceptual art 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:03.799 and, of course, the political activism that put 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:05.939 him directly in the crosshairs of power. And 00:01:05.939 --> 00:01:08.640 we have sources covering every single epoch of 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.640 his life, from his birth in Liverpool in 1940 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.959 right up through the... posthumous continuation 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:17.659 of his work. Including that technological marvel 00:01:17.659 --> 00:01:20.379 that allowed the release of Now and Then in 2023. 00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:22.859 Right. And this material, it really allows us 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:25.319 to highlight a few recurring themes that define 00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:28.480 him. The first one has to be the profound shaping 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:31.000 influence of his childhood turmoil. Absolutely. 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:34.790 Then there's his natural almost instinctive tendency 00:01:34.790 --> 00:01:38.390 toward disruption and nonconformity. And critically, 00:01:38.549 --> 00:01:41.609 how his intense, often volatile relationships 00:01:41.609 --> 00:01:44.790 fueled every single major artistic period of 00:01:44.790 --> 00:01:46.670 his career. We're looking for the linkages, right? 00:01:46.750 --> 00:01:49.870 Yes. What connects the class clown throwing punches 00:01:49.870 --> 00:01:51.750 in Liverpool to the activists being targeted 00:01:51.750 --> 00:01:54.459 by the FBI in New York? And the answer, as the 00:01:54.459 --> 00:01:57.260 source material reveals, is a lifetime of trying 00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:00.359 to reconcile deep personal pain with an extraordinary 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:03.019 public platform. Okay, let's unpack the architect 00:02:03.019 --> 00:02:06.420 of modern pop and see how those internal pressures 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:08.419 shaped the man who eventually told the world 00:02:08.419 --> 00:02:10.620 to imagine. We have to start where it all began. 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:14.960 Liverpool, October 9th, 1940. He was born John 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:17.639 Winston Lennon. Which is a truly British name. 00:02:18.250 --> 00:02:20.050 partially for his paternal grandfather, John 00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:22.050 Jack Lennon, and partially for Prime Minister 00:02:22.050 --> 00:02:24.770 Winston Churchill. But from day one, his family 00:02:24.770 --> 00:02:27.509 life was just defined by instability and absence? 00:02:27.830 --> 00:02:30.469 The domestic situation was messy, to put it mildly. 00:02:30.710 --> 00:02:34.370 His father, Alfred Lennon, was a merchant seaman 00:02:34.370 --> 00:02:37.090 of Irish descent. So he was perpetually absent. 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:39.849 Perpetually. And when he eventually went absent 00:02:39.849 --> 00:02:42.069 without leave from his ship in February 1944, 00:02:42.689 --> 00:02:46.099 the regular allotment checks just stopped. Completely. 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:48.000 But what's fascinating, though, is the brief 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.900 attempt at a return. Right. Six months later, 00:02:51.099 --> 00:02:53.020 Alfred tried to come back and care for John. 00:02:53.219 --> 00:02:56.120 But by then, Julia, his mother, she was pregnant 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:58.080 with another man's child. And she rejected the 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:00.919 idea entirely. She did. And that moment, that 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:03.280 really sealed the abandonment for John. So this 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:05.439 instability meant that John was constantly shifting 00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:07.819 around. Constantly. His Aunt Mimi Mimi Smith 00:03:07.819 --> 00:03:11.020 and her husband, Uncle George Smith, they eventually 00:03:11.020 --> 00:03:13.629 took guardianship. And this was after Mimi complained 00:03:13.629 --> 00:03:16.810 twice to Liverpool's social services. Yes, because 00:03:16.810 --> 00:03:19.990 Julia was just demonstrably struggling to cope. 00:03:20.110 --> 00:03:23.069 So he was raised primarily in this staunchly 00:03:23.069 --> 00:03:26.909 middle class environment of Mendips, 251 Menlove 00:03:26.909 --> 00:03:29.990 Avenue. Which was miles away, you know, socially 00:03:29.990 --> 00:03:32.669 and psychologically from his mother's more bohemian 00:03:32.669 --> 00:03:35.150 lifestyle. Completely. And the sources paint 00:03:35.150 --> 00:03:37.969 this rich picture of his initial family unit. 00:03:38.389 --> 00:03:40.689 Lennon himself later described it in a really 00:03:40.689 --> 00:03:43.620 fascinating way. He said his initial family experience 00:03:43.620 --> 00:03:46.620 was with five strong, intelligent, beautiful 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:49.259 women. Five sisters, one of whom was his mother. 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:52.580 And he explicitly said this provided his first 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:55.280 feminist education. That's a crucial context. 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:57.780 It shows his deep connection to powerful female 00:03:57.780 --> 00:04:01.199 figures, but also... The instability. Oh, absolutely. 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:04.560 He later admitted to a deep, lifelong envy of 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:07.360 traditional, stable homes. And what does a nonconformist 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:09.580 do with envy? He tries to disrupt the standard. 00:04:09.819 --> 00:04:12.020 He often recounted trying to disrupt his friends' 00:04:12.139 --> 00:04:14.400 homes by telling them, parents are not gods because 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:16.399 I don't live with mine and therefore I know better. 00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:20.139 Wow. So that foundational nonconformist streak, 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:23.180 that urge to challenge authority, it was rooted 00:04:23.180 --> 00:04:25.800 right there. In the personal pain of his fractured 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:29.069 childhood. Exactly. And his aunt, Mimi. She certainly 00:04:29.069 --> 00:04:31.790 recognized this troublemaking streak. She represented 00:04:31.790 --> 00:04:34.810 all those traditional middle class values of 00:04:34.810 --> 00:04:37.569 the era. And Lennon himself described this lifelong 00:04:37.569 --> 00:04:40.490 internal conflict, saying a part of him genuinely 00:04:40.490 --> 00:04:43.170 wanted to be accepted by society to be a normal, 00:04:43.290 --> 00:04:46.339 respectable man. But he couldn't. He found he 00:04:46.339 --> 00:04:49.040 simply couldn't be anything other than a loudmouthed 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:52.019 lunatic poet musician. And that internal friction, 00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:54.879 it just manifested so strongly in his schooling. 00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:57.579 He attended Quarry Bank High School from 1952 00:04:57.579 --> 00:05:01.560 to 1957. And his behavior was notoriously disruptive. 00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:04.199 Teacher's notes consistently said he was frequently 00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:06.759 in fights, actively bullied others. And established 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:09.769 himself as the dedicated class clown. Yeah. His 00:05:09.769 --> 00:05:11.990 report cards were dismal. They often complained 00:05:11.990 --> 00:05:13.790 that his work lacked effort and he was perfectly 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:16.110 content to just drift instead of using his obvious 00:05:16.110 --> 00:05:18.470 intelligence. But we have to pause on these academic 00:05:18.470 --> 00:05:20.509 struggles because the source material brings 00:05:20.509 --> 00:05:23.389 forward a critical, often overlooked detail. 