john lennon biography film

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
• The Beast Link to The Beast
• The Old Oak Link to The Old Oak

New TV Tonight

• Mary & George: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• Star Trek: Discovery: Season 5
• Sugar: Season 1
• American Horror Story: Season 12
• Loot: Season 2
• Parish: Season 1
• Lopez vs Lopez: Season 2
• The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• The Gentlemen: Season 1
• X-Men '97: Season 1
• Palm Royale: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Ripley Link to Ripley
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Pedro Pascal Movies and Series Ranked by Tomatometer

Dwayne Johnson Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

TV Premiere Dates 2024

New Movies & TV Shows Streaming in April 2024: What To Watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and More

• Trending on RT
• Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
• Play Movie Trivia

Nowhere Boy

2009, Drama/Biography, 1h 37m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Don't expect any musical insights, but this look at John Lennon's early life benefits from its restrained, low-key approach and some fine acting from Aaron Johnson. Read critic reviews

You might also like

Where to watch nowhere boy.

Rent Nowhere Boy on Apple TV, Vudu, Prime Video, or buy it on Apple TV, Vudu, Prime Video.

Rate And Review

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Step 2 of 2

How did you buy your ticket?

Let's get your review verified..

AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New

Cinemark Coming Soon

We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

Regal Coming Soon

Theater box office or somewhere else

By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Nowhere boy   photos.

A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) lives with his Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) in working-class Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother, Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young Lennon is inspired to form his own band.

Rating: R (Language|A Scene of Sexuality)

Genre: Drama, Biography

Original Language: English

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson

Producer: Robert Bernstein , Kevin Loader , Douglas Rae

Writer: Matt Greenhalgh

Release Date (Theaters): Oct 8, 2010  limited

Release Date (Streaming): Mar 9, 2014

Box Office (Gross USA): $1.4M

Runtime: 1h 37m

Distributor: Weinstein Co.

Cast & Crew

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

John Lennon

Kristin Scott Thomas

Anne-Marie Duff

Julia Lennon

David Threlfall

George Smith

Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Paul McCartney

David Morrissey

Bobby Dykins

George Harrison

Ophelia Lovibond

Marie Kennedy

Jack McElhone

Eric Griffiths

Pete Shotton

James Johnson

Alex Ambrose

Angelica Jopling

Julia (Aged 8)

Abby Greenhalgh

Jackie(Aged 6)

Sam Taylor-Johnson

Matt Greenhalgh

Screenwriter

Robert Bernstein

Kevin Loader

Douglas Rae

Jon Diamond

Executive Producer

Christopher Moll

Mark Woolley

Will Gregory

Original Music

Alison Goldfrapp

Seamus McGarvey

Cinematographer

Lisa Gunning

Film Editing

Alice Normington

Production Design

News & Interviews for Nowhere Boy

Sam Taylor-Wood talks John Lennon and Nowhere Boy

Five Favorite Films with Aaron Johnson

Critics Consensus: Secretariat Is A Solid Bet

Critic Reviews for Nowhere Boy

Audience reviews for nowhere boy.

I find this picture compellingly beautiful not only because it tells the coming-of-age story of the musician I truly adore but because it really is. Neat screenplay and direction. Great acting from the cast. Aaron Johnson's portrayal of Lennon was brilliant. I also loved the cinematography. Nowhere Boy is a poignant and powerful film.

