The U.S. vs. John Lennon

hallelujah

I recently watched a movie called The U.S. vs. John Lennon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478049/). There is a scene where Lennon and a well known peace protester at the time are being interviewed on a talkshow. The protester makes a point related to peace and Lennon interrupts saying 'Yeah, I put that in one of my songs'. It was cringeworthy.

Was Lennon an attention-seeking tw*t?

Driver 8

Sometimes.

Put it this way, as far as I'm concerned, Lennon and McCartney are about equal as songwriters. Both were lacking once out of the Beatles, creating work of both greatness and of rather wretched quality.

While McCartney can come across as self-satisfied and smug (so does Johnny Borrell, people, and he didn't write Hey Jude :rolleyes: ), but the sainthood that people foist upon Lennon in the years since his death is ridiculous.

His death was tragic, but its resulted in this myth of a genius songwriter (all the time) and of a huge political active figure. Bollocks. Lennon's politics were pretty paper thin, all vague notions about peace, love and understanding (maaaaaaaan) and he sometimes seemed to only care when it affected him (eg his fight to stay in the U.S.).

Added to this, Lennon came off often as an unpleasant, bitter man. He wrote the vicious How Do You Sleep, about McCartney and his music, when Lennon himself ended up making Double Fantasy, his final album, that contains music much like that he railed against as regards his old songwriting partner.

The Beatles are one of the greatest, and certainly the most important bands in history, but was Lennon was consistently great songwriter? no (neither was/is McCartney). Was Lennon an well informed, passionate political activist? not really (read the lyrics of his Northern Ireland protest song for proof).

Lennon was no more arrogant or attention seeking than the average rock star, but the myth and industry around him (hello well intentioned but rather dire Darfur album) perpetuated largely by Yoko (not blaming her for the Beatles or anything!) is a joke. And Imagine's a bit....over-rated:D

JLemmon

I agree to a certain extent, i think we've over eulogized alot of rock stars
and movements i.e punk for one, which in the end of the day only produced a handful, be honest, of great albums, post punk was alot more productive and wide ranging. Anyway, Lennon has been over done, 2 good solo albums plastic ono band and imagine, that's all you need. We need icons as a society
people to aspire to be or what we believe something like a rock star or hollywood star should be, James Dean is a perfect example 3 films and he's been immortalised ever since. And yeah Lennon could talk ****e too, remember the Jesus remark!!!!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I dunno, I think at the time the beatles probably were as big, if not bigger than Jesus.

Certainly are now anyway.

BaZmO*

JLemmon wrote:

And yeah Lennon could talk ****e too, remember the Jesus remark!!!!

Not a very good example of him talking sh1te because in context he was actually right.

aequinoctium

americans are real reactionaries if you ask me