00:05:23.689 --> 00:05:26.769 Yes, that Lennon faced significant challenges 00:05:26.769 --> 00:05:30.180 due to undiagnosed dyslexia. Which would have 00:05:30.180 --> 00:05:32.660 negatively impacted his reading and writing skills 00:05:32.660 --> 00:05:34.980 and, of course, contributed to his poor academic 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:37.620 standing. Absolutely. When you're a highly intelligent 00:05:37.620 --> 00:05:40.300 person who struggles with the fundamental building 00:05:40.300 --> 00:05:43.639 blocks of formal education, what do you do? You 00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:45.779 compensate. You become the rebel or the comedian. 00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:49.060 Exactly. And his struggles contributed to his 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:51.180 eventual expulsion from the Liverpool College 00:05:51.180 --> 00:05:54.360 of Art before his final year. It wasn't because 00:05:54.360 --> 00:05:56.740 of a lack of talent. It was because an inability 00:05:56.740 --> 00:05:59.660 to comply with the rigid structure. Precisely. 00:05:59.779 --> 00:06:02.579 Yet the urge to create was just so powerful. 00:06:02.779 --> 00:06:05.759 If he couldn't excel in formal literature, he 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:07.959 would just create his own. Which he did. His 00:06:07.959 --> 00:06:10.540 early creative outlets were satirical and subversive, 00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:13.279 taking aim at the very establishment that rejected 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:15.360 him. Right, in his self -made school magazine 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:18.379 called The Daily Howl. The Daily Howl is such 00:06:18.379 --> 00:06:21.399 a window into his early psyche. It had comical 00:06:21.399 --> 00:06:25.120 cartoons known for brutal wordplay, satire. And 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:28.560 interestingly, what his peers described as disturbing 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:31.199 drawings of crippled people. Which points to 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:34.180 that dark, absurdist wit that would later flavor 00:06:34.180 --> 00:06:37.120 his published writings. The content wasn't just 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:40.379 humorous. It was pushing boundaries, using shock 00:06:40.379 --> 00:06:43.199 and dark comedy to process what he was seeing 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:45.819 in society. And this leads us directly to the 00:06:45.819 --> 00:06:48.160 fateful introduction to the tool that would channel 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:50.660 all that chaotic energy music. And his mother, 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:53.060 Julia, was the one who encouraged this path. 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:56.519 She knew Mimi, the strict guardian, would disapprove 00:06:56.519 --> 00:06:59.300 of such, you know, frivolous pursuits. So Julia 00:06:59.300 --> 00:07:02.339 understood his need for an outlet. She did. She 00:07:02.339 --> 00:07:04.899 bought him his first guitar, an inexpensive Galatone 00:07:04.899 --> 00:07:07.379 Champion acoustic, lending him five pounds and 00:07:07.379 --> 00:07:09.620 ten shillings. And to bypass Mimi's inevitable 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:12.079 objection, she insisted it be delivered directly 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:15.000 to her house. Smart move, ensuring Mimi wouldn't 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.629 intervene or, you know, destroy it. And Mimi 00:07:17.629 --> 00:07:19.589 delivered the line that will live forever in 00:07:19.589 --> 00:07:22.910 rock history. Oh, yes. She famously told him, 00:07:22.930 --> 00:07:24.769 the guitar's all very well, John, but you'll 00:07:24.769 --> 00:07:26.810 never make a living out of it. It's the ultimate 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:29.930 example of parental skepticism fueling a defiant 00:07:29.930 --> 00:07:33.300 ambition. Absolutely. But this creative bond 00:07:33.300 --> 00:07:35.860 with Julia, who also taught him the banjo and 00:07:35.860 --> 00:07:38.480 Fats Dominoes, Ain't That a Shame, was just brutally 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:40.699 and suddenly severed. The trauma that defined 00:07:40.699 --> 00:07:43.439 his late adolescence was Julia's death in July 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:47.600 1958. She was only 44. Struck and killed by an 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:50.430 off -duty police officer driving a car. while 00:07:50.430 --> 00:07:52.350 she was just walking home after visiting the 00:07:52.350 --> 00:07:55.029 Smith house. The fallout was just devastating. 00:07:55.569 --> 00:07:57.069 I mean, he was a teenage boy who had already 00:07:57.069 --> 00:07:59.310 experienced the pain of one parent vanishing. 00:07:59.310 --> 00:08:01.629 Only to lose the parent who had finally connected 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:04.430 him to his true artistic self. And the subsequent 00:08:04.430 --> 00:08:06.850 two years were marked by just emotional chaos, 00:08:07.089 --> 00:08:10.699 heavy drinking, frequent fighting, a blind rage 00:08:10.699 --> 00:08:13.000 that consumed him. The source material shows 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:15.620 this was a true reckoning for him. It's no surprise 00:08:15.620 --> 00:08:18.699 that her memory later became a major, often painful, 00:08:18.819 --> 00:08:21.779 creative inspiration, fueling his most confessional 00:08:21.779 --> 00:08:24.019 work, like the song Julia. You can see the direct 00:08:24.019 --> 00:08:27.199 line now, abandonment and chaos driving artistic 00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:30.439 nonconformity. And that raw, angry energy he 00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:32.899 carried after Julia's death immediately found 00:08:32.899 --> 00:08:36.559 an outlet in music. In September 1956, at age 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:40.179 15, he formed a skiffle group, you know, a mix 00:08:40.179 --> 00:08:42.940 of folk, blues, and jazz, called the Quarrymen. 00:08:43.100 --> 00:08:45.679 Named after Quarry Bank High School. And this 00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:48.080 leads us to the most consequential meeting in 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:52.440 modern popular culture. July 1957, at the Quarrymen's 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:54.460 second performance at the St. Peter's Church 00:08:54.460 --> 00:08:57.519 Garden Fet. He was introduced to a younger, musically 00:08:57.519 --> 00:09:00.360 sophisticated local named Paul McCartney. And 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:03.029 Lennon. Ever the leader, immediately asked him 00:09:03.029 --> 00:09:05.049 to join. But the dynamic was immediately fraught, 00:09:05.070 --> 00:09:07.690 even outside the band. McCartney's father declared 00:09:07.690 --> 00:09:09.389 that Lennon would certainly get his son into 00:09:09.389 --> 00:09:11.590 trouble. And Mimi, of course, was highly critical. 00:09:11.870 --> 00:09:14.269 She was very aware that John's new friends were 00:09:14.269 --> 00:09:17.230 perceived as lower -class ruffians. But despite 00:09:17.230 --> 00:09:20.399 the disapproval, the bond was sealed. They rehearsed 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:22.940 constantly in the relative safety of the McCartney 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:25.039 family's front room. And the lineup solidified 00:09:25.039 --> 00:09:26.919 quickly, bringing in George Harrison. Right. 00:09:27.019 --> 00:09:29.620 But Lennon, the self -proclaimed leader, initially 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:31.600 thought George was too young. He was only 14. 