"He's a real nowhere boy, sitting in his nowhere land...oy, making all his nowhere... plansoy for nobody." Okay, maybe this film's title doesn't work especially well in rhyme schemes, but it sure is clever, though I was hoping that they would call this film something like "The Beatgenning", but only because I wanted a chance to say, "Well, at least it's not as cheesy as the Beatles' early songs" and wait to see how people reacted. Hey, the title would fit for Aaron Johnson, seeing as how this film was the beginning of his breaking out, as well as the end to the segment of his career that was built around him being in the most British films imaginable, and a booming one at that, because it doesn't get too much more British than playing John Lennon, nor does it get too much more American than Johnson's next project, which was so Americantastically vulgar ("All you need is love" my foot, Brits) that I can't even say its title for the sake of the innocent readers who ironically have no problem looking into a film that says things that are a whole lot worse than the word in said title. I've always found people censoring themselves when reminding people of something vulgar to be hilariously ironic, but the point is that before Johnson was kicking, he was beating, though either way he was a "working class hero". Man, Johnson is so well-cast for this that he ended up with the director, who played Yoko Ono in that one famous portrait that was so lazily titled that it just went with the date: "26 October 1939"-I mean, "1993". Hey, Johnson certainly has Lennon's unconventional taste for the ladies (Oh yes, because it's so uncommon for men to be intensely attracted towards Asians for some strange reason), but hey, Johnson's much older bride proves that something good came from this production outside of evidence of Kristin Scott Thomas' still being alive and, of course, a decent film. However, the film itself isn't quite as good as it could have been, being a reasonably worthy user of your time, but one that has its share of shortcomings. As I jokingly stated earlier, this film is so British that it's about a young John Lennon, and as a super British film, this effort wouldn't be complete without dry spells, of which there are admittedly not nearly as many as I feared, which isn't to say that they aren't still here, for although the film is generally entertaining, there are bland moments - maybe even the occasional dull moment - to supplement slow-downs that don't necessarily need to be backed by a bland atmosphere to stand. At just shy of 100 minutes, this film doesn't have a whole lot of time to drag its feet, yet it still manages to make that time, incorporating so much aimless filler that, before too long, it begins to drive the narrative, thinning it out, eventually into all-out repetition. After a while, you begin to get a sense of direction and focus within this film's storytelling, but the journey to that point is much longer than it should be, and even when you get there, things get a bit fatty around the edges, thus making for a film that has too much fat around the edges, yet still retains a relatively short length that it often tightens up to in a way that is about as questionable as the bloating. Hey, we're just talking about John Lennon growing up and starting the band that we've all come to know and love, so it's not like there's a whole lot that is juicy about this story concept, but when you get deeper into this tale, there is some depth and potential for intrigue that are sadly kind of underexplored, being occasionally played up to give a glimpse at what could have been, but all too often disregarded for the sake of the filler and desperate struggle to retain an endearing charm whose reinforcement doesn't really do anything but draw your attention towards the thinness of this plot. Like I said, there is some meat on this story's bones, - underexplored though it may be - but only so much, because while it is rather compelling seeing John Lennon come of age as he rekindles, mends and even discovers relationships that will change him into the man we've come to know and respect him as, this minimalist drama doesn't have much else going for it, and that makes what storytelling flaws there are all the more glaring. What is done right is done so well that the film almost rewards, but ultimately falls short of its full potential, held back by natural shortcomings that are too overemphasized by pacing, focus and expository problems for underwhelmingness to go the way of Jojo and "get back". Of course, it's not like the film goes the way of John Lennon and gets sho-I mean, goes nowhere, meandering along too much to make it rewarding, but coming close on the shoulders of certain rewarding aspects, as well as visually appealing ones. Seamus McGarvey is an exceptional cinematographer, yet one who has a tendency to step back with his creative mind and leave things to look simply average, and sure enough, this film is no stunner, but when McGarvey really plays up his sharp taste for crisp definition, lush coloring and striking lighting, the film looks gorgeous, with a lively glow that embodies the effort's tone, while polishing up the look of the production value that embodies this film's era in a way that's too subtle to be at all upstanding, but remains convincing. Just as complimentary to the capturing of this late 1950s, early rock 'n' roll era is, of course, the soundtrack, which isn't played up too much, and never turns in especially strong or delightfully new tunes (Jeez, I'm sorry to cramp your style, wild children, but how many more coming-of-age films set between the late '50s and early '60s are we going to get with Jerry Lee Lewis' version of "Wild One"?), but still features plenty of entertaining classics that breathe some additional life into both entertainment value and the capturing of a sense of the spirit of the time. As a heartfelt tribute to the rock 'n' roll world of a spirited young man's interpretation of the late 1950s, the film is nothing short of a considerable success, whose cleverly subtle touches go a long way in transporting to this time with an immersive inspiration that I wish I could say is applied to more than just setting establishment, yet can be found in glimpses within the telling of a story that deserves to be well-told. There's only so much meat to play up within this story of John Lennon's coming of age, but there's certainly a lot of heart, from which heights in dramatic punch can indeed be found, so while this story concept isn't so strong that it would be difficult to shake thorough compellingness, there is plenty of potential, quite a bit of which is pretty well-explored by Matt Greenhalgh, whose script carries a charming wit that director and then-future Mrs. Aaron Johnson (No, as in his wife, not his mom), Sam Taylor-Wood, captures with a generally lively atmosphere whose more potent spots are bound to move. As a drama, when the film picks up as a heartfelt study upon the layered prelude to Lennon's maturity as both a musical legend and person, it's very compelling, and while those moments are limited in their quantity, they cannot be taken away from the final product, whose liveliness is enough to keep up firm decency, at when anchored by the performances. With the occasional dramatic heights come extensive acting material, so, on the whole, there's not much that's outstanding about the acting, but most every one delivers to one degree or another, with Anne-Marie Duff, or as I prefer to call her, - because of the catchiness - Anne-Marie McAvoy (Man, there are quite a few cougars involved in this film), capturing the spirited, yet somewhat layered depths of an overly lenient and secretly guilty mother reunited with her long-lost son, as surely as Kristin Scott Thomas convinces as John Lennon's stern and disapproving, but understandably concerned aunt guardian, while leading man Aaron Johnson carries the final product, transforming into Lennon with charm, subtle dramatic range and layers that capture sometimes profound human depths through all of the rebellion and ambition that defines Lennon's youth. If there are compelling moments in this film, then Johnson is typically their driving force, having revelatory moments that aren't abundant enough to make a great performance, but certainly go into making a worthy lead for this film, which could have hit harder, - as reflected by the heights' hitting pretty hard - but has enough endearing heart, entertainment value and range to keep you going. When the trail to nowhere has been passed, the final product's full potential goes left behind, while bland spots, repetitiously bloated storytelling with limited focus, and dramatic underexploration that emphasizes natural shortcomings ignite an underwhelmingness that is still challenged enough by a look that is both handsome - thanks in part to Seamus McGarvey's cinematography - and joins a colorful soundtrack in capturing the setting, while the heart of an interesting story concept is brought to life enough by clever writing, liveliness within a directorial performance that tosses in the occasional emotionally resonant moment, and strong acting - particularly by leading man Aaron Johnson - to make "Nowhere Boy" a charming and sometimes moving study on the late, great John Lennon's deeply layered coming of age. 2.75/5 - Decent