00:09:31.940 --> 00:09:34.600 But an audition orchestrated by McCartney on 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:37.519 the upper deck of a Liverpool bus. Where Harrison 00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:39.980 impressively played the complicated instrumental 00:09:39.980 --> 00:09:44.200 raunchy. That sealed the deal. By early 1960, 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:47.159 with the addition of his art school friend Stuart 00:09:47.159 --> 00:09:50.899 Sutcliffe on bass, they became the Beatles. And 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:53.820 this nascent band was then thrown into the crucible 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:57.779 of Hamburg. August 1960, the Beatles, including 00:09:57.779 --> 00:10:00.940 drummer Pete Best, were engaged for a brutal 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:03.679 48 -night residency in West Germany. We're talking 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.679 marathon sets. seven days a week. The physical 00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:08.840 demands were just unsustainable. They had to 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.480 find ways to maintain energy for performances 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:14.399 that ran all night. And the source material details 00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:16.879 that Lennon, along with the others, regularly 00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:19.480 took Preadon. A powerful amphetamine. Right. 00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:21.700 Often used as a diet pill, but they used it as 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:24.399 a stimulant to endure those long, grueling overnight 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:27.320 performances. And that detail is so crucial for 00:10:27.320 --> 00:10:29.320 you, the listener, because it connects directly 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:32.320 to the unsustainable pace of early fame. Exactly. 00:10:32.419 --> 00:10:35.059 This chemically enhanced intensity followed by 00:10:35.059 --> 00:10:37.519 the exhaustion of Beatlemania. That's the underlying 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:39.759 context for his later mental breakdown. They 00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:42.679 were just running on fumes. They were. And when 00:10:42.679 --> 00:10:46.519 Brian Epstein took over as manager in 1962, he 00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:49.679 recognized the need to polish the image. He strongly 00:10:49.679 --> 00:10:52.519 influenced their dress code, their stage attitude. 00:10:52.799 --> 00:10:55.159 Forcing them into matching suits and synchronized 00:10:55.159 --> 00:10:57.799 bows. Which Lennon, the natural nonconformist, 00:10:57.879 --> 00:11:00.240 initially resisted. He felt they were selling 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:02.279 out their rock and roll edge. But he eventually 00:11:02.279 --> 00:11:05.230 complied with that fantastic quote. I'll wear 00:11:05.230 --> 00:11:07.009 a bloody balloon if somebody is going to pay 00:11:07.009 --> 00:11:09.549 me. The money and the promise of mainstream acceptance 00:11:09.549 --> 00:11:12.169 convinced the anarchists to temporarily put on 00:11:12.169 --> 00:11:13.830 a suit. And the Lennon -McCartney partnership 00:11:13.830 --> 00:11:17.429 just exploded. They yielded eight of the 14 tracks 00:11:17.429 --> 00:11:20.370 on their 1963 debut album, Please Please Me. 00:11:20.549 --> 00:11:22.690 But the goal initially was just simple commercial 00:11:22.690 --> 00:11:26.549 pop. Lennon described those early lyrics as almost 00:11:26.549 --> 00:11:29.070 irrelevant. They were focused solely on creating 00:11:29.070 --> 00:11:31.710 a sound that would sell. Not profound poetry. 00:11:32.049 --> 00:11:34.350 Not yet. Not yet. But even as he conformed to 00:11:34.350 --> 00:11:36.970 the suits, that disruption was always waiting 00:11:36.970 --> 00:11:39.690 to surface. And his natural irreverence toward 00:11:39.690 --> 00:11:41.809 the establishment was never better displayed 00:11:41.809 --> 00:11:44.210 than at the Royal Variety Show. Performing for 00:11:44.210 --> 00:11:47.429 the Queen Mother and British royalty, he pauses 00:11:47.429 --> 00:11:49.929 the performance and delivers that infamous joke. 00:11:50.129 --> 00:11:51.929 For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your 00:11:51.929 --> 00:11:54.590 hands. And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle 00:11:54.590 --> 00:11:57.450 your jewelry. That one line just summarizes his 00:11:57.450 --> 00:12:00.100 entire relationship with authority. It was a 00:12:00.100 --> 00:12:02.580 playful insult wrapped in an innocent request. 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:05.259 Defiant, but just charming enough to be forgiven. 00:12:05.480 --> 00:12:08.720 For a while. By the mid -decade, that charm was 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.340 wearing thin, and the stress of constant touring, 00:12:11.539 --> 00:12:14.120 filmmaking, and global fame was just overwhelming. 00:12:14.900 --> 00:12:17.559 Lennon grew profoundly concerned that the continuous 00:12:17.559 --> 00:12:20.179 fan screaming meant their actual musicianship 00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:22.440 was suffering. He was tired of being a Beatle. 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:25.039 It was sinking into depression and anxiety, and 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:27.519 this internal stress led to what he later called 00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:30.259 his Fat Elvis period. He put on weight, became 00:12:30.259 --> 00:12:32.960 reclusive, and subconsciously signaled a need 00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:35.100 for a dramatic change. And this distress was 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:39.100 poured directly into the 1965 song Help. He confirmed 00:12:39.100 --> 00:12:41.100 that song was deeply personal. It was genuinely 00:12:41.100 --> 00:12:43.809 him singing Help. It wasn't a clever pop tune. 00:12:43.850 --> 00:12:47.009 It was a desperate cry. A desperate cry. And 00:12:47.009 --> 00:12:49.490 this period of immense pressure was further complicated 00:12:49.490 --> 00:12:53.090 by the involuntary introduction to LSD in March 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:57.429 1965. When a dentist hosting a dinner party secretly 00:12:57.429 --> 00:12:59.789 spiked the coffee of Lennon, Harrison and their 00:12:59.789 --> 00:13:02.529 partners. Which ushered in a profound shift in 00:13:02.529 --> 00:13:05.409 his perception of reality. And this shift, combined 00:13:05.409 --> 00:13:08.230 with the stress of global idolatry, led to the 00:13:08.230 --> 00:13:10.970 single most explosive comment of his early fame. 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:14.220 The more popular than Jesus controversy. In a 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:17.440 March 1966 interview, he mused, Christianity 00:13:17.440 --> 00:13:20.440 will go. It will vanish and shrink. We're more 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.600 popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:24.620 go first, rock and roll or Christianity. And 00:13:24.620 --> 00:13:27.419 the context is so key here. That comment went 00:13:27.419 --> 00:13:29.759 largely unnoticed in the UK. Right. But when 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:31.600 it was quoted in a U .S. magazine five months 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:34.000 later, the reaction was furious and dangerous. 00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:36.519 It triggered mass public burnings of Beatles 00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:39.279 records, actual Ku Klux Klan threats against 00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:41.259 him in the American South. And ultimately contributed 00:13:41.259 --> 00:13:43.419 directly to the band's unanimous decision to 00:13:43.419 --> 00:13:46.600 stop touring permanently after August 1966. What 00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:48.620 stands out to me is that this controversy didn't 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:51.000 just cause outrage. It forced a change in his 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.879 entire creative process. It shifted him from 00:13:53.879 --> 00:13:57.659 road musician to studio artist. And the cessation 00:13:57.659 --> 00:14:00.460 of touring led to the band's famous studio years 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:03.279 and an explosion of innovation. After filming 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:05.639 the anti -war black comedy How I Won the War 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:08.620 in 1967, he rejoined the band for an extended, 00:14:08.740 --> 00:14:11.980 focused recording period. And this time saw the 00:14:11.980 --> 00:14:14.690 release of Strawberry Fields Forever. which Time 00:14:14.690 --> 00:14:17.289 magazine hailed for its astonishing inventiveness. 00:14:17.570 --> 00:14:19.950 And the landmark Stomp Peppers Lonely Hearts 00:14:19.950 --> 00:14:23.110 Club band. Lennon later cited Strawberry Fields 00:14:23.110 --> 00:14:25.649 Forever as his finest work with the band. This 00:14:25.649 --> 00:14:27.789 new environment allowed his political conscience 00:14:27.789 --> 00:14:31.080 to emerge more clearly. All You Need Is Love 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:34.600 was performed in late June 1967 for the Our World 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:37.080 satellite broadcast. Reaching an estimated international 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.139 audience of 400 million. And while simplistic, 00:14:40.419 --> 00:14:43.000 it became the defining anti -war anthem for the 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:45.620 Summer of Love, showing him using his platform 00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:48.240 for global messaging. And this explosion of studio 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:50.559 creativity and conceptual thinking coincides 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:52.500 perfectly with the pivotal relationship that 00:14:52.500 --> 00:14:55.529 fundamentally reshaped his life. Yoko Ono. Lennon 00:14:55.529 --> 00:14:58.269 first met the multimedia artist on November 9th, 00:14:58.269 --> 00:15:01.710 1966 at the Indica Gallery in London, where she 00:15:01.710 --> 00:15:04.389 was preparing a conceptual art exhibit. And the 00:15:04.389 --> 00:15:06.590 interaction itself is just a fantastic anecdote 00:15:06.590 --> 00:15:09.610 that highlights their initial intellectual sparring 00:15:09.610 --> 00:15:12.210 match. Right. Lennon was intrigued by Ono's piece, 00:15:12.389 --> 00:15:15.370 Hammer a Nail. It was a clean board meant to 00:15:15.370 --> 00:15:17.289 be hammered into. And Lennon wanted to hammer 00:15:17.289 --> 00:15:19.990 a nail. Ono stopped him. When the gallery owner 00:15:19.990 --> 00:15:21.870 convinced her that Lennon was a millionaire who 00:15:21.870 --> 00:15:24.970 might buy the piece. She relented, but only if 00:15:24.970 --> 00:15:28.200 he paid five shillings. His famous reply, which 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:30.980 just encapsulates his wit and his embrace of 00:15:30.980 --> 00:15:33.820 concept, was, I'll give you an imaginary five 00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:36.700 shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in. She 00:15:36.700 --> 00:15:38.840 also later recalled him taking a very physical 00:15:38.840 --> 00:15:41.100 bite out of an apple on display in her conceptual 00:15:41.100 --> 00:15:43.340 art piece, Apple. Which was meant to represent 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:46.120 a commodity. And she was furious. It was a clash 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:49.120 of two powerful creative forces. That initial 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:52.940 playful antagonism quickly grew into an obsessive, 00:15:52.940 --> 00:15:55.539 all -consuming relationship. Ono began visiting 00:15:55.539 --> 00:15:58.299 and calling him at his home. Lennon, who admitted 00:15:58.299 --> 00:16:00.759 he had been a hitter and had a chauvinistic attitude 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:03.740 until he met Ono, was just entirely captivated 00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:06.960 by this independent, conceptual artist. And the 00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:08.980 source material is clear that the final dissolution 00:16:08.980 --> 00:16:11.379 of the Beatles was hastened by Lennon's insistence 00:16:11.379 --> 00:16:14.080 on having Ono present in the studio at all times. 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:16.279 Which was a direct contravention of established 00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:19.220 band policy and severely heightened the already 00:16:19.220 --> 00:16:22.269 critical internal tensions. They immediately 00:16:22.269 --> 00:16:24.970 began their own conceptual collaborations, recording 00:16:24.970 --> 00:16:28.049 three avant -garde albums together between 1968 00:16:28.049 --> 00:16:31.210 and 69. Starting with unfinished music number 00:16:31.210 --> 00:16:34.639 one, Two Virgins, which... Infamously, was known 00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:37.159 more for its controversial nude cover than its 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:39.799 actual experimental music. Lennon, feeling the 00:16:39.799 --> 00:16:41.919 pressure, was pushing the band toward more extreme, 00:16:42.059 --> 00:16:44.740 sonic, and conceptual places. He finally told 00:16:44.740 --> 00:16:46.559 the band he was leaving the Beatles on September 00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:49.799 20, 1969, though he agreed to keep it secret 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:52.279 while contract negotiations were underway. He 00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:54.779 felt the need to control the narrative. Oh, absolutely. 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.620 The final blow to him came when Paul McCartney 00:16:57.620 --> 00:17:01.460 publicized his own departure in April 1970 upon 00:17:01.460 --> 00:17:04.460 releasing his solo album. And Lennon was outraged 00:17:04.460 --> 00:17:07.039 at what he saw as a betrayal, reacting with genuine 00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:09.220 fury. He said, Jesus Christ, he gets all the 00:17:09.220 --> 00:17:11.440 credit for it. Though he eventually softened 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.420 on the specific circumstances, he later summarized 00:17:14.420 --> 00:17:17.940 his definitive role by stating simply, I started 00:17:17.940 --> 00:17:20.519 the band, I disbanded it. So with the Beatles 00:17:20.519 --> 00:17:23.480 closed, Lennon didn't ease into some conventional 00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:26.480 solo career. Not at all. He immediately entered 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:29.099 his most brutally honest period of self -reflection 00:17:29.099 --> 00:17:31.359 and creative output, driven by therapy. Right, 00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:33.079 attempting to process the trauma we discussed 00:17:33.079 --> 00:17:35.440 earlier, and that therapy was primal therapy. 00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:39.420 From April to September 1970, he and Ono underwent 00:17:39.420 --> 00:17:42.359 intensive treatment with Dr. Arthur Janoff. And 00:17:42.359 --> 00:17:45.019 this therapy, it aimed to confront and release 00:17:45.019 --> 00:17:47.799 the emotional pain buried since early childhood, 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:50.400 specifically the abandonment by his parents. 00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:53.470 The process often involved screaming. For you, 00:17:53.509 --> 00:17:55.049 the listener, who might not be familiar with 00:17:55.049 --> 00:17:57.329 it, primal therapy posits that neuroses stem 00:17:57.329 --> 00:17:59.710 from repressed traumatic childhood experiences. 00:18:00.009 --> 00:18:02.630 So the therapy sought to bring those primal pains 00:18:02.630 --> 00:18:05.809 to the surface for emotional release, often through 00:18:05.809 --> 00:18:09.230 these intense, cathartic screams. And this brutal, 00:18:09.269 --> 00:18:12.769 unflinching honesty informed his raw solo debut, 00:18:13.109 --> 00:18:16.869 John Lennon Plastic Ono Band from 1970. Which 00:18:16.869 --> 00:18:18.809 was critically praised for its vulnerability, 00:18:18.910 --> 00:18:20.990 but commercially limited because of its stark 00:18:20.990 --> 00:18:23.430 sound and intensity. intensely personal lyrics. 00:18:23.630 --> 00:18:25.910 There's a dudality here, isn't there? This album 00:18:25.910 --> 00:18:28.430 is the sound of a man dismantling his own whiff. 