Young John Lennon is torn between his mercurial biological mother and his stuffy aunt. The only thing I learned from this film is that John Lennon was once a real prick. The movie goes to great lengths to convince us that his upbringing produced his frustration, but Lennon's reactions to his troubled circumstances seem over-the-top, and we're not given many reasons to find him interesting. The plot languishes in exposition, and the final reveals about Julia's history don't surprise any discerning audience. Kristin Scott Thomas can do anything, and she gives a fantastic performance, but Aaron Johnson plays youthful angst with all the brattiness of a misbehaving kid at Wal Mart. I suppose that a more traditional biopic, with an older Lennon reminiscing on the travails of his life, might have been more compelling, and perhaps Beatles fans fill in this "front-story," but I judge a film based more on what is on the screen rather than context. Overall, there is nothing new about this story for most people, but perhaps a cadre of Beatles fans will find Lennon's history interesting.

Good performance by Aaron Johnson - capturing the Lennon spirit without really looking like him at all - and, (of course), a great one from Kristin Scott Thomas, but otherwise, the film's rather dull. It's almost too thorough, and it comes out more precious and hero-worshipping than it does hard-hitting. Lennon's boyhood doesn't seem so tough, frankly, and unlike a lot of great musician biopics, we don't see the life channel into the music; we come to understand more about the man, but not much more about his art. The result? A fairly boring letdown.

Movie & TV guides

Play Daily Tomato Movie Trivia

Discover What to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

• Australia edition
• International edition
• Europe edition

• Nowhere Boy

O f all Anthony Minghella's legacies to the world of cinema, among the most valuable may yet turn out to be the movie career of Sam Taylor Wood, the artist he far-sightedly mentored when she turned to film directing. Admittedly, this was a career with a dodgy start. I occasionally wake up screaming at the memory of Death Valley, the short piece she contributed to Destricted, the 2006 compilation film on erotic themes, which showed a man masturbating alone in the desert, while making startlingly unattractive gurning expressions. But then two years later, in collaboration with Minghella and screenwriter Patrick Marber, Taylor Wood directed the excellent short film Love You More: the story of two 1970s teenagers finding each other to a soundtrack provided by Buzzcocks.

Now she's stepped up to her first feature, scripted by Matt Greenhalgh, and it's a very confident, solidly fashioned early-60s period piece about the troubled teenage years of lairy, mouthy John Lennon — played by 19-year-old newcomer Aaron Johnson. As a video-artist's cinema debut, this is certainly a conventional project, compared to, say, Steve McQueen's Hunger or Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's Zidane, but it's handsomely made, with ringingly heartfelt performances, and it's an intriguing pre-history of the Beatles showing the painful, human cost of being swingingly liberated and famous.