00:18:28.630 --> 00:18:30.930 Perfectly put. And two tracks exemplify this. 00:18:31.430 --> 00:18:34.900 Mother is a direct painful confrontation of his 00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:36.960 childhood rejection and then you have working 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.799 class hero which was a scathing attack on western 00:18:39.799 --> 00:18:42.059 social systems class structure and education 00:18:42.059 --> 00:18:45.259 so direct that it was censored by broadcasters 00:18:45.259 --> 00:18:47.500 for using profanity but here's where we see the 00:18:47.500 --> 00:18:50.059 instability of his political identity he quickly 00:18:50.059 --> 00:18:52.880 shifted from confessional trauma to musical activism 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:56.200 after an interview in january 1971 where radical 00:18:56.200 --> 00:18:58.839 journalist tariq ali shared these intense revolutionary 00:18:58.839 --> 00:19:02.440 political views lenin was just instantly galvanized 00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:04.900 he wrote power to the people which was a sharp 00:19:04.900 --> 00:19:07.660 reversal from his earlier more cautious stance 00:19:07.660 --> 00:19:10.339 on radical change as he expressed in the beatles 00:19:10.339 --> 00:19:13.069 song revolution But that political pivot was 00:19:13.069 --> 00:19:15.349 something he later questioned himself. He did. 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:17.809 He disowned power to the people, admitting he 00:19:17.809 --> 00:19:20.309 was born out of guilt and a desire for approval 00:19:20.309 --> 00:19:23.210 from political radicals like Ali. He was trying 00:19:23.210 --> 00:19:26.609 to reconcile his pacifism with a desire for confrontational 00:19:26.609 --> 00:19:28.750 engagement. It shows he was searching for the 00:19:28.750 --> 00:19:31.210 appropriate use of his enormous platform. And 00:19:31.210 --> 00:19:33.529 this search for relevance and, frankly, commercial 00:19:33.529 --> 00:19:36.410 success led him to pivot again for his next album. 00:19:37.019 --> 00:19:40.380 Imagine in 1971. He consciously adopted a much 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:43.339 more accessible and sophisticated sound. He was 00:19:43.339 --> 00:19:45.460 eager to sell records and reach a mass audience 00:19:45.460 --> 00:19:48.680 again. And as Imagine succeeded wildly, it was 00:19:48.680 --> 00:19:51.359 commercially massive and culturally iconic, but 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:53.839 the success brought controversy. The title track 00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:56.880 became a global anti -war anthem, yet its lyrics 00:19:56.880 --> 00:19:59.480 profoundly offended religious groups. Because 00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:02.259 it proposed a world with no countries, no possessions, 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:05.829 and importantly, no religion too. Lennon justified 00:20:05.829 --> 00:20:08.210 this by saying he was imagining a world without 00:20:08.210 --> 00:20:11.089 the division caused by religious conflict, specifically 00:20:11.089 --> 00:20:14.190 without the my God is bigger than your God dynamic. 00:20:14.509 --> 00:20:17.289 It was an utopian vision, but one that actively 00:20:17.289 --> 00:20:20.170 challenged deeply held beliefs. This era also 00:20:20.170 --> 00:20:23.789 featured intense, regrettable inner Beatles hostility. 00:20:23.809 --> 00:20:27.309 The song How Do You Sleep? A direct, vicious 00:20:27.309 --> 00:20:30.440 musical attack on Paul McCartney. It was prompted 00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:33.779 by lyrics on McCartney's album Ram that Lennon 00:20:33.779 --> 00:20:36.339 felt were directed at him and Ono. And McCartney 00:20:36.339 --> 00:20:39.000 later confirmed they were. He did. And if we 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:41.480 link this back to our theme of duality, this 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:44.420 track is a clear failure of his own stated ideals 00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:47.119 of peace and love. He later softened his stance, 00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:49.599 claiming he wrote the song about himself, using 00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:51.980 his resentment toward Paul as a vehicle for his 00:20:51.980 --> 00:20:54.539 own self -hatred. But what's remarkable is that 00:20:54.539 --> 00:20:57.119 at the same time, he was exhibiting profound 00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:00.140 self -awareness in other songs like Jealous Guy. 00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:02.160 Where he addressed his demeaning treatment of 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:04.740 women. He cited his past chauvinistic attitude 00:21:04.740 --> 00:21:07.740 and insecurity. And openly acknowledged to the 00:21:07.740 --> 00:21:09.779 world that he had been a hitter until he met 00:21:09.779 --> 00:21:12.200 Ono. That confession just shows the power of 00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:14.980 the therapy. He was willing to be ugly and vulnerable 00:21:14.980 --> 00:21:17.980 in public. That level of self -exposure is just 00:21:17.980 --> 00:21:21.259 so rare for a global superstar. And it connected 00:21:21.259 --> 00:21:23.660 him intimately with his audience. The political 00:21:23.660 --> 00:21:25.920 intensity ramped up immediately after moving 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:29.579 to New York City in August 1971. The couple quickly 00:21:29.579 --> 00:21:32.519 immersed themselves in radical left politics, 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:36.599 releasing the single Happy Xmas War Is Over in 00:21:36.599 --> 00:21:39.319 December, designed as a direct anti -Vietnam 00:21:39.319 --> 00:21:42.140 War message. And this activism drew serious, 00:21:42.140 --> 00:21:44.200 hostile attention from the highest levels of 00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:46.519 government. The Nixon administration. They viewed 00:21:46.519 --> 00:21:49.000 Lenin's anti -war and anti -Nixon propaganda 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:51.839 as a genuine threat to his reelection campaign. 00:21:52.119 --> 00:21:54.700 So they initiated a four -year deportation attempt. 00:21:54.920 --> 00:21:57.839 This was explicitly called a strategic countermeasure. 00:21:57.980 --> 00:22:00.400 Republican Senator Strom Thurmond specifically 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:03.039 suggested deportation would be a useful tool 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:05.059 against Lenin's influence. And the legal grounds 00:22:05.059 --> 00:22:09.180 cited by the INS were so flimsy. His 1968 misdemeanor 00:22:09.180 --> 00:22:11.819 marijuana conviction in London. But the political 00:22:11.819 --> 00:22:14.319 motivation was crystal clear. especially concerning 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:17.660 a planned concert at the 1972 Republican National 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:20.279 Convention. Where he intended to use his voice 00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:23.019 to influence young voters. His commitment to 00:22:23.019 --> 00:22:25.500 radical political causes continued aggressively 00:22:25.500 --> 00:22:28.920 with some time in New York City in 1972. A collaboration 00:22:28.920 --> 00:22:32.160 with Ono and the band Elephant's Memory. This 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:35.400 double LP was highly topical. It tackled everything 00:22:35.400 --> 00:22:38.440 from race relations in Woman is the Nigger of 00:22:38.440 --> 00:22:41.690 the World to women's rights. and Britain's role 00:22:41.690 --> 00:22:44.069 in Northern Ireland. Including The Luck of the 00:22:44.069 --> 00:22:47.130 Irish and Sunday Bloody Sunday. And for you, 00:22:47.210 --> 00:22:49.839 the listener. We must pause and provide context 00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.000 for why those Northern Ireland tracks were so 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:54.940 volatile. Bloody Sunday occurred in January 1972 00:22:54.940 --> 00:22:58.539 when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civil rights 00:22:58.539 --> 00:23:01.720 protesters in Derry, killing 14. It was a moment 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:03.940 of profound national trauma and international 00:23:03.940 --> 00:23:06.700 condemnation. So when Lennon followed up this 00:23:06.700 --> 00:23:09.019 event by stating he would side with the IRA over 00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:10.940 the British Army. A statement that certainly 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:13.019 garnered attention from both the U .S. and U 00:23:13.019 --> 00:23:15.480 .K. government. It was highly inflammatory. His 00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:18.089 cousin Stanley Parks later claimed. Lenin gave 00:23:18.089 --> 00:23:20.930 money to the IRA, although Ono has always vehemently 00:23:20.930 --> 00:23:23.670 denied this. Critically and commercially, sometime 00:23:23.670 --> 00:23:26.690 in New York City was a disaster. Critics maligned 00:23:26.690 --> 00:23:28.710 it for its heavy -handed and relentless political 00:23:28.710 --> 00:23:32.009 sloganeering, with the enemy deriding Lenin as 00:23:32.009 --> 00:23:35.009 a pathetic, aging revolutionary. It lacked the 00:23:35.009 --> 00:23:37.829 subtlety of imagine and the raw honesty of plastic 00:23:37.829 --> 00:23:41.430 Ono band. Yet despite the critical failure, his 00:23:41.430 --> 00:23:44.470 direct political action still had impact. In 00:23:44.470 --> 00:23:47.549 December 1971, he and Ono performed at the John 00:23:47.549 --> 00:23:50.170 Sinclair Freedom Rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 00:23:50.470 --> 00:23:52.990 Protesting the poet's draconian 10 -year prison 00:23:52.990 --> 00:23:55.630 sentence for selling just two joints. The energy 00:23:55.630 --> 00:23:58.029 of that 15 ,000 -person rally was undeniable. 00:23:58.210 --> 00:24:00.890 Four days after the rally, reduced penalties 00:24:00.890 --> 00:24:03.470 for marijuana were passed in Michigan, and Sinclair 00:24:03.470 --> 00:24:05.670 was released on bond. It shows the power of the 00:24:05.670 --> 00:24:08.049 platform when used strategically. And finally, 00:24:08.089 --> 00:24:10.069 we have the ultimate validation of the government's 00:24:10.069 --> 00:24:13.619 fears. Historian John Weiner undertook a 14 -year 00:24:13.619 --> 00:24:16.140 legal battle to force the release of the FBI 00:24:16.140 --> 00:24:18.700 files on Lenin. And the released documents, surveillance 00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:21.480 reports, memos to the White House, a proposal 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:24.259 for his arrest, clearly validated that the entire 00:24:24.259 --> 00:24:26.279 deportation attempt was politically motivated. 00:24:26.819 --> 00:24:29.420 Orchestrated to silence a highly effective political 00:24:29.420 --> 00:24:32.700 voice. This is the importance for the modern 00:24:32.700 --> 00:24:35.460 listener. The documents confirm that powerful 00:24:35.460 --> 00:24:37.940 governments viewed his voice as a genuine threat. 00:24:38.460 --> 00:24:40.940 As we transition into the mid -70s, Lennon's 00:24:40.940 --> 00:24:43.339 relationships and his art became completely tied 00:24:43.339 --> 00:24:46.440 to a period of intense personal turmoil. And 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:50.779 a dramatic, temporary separation from Ono. But 00:24:50.779 --> 00:24:53.000 first, let's revisit the profound impact of his 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:55.519 first family. Right. The initial dynamic with 00:24:55.519 --> 00:24:57.980 Cynthia Lennon and their son, Julian, was defined 00:24:57.980 --> 00:25:01.420 by secrecy. John married Cynthia Powell in 1962. 00:25:02.269 --> 00:25:04.910 just as Beatlemania was taking off. And manager 00:25:04.910 --> 00:25:07.410 Brian Epstein insisted the marriage and Julian's 00:25:07.410 --> 00:25:11.250 birth in April 1963 be kept secret. He genuinely 00:25:11.250 --> 00:25:13.930 feared a married Beatle would alienate the female 00:25:13.930 --> 00:25:17.089 fans. The cost of this secrecy was huge. Lennon 00:25:17.089 --> 00:25:19.150 was on tour when Julian were born and didn't 00:25:19.150 --> 00:25:21.369 see his son for the first three days. And the 00:25:21.369 --> 00:25:23.809 legacy of that initial distance persisted through 00:25:23.809 --> 00:25:26.390 Julian's childhood. It's why Julian felt a greater 00:25:26.390 --> 00:25:28.490 bond with Paul McCartney, who famously composed 00:25:28.490 --> 00:25:31.269 Hey Jules, which later became Hey Jude for him. 00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:33.940 during the chaos of the divorce. Lennon's own 00:25:33.940 --> 00:25:36.079 attempts to reconcile this distance were just 00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:39.180 fraught. He later classifies Sean as a planned 00:25:39.180 --> 00:25:42.299 child, while Julian was not. And while he insisted, 00:25:42.460 --> 00:25:45.660 I don't love Julian any less as a child, the 00:25:45.660 --> 00:25:48.559 material legacy was heartbreaking. He left Julian 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:51.539 very little in his will. This internal friction 00:25:51.539 --> 00:25:53.880 just set the stage for the infamous lost weekend. 00:25:54.119 --> 00:25:57.519 In 1973, Lennon and Ono decided to separate. 00:25:57.950 --> 00:26:00.349 And the ensuing 18 -month period was spent in 00:26:00.349 --> 00:26:02.710 Los Angeles and New York City with May Pang, 00:26:02.990 --> 00:26:05.210 who had been their personal assistant. What makes 00:26:05.210 --> 00:26:08.130 this so fascinating and shows the unusual dynamics 00:26:08.130 --> 00:26:11.369 of their relationship is that Ono suggested the 00:26:11.369 --> 00:26:14.109 relationship with Pang. She did. She told Pang 00:26:14.109 --> 00:26:16.250 that she and Leonard were becoming estranged 00:26:16.250 --> 00:26:19.480 and bluntly said, he likes you a lot. suggesting 00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:21.720 she become his companion. It was not a traditional 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:24.619 breakup. It was a strategically managed distance. 00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:27.160 But this period quickly descended into chaos 00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:30.240 for Lennon. In L .A., he was drinking heavily 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:33.039 with musician Harry Nilsson, leading to highly 00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:36.359 publicized, embarrassing incidents. We're talking 00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:38.759 about a man known globally for peace, reduced 00:26:38.759 --> 00:26:41.200 to heckling the Smothers Brothers at a club until 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:43.400 he was physically ejected. And in a moment of 00:26:43.400 --> 00:26:47.259 just alcohol -fueled absurdity, sticking an unused 00:26:47.259 --> 00:26:49.619 menstrual pad on his forehead. We need to pause 00:26:49.619 --> 00:26:51.319 on that image for a moment. It's the highest 00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:54.000 contrast you can imagine. The most famous person 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:56.319 on Earth, having just been targeted by the U 00:26:56.319 --> 00:26:59.019 .S. government, is now in a state of self -destruction 00:26:59.019 --> 00:27:01.539 and public chaos. It tells you the weight of 00:27:01.539 --> 00:27:03.980 his persona and the stress of his activism had 00:27:03.980 --> 00:27:07.099 completely overwhelmed his stability. Yet, despite 00:27:07.099 --> 00:27:10.869 the chaos, The Lost Weekend. was crucial for 00:27:10.869 --> 00:27:15.890 one positive thing. Reconnection. May Pang actively 00:27:15.890 --> 00:27:18.809 encouraged Lennon to reestablish regular, meaningful 00:27:18.809 --> 00:27:21.509 contact with Julian, whom he hadn't seen for 00:27:21.509 --> 00:27:23.490 two years. They visited Disneyland together, 00:27:23.710 --> 00:27:26.470 and Lennon even gave Julian a drumming part on 00:27:26.470 --> 00:27:28.730 a track for his upcoming album, Walls and Bridges. 00:27:28.890 --> 00:27:31.390 Pang also helped him rekindle friendships with 00:27:31.390 --> 00:27:33.710 Starr and McCartney, showing a healthy influence 00:27:33.710 --> 00:27:35.910 amidst all the drinking. And Walls and Bridges, 00:27:36.049 --> 00:27:38.380 the album he recorded during this period, proved 00:27:38.380 --> 00:27:40.400 to be a commercial triumph. Primarily thanks 00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:42.259 to the single, Whatever Gets You Through the 00:27:42.259 --> 00:27:45.059 Night, featuring Elton John. And that became 00:27:45.059 --> 00:27:47.720 Lennon's only solo single during his lifetime 00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:51.359 to top the U .S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. The 00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:53.980 lost weekend ended abruptly in February 1975. 00:27:54.619 --> 00:27:57.180 After Ono claimed to have found a cure for smoking. 00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:00.579 The reunion itself is a strange story. Lennon 00:28:00.579 --> 00:28:02.819 returned to Pang's home, stupefied and confused, 00:28:03.259 --> 00:28:05.980 leading Pang to believe he had been brainwashed. 00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:08.240 Lennon just told Pang the separation was over, 00:28:08.380 --> 00:28:11.160 but strangely claimed Ono would allow him to 00:28:11.160 --> 00:28:13.759 continue seeing her. A condition Lennon evidently 00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:16.359 rejected, committing fully to Ono. Artistically, 00:28:16.539 --> 00:28:19.599 this era also saw powerful collaborations. He 00:28:19.599 --> 00:28:22.539 co -wrote and performed on Fame in 1975 with 00:28:22.539 --> 00:28:25.099 David Bowie. Which became Bowie's first US number 00:28:25.099 --> 00:28:27.279 one. He also honored a famous promise to Elton 00:28:27.279 --> 00:28:29.119 John. Because whatever gets you through the night 00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:31.420 hit number one. He made a surprise guest appearance 00:28:31.420 --> 00:28:34.339 at Madison Square Garden in November 1974. He 00:28:34.339 --> 00:28:36.160 performed that hit Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds 00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:38.259 and I saw her standing there. Which he humorously 00:28:38.259 --> 00:28:40.920 introduced as a song by an old estranged fiance 00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:43.859 of mine called Paul. That was a high point. His 00:28:43.859 --> 00:28:46.440 absolute last stage appearance was in April 1975 00:28:46.440 --> 00:28:50.059 for the ATV special A Salute to Lou Grade. The 00:28:50.059 --> 00:28:54.279 band. cold, etc., notably wore masks, a final 00:28:54.279 --> 00:28:56.819 pointed dig at the media magnate grade being 00:28:56.819 --> 00:28:59.759 two -faced. Following that, Lennon entered a 00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:02.779 dedicated five -year hiatus from music and public 00:29:02.779 --> 00:29:05.859 life. After Sean Ono Lennon was born on his 35th 00:29:05.859 --> 00:29:08.160 birthday, Ono agreed to continue the pregnancy 00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:10.519 only if Lennon committed to becoming a full -time 00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:13.019 house husband. This was a seismic cultural shift. 00:29:13.220 --> 00:29:15.819 The rock and roll icon devoted himself entirely 00:29:15.819 --> 00:29:18.640 to domesticity. He described this time simply 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:21.000 as when he baked bread and looked after the baby, 00:29:21.180 --> 00:29:24.359 rising at 6 a .m. daily to prepare meals and 00:29:24.359 --> 00:29:26.599 care for Sean. He even formally announced the 00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:30.559 break in Tokyo in 1977. He was meticulous, taking 00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:32.559 photographs of Sean every single day for his 00:29:32.559 --> 00:29:34.799 first year. This hiatus allowed him to regain 00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:37.039 the stability and calm that had been absent since 00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:39.400 the Beatles started touring. He had found the 00:29:39.400 --> 00:29:41.440 structure his childhood had denied him. And the 00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:43.799 end of the hiatus came in June 1980, sparked 00:29:43.799 --> 00:29:46.599 by a nautical adventure. A sailing trip to Bermuda. 00:29:47.049 --> 00:29:49.869 The boat hit a severe storm and Lennon took command 00:29:49.869 --> 00:29:52.230 during the tempest. An experience that profoundly 00:29:52.230 --> 00:29:55.309 reinvigorated his creative muse and led him to 00:29:55.309 --> 00:29:57.789 write the tracks for his return album. That album 00:29:57.789 --> 00:30:00.650 was Double Fantasy, a collaboration with Ono 00:30:00.650 --> 00:30:03.809 that directly reflected his newfound stable family 00:30:03.809 --> 00:30:06.809 life. Initially, reviews were lukewarm. Melody 00:30:06.809 --> 00:30:10.059 Maker called it... Indulgent sterility. A god 00:30:10.059 --> 00:30:13.059 -awful yawn. A critical misreading that was tragically 00:30:13.059 --> 00:30:15.660 rectified just three weeks later. At approximately 00:30:15.660 --> 00:30:19.380 10 .50 p .m. on December 8, 1980, Lennon and 00:30:19.380 --> 00:30:22.240 Ono were returning to the Dakota. Earlier that 00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:24.839 day, he had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy 00:30:24.839 --> 00:30:27.660 for a man named Mark David Chapman. Chapman waited. 00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:30.960 and then shot Lennon four times. He was rushed 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.859 to Roosevelt Hospital and pronounced dead at 00:30:32.859 --> 00:30:35.900 11 .15 p .m. at the age of 40. The response was 00:30:35.900 --> 00:30:38.400 immediate and overwhelming. The aftermath saw 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:41.079 a massive surge in the popularity of the very 00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:42.940 work that had been dismissed just weeks prior. 00:30:43.220 --> 00:30:45.539 In the weeks following the murder, just like 00:30:45.539 --> 00:30:48.119 starting over, and double fantasy top charts 00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.680 globally, Imagine and Woman both hit number one 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:54.200 in the U .K. in 1981. It confirmed the profound 00:30:54.200 --> 00:30:56.700 and enduring power of his final reflective work. 00:30:57.049 --> 00:30:58.809 Beyond the political and personal narrative, 00:30:59.089 --> 00:31:01.130 Lennon's technical contributions as a musician 00:31:01.130 --> 00:31:04.269 were profound and often misunderstood. Let's 00:31:04.269 --> 00:31:06.950 start with his vocal style. Absolutely. Famously 00:31:06.950 --> 00:31:10.250 raw and aggressive. His vocal technique was heavily 00:31:10.250 --> 00:31:13.269 influenced by American R &B artists like Little 00:31:13.269 --> 00:31:15.849 Richard and Larry Williams. Karnicki and MacDonald 00:31:15.849 --> 00:31:19.559 described his voice as a Brassy northern roar 00:31:19.559 --> 00:31:23.319 flecked with gloozy moans. Which contrasted sharply 00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:26.500 with the conventionally glamorous voices of earlier 00:31:26.500 --> 00:31:30.019 pop stars. Nick Coon called it one of the best 00:31:30.019 --> 00:31:33.619 pop voices ever. Rasped and smashed and brooding, 00:31:33.740 --> 00:31:36.980 always fierce. This intensity was on full display 00:31:36.980 --> 00:31:39.680 in Twist and Shout. When recording it, he was 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:41.599 suffering from a cold and described the process 00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:44.000 bluntly. I couldn't sing the damn thing. I was 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.160 just screaming. He literally shredded his vocal 00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:48.859 cords in service of the performance. And it's 00:31:48.859 --> 00:31:51.740 a widely known irony that he had an inborn dislike 00:31:51.740 --> 00:31:53.980 of his own voice. Which is why producer George 00:31:53.980 --> 00:31:56.059 Martin constantly double -tracked it and used 00:31:56.059 --> 00:31:57.839 effects to make it sound different. And on the 00:31:57.839 --> 00:31:59.900 technical side, there's an amazing anecdote connecting 00:31:59.900 --> 00:32:02.400 his choices back to his childhood. Right. Producer 00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:04.759 Jack Douglas later claimed Lennon habitually 00:32:04.759 --> 00:32:08.299 tuned his D -string slightly flat. Why? It was 00:32:08.299 --> 00:32:11.099 a personal sonic fingerprint. so that his Aunt 00:32:11.099 --> 00:32:13.420 Mimi could identify his specific guitar playing 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:16.359 on any recording. That's a quiet tribute to the 00:32:16.359 --> 00:32:18.500 woman who tried to keep him grounded. It really 00:32:18.500 --> 00:32:21.460 is. In terms of instrumentation, he moved from 00:32:21.460 --> 00:32:23.599 the harmonica and that first galatone acoustic 00:32:23.599 --> 00:32:27.619 to serious rhythm guitar. with the Quarrymen. 00:32:27.740 --> 00:32:29.900 His primary electric guitars that shaped the 00:32:29.900 --> 00:32:32.460 sound of the Beatles were the Rickenbacker 325, 00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:37.279 the Epiphone Casino, and the Gibson J160E. And 00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:39.559 we can't forget the piano, of course. It was 00:32:39.559 --> 00:32:41.759 the instrument on which he composed Imagine. 00:32:42.180 --> 00:32:45.180 Now we must pivot to his formidable talent as 00:32:45.180 --> 00:32:47.859 a writer and humorist that predated his global 00:32:47.859 --> 00:32:50.700 music fame. We talked about the Daily Howl. And 00:32:50.700 --> 00:32:52.940 that love for nonsense writing blossomed into 00:32:52.940 --> 00:32:55.799 published works in the mid -1960s. in his own 00:32:55.799 --> 00:32:58.339 right, and a Spaniard in the works. They were 00:32:58.339 --> 00:33:00.460 collections of nonsense writings, poetry plays, 00:33:00.660 --> 00:33:02.859 and line drawings heavily influenced by writers 00:33:02.859 --> 00:33:05.000 like Lewis Carroll. The critical reception was 00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:07.700 surprisingly serious. The Times Literary Supplement 00:33:07.700 --> 00:33:10.480 praised them for their pure fantasy and innovative 00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:13.829 wordplay. Which genuinely surprised Lennon. This 00:33:13.829 --> 00:33:16.670 validated his intellectual pursuits outside of 00:33:16.670 --> 00:33:19.549 music. In 1968, it was even adapted for the stage. 00:33:19.849 --> 00:33:23.069 And this ability to merge art, concept, and humor 00:33:23.069 --> 00:33:26.150 continued with his work alongside Ono in the 00:33:26.150 --> 00:33:28.589 world of conceptual art, particularly the Fluxus 00:33:28.589 --> 00:33:30.869 movement. So for the listener, we should define 00:33:30.869 --> 00:33:33.890 Fluxus. It was an international anti -art experimental 00:33:33.890 --> 00:33:37.329 movement that valued the idea, the concept, over 00:33:37.329 --> 00:33:39.630 the finished object. It often involved humor, 00:33:39.769 --> 00:33:42.869 simplicity, and audience participation. It aligned 00:33:42.869 --> 00:33:45.390 perfectly with Lenin's nonconformist, disruptive 00:33:45.390 --> 00:33:49.009 nature. In 1968, he held his own Fluxus -inspired 00:33:49.009 --> 00:33:52.079 exhibition, You Are Here, dedicated to Ono. The 00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:54.339 central piece was a six -foot diameter round 00:33:54.339 --> 00:33:56.619 white monochrome painting with only the tiny 00:33:56.619 --> 00:33:58.619 inscription of the title on the surface. The 00:33:58.619 --> 00:34:00.700 show itself was pure conceptual art. For the 00:34:00.700 --> 00:34:03.500 opening, he released 365 white balloons into 00:34:03.500 --> 00:34:06.099 the sky, each with a card attached asking the 00:34:06.099 --> 00:34:07.859 finder to mail it back to him. The art was the 00:34:07.859 --> 00:34:10.320 process and the participation. He also created 00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:13.139 the complete Yoko Ono word poem game in 1970, 00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:15.760 which utilized the cut -up aleatory technique. 00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:18.719 So to explain the cut -up technique, he took 00:34:18.719 --> 00:34:21.110 his famous white album portrait, cut it into 00:34:21.110 --> 00:34:24.150 134 pieces, wrote a word on the back of each, 00:34:24.309 --> 00:34:26.909 and left it for Ono to assemble randomly. The 00:34:26.909 --> 00:34:29.429 finished piece was determined by chance, removing 00:34:29.429 --> 00:34:32.289 the artist's direct control, a core tenet of 00:34:32.289 --> 00:34:34.829 the Fluxus movement. but not all his art was 00:34:34.829 --> 00:34:37.710 so abstract the bag one lithographs drawn in 00:34:37.710 --> 00:34:40.889 1969 to chronicle his wedding and honeymoon were 00:34:40.889 --> 00:34:43.409 far more graphic and controversial when exhibited 00:34:43.409 --> 00:34:47.010 in 1970 police confiscated eight of the 14 lithographs 00:34:47.010 --> 00:34:49.769 on grounds of indecency the sheer depth and influence 00:34:49.769 --> 00:34:52.630 of his final work after his death is reflected 00:34:52.630 --> 00:34:55.800 in the accolades Double Fantasy won the 1981 00:34:55.800 --> 00:34:58.619 Grammy for Album of the Year. And he was inducted 00:34:58.619 --> 00:35:00.460 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once 00:35:00.460 --> 00:35:03.159 with the Beatles and as a solo artist. His name 00:35:03.159 --> 00:35:05.340 is now a global brand, reflecting his cultural 00:35:05.340 --> 00:35:07.980 influence everywhere. John Lennon Airport in 00:35:07.980 --> 00:35:10.900 Liverpool, a crater on Mercury, even a John Lennon 00:35:10.900 --> 00:35:13.440 Park in Havana, Cuba. And finally, his musical 00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:16.559 influence extended far beyond his life. culminating 00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:19.360 in 2023 with Now and Then. Utilizing advanced 00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:22.920 tech to isolate his original demo voice, allowing 00:35:22.920 --> 00:35:25.139 the surviving Beatles to finally complete what 00:35:25.139 --> 00:35:27.960 was dubbed the last Beatles song. It brought 00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:31.059 his fractured story full circle. So what does 00:35:31.059 --> 00:35:34.760 this entire complex journey mean for us? We've 00:35:34.760 --> 00:35:38.639 traced his transformation from a difficult, trauma 00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:42.019 -affected Liverpool youth into a global icon 00:35:42.019 --> 00:35:45.019 whose true complexity the anger the jealousy 00:35:45.019 --> 00:35:48.679 the political idealism was always most clearly 00:35:48.679 --> 00:35:50.820 revealed in his most personal and politically 00:35:50.820 --> 00:35:54.340 charged works the enduring nature of his legacy 00:35:54.340 --> 00:35:57.480 as historians have noted rests on these very 00:35:57.480 --> 00:36:00.760 things the self -portraits in his songs which 00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:03.940 spoke to for and about the human condition in 00:36:03.940 --> 00:36:06.630 such a radically vulnerable way He was a paradox, 00:36:06.909 --> 00:36:09.349 a pacifist and utopian visionary who struggled 00:36:09.349 --> 00:36:11.690 intensely with anger, addiction, and personal 00:36:11.690 --> 00:36:14.170 failings in private. He showed us the full spectrum 00:36:14.170 --> 00:36:15.889 of the human experience. And here's where it 00:36:15.889 --> 00:36:17.630 gets really interesting and something to consider 00:36:17.630 --> 00:36:20.469 long after this deep dive ends. John Lennon's 00:36:20.469 --> 00:36:22.909 voice and activism were so effective that the 00:36:22.909 --> 00:36:24.989 Nixon administration viewed him as a true threat 00:36:24.989 --> 00:36:27.329 to the electoral process. Leading to that four 00:36:27.329 --> 00:36:29.769 -year deportation battle. This raises a critical 00:36:29.769 --> 00:36:32.650 question for the modern era. If his voice was 00:36:32.650 --> 00:36:35.269 seen as a political weapon, by the most powerful 00:36:35.269 --> 00:36:37.869 office in the world how does that amplify the 00:36:37.869 --> 00:36:40.349 importance of modern artists who choose to prioritize 00:36:40.349 --> 00:36:43.050 political conviction and critical thinking sometimes 00:36:43.050 --> 00:36:45.750 at the expense of commercial success it forces 00:36:45.750 --> 00:36:48.510 us to ask whether vulnerability when backed by 00:36:48.510 --> 00:36:51.460 fame truly becomes the ultimate political weapon. 00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:53.780 Lennon proved that having a massive platform 00:36:53.780 --> 00:36:56.579 and using it to genuinely challenge power structures, 00:36:56.659 --> 00:36:59.780 even if the art is flawed, can be seen by the 00:36:59.780 --> 00:37:02.820 establishment as a genuine threat. And that sustained, 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:05.380 disruptive tension flowing from his childhood 00:37:05.380 --> 00:37:08.119 trauma all the way to the Dakota is the ultimate 00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:11.239 enduring power of John Lennon's legacy. A profound 00:37:11.239 --> 00:37:13.420 thought to end on. Thank you for joining us for 00:37:13.420 --> 00:37:15.420 this deep dive into the layers of John Lennon.