Perhaps Taylor Wood's wittiest touch is to begin her film with the first, jangling chord from A Hard Day's Night, which is simply allowed to hang there unresolved in the silence – a weirdly atonal effect, replacing the song's happy connotations with something more disturbing: a harbinger of something momentous. Young John lives with his formidable but loving Aunt Mimi, a stickler for manners and standards, played by Kristin Scott Thomas – casting that perhaps makes Aunt Mimi posher than is strictly biographically accurate. John doesn't know quite why he doesn't live with his mother, Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), though he has a vague understanding that she had a nervous breakdown after he was born. He is astounded one day to find that she lives just a few streets away, and his reunion with her is like a passionate, furtive love affair, with Julia as the mistress and Mimi the wronged wife. As played by Duff, Julia is affectionate, fun, naughty and needy, and crucially instills in John a love of rock'n'roll. The stage is set for a painfully Freudian love triangle. For John, music is the only escape.

• John Lennon

Most viewed

John Lennon

Famed singer-songwriter John Lennon founded the Beatles, a band that impacted the popular music scene like no other.

(1940-1980)

Who Was John Lennon?

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, during a German air raid in World War II.

When he was four years old, Lennon's parents separated and he ended up living with his Aunt Mimi. Lennon's father was a merchant seaman. He was not present at his son's birth and did not see a lot of his son when he was young.

Lennon's mother, Julia, remarried but visited him and Mimi regularly. She taught Lennon how to play the banjo and the piano and purchased his first guitar. Lennon was devastated when Julia was fatally struck by a car driven by an off-duty police officer in July 1958. Her death was one of the most traumatic events in his life.

As a child, Lennon was a prankster and he enjoyed getting into trouble. As a boy and young adult, he enjoyed drawing grotesque figures and cripples. Lennon's school master thought that he could go to an art school for college since he did not get good grades in school but had artistic talent.

Forming the Beatles

Elvis Presley 's explosion onto the rock music scene inspired a 16-year-old Lennon to create the skiffle band called the Quarry Men, named after his school. Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church fete on July 6, 1957. He soon invited McCartney to join the group, and the two eventually formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships in musical history.

McCartney introduced George Harrison to Lennon the following year, and Harrison and art college buddy Stuart Sutcliffe also joined Lennon's band. Always in need of a drummer, the group finally settled on Pete Best in 1960.

The first recording they made was Buddy Holly 's "That'll Be the Day" in 1958. In fact, it was Holly's group, the Crickets, that inspired the band to change its name. Lennon would later joke that he had a vision when he was 12 years old — a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, "From this day on, you are Beatles with an 'A.'"

The Beatles were discovered by Brian Epstein in 1961 at Liverpool's Cavern Club, where they were performing on a regular basis. As their new manager, Epstein secured a record contract with EMI. With a new drummer, Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey), and George Martin as a producer, the group released their first single, "Love Me Do," in October 1962. It peaked on the British charts at No. 17.

Lennon wrote the group's follow-up single, "Please Please Me," inspired primarily by Roy Orbison , but also fed by Lennon's infatuation with the pun in Bing Crosby 's famous lyrics, "Oh, please, lend your little ears to my pleas," from the song "Please." The Beatles' "Please Please Me" topped the charts in Britain. The Beatles went on to become the most popular band in Britain with the release of such mega-hits as "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

Lennon married Cynthia Powell in August 1962. The couple had one son together, Julian, who was named after Lennon's mother. Cynthia was forced to keep a very low profile during Beatlemania. She and Lennon divorced in 1968. He remarried the following year, on March 20, 1969, to Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, whom he had met at the Indica Gallery in November 1966.

Beatlemania

In 1964, the Beatles became the first British band to break out big in the United States, beginning with their appearance on television's The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. Beatlemania launched a "British Invasion" of rock bands in the United States that also included the Rolling Stones and the Kinks. Following their appearance on Sullivan , the Beatles returned to Britain to film their first film, A Hard Day's Night (1964), and prepare for their first world tour.

The Beatles' second film, Help! , was released in 1965. That June, Queen Elizabeth II announced that the Beatles would be named a Member of the Order of the British Empire. In August 1965, the foursome performed to 55,600 fans at New York's Shea Stadium, setting a new record for largest concert audience in musical history. When the Beatles returned to England, they recorded the breakthrough album Rubber Soul (1965), noted for extending beyond the love songs and pop formulas for which the band was previously well-known.

The magic of Beatlemania had begun to lose its appeal by 1966. The band members' lives were put in danger when they were accused of snubbing the presidential family in the Philippines. Then, Lennon's remark that the band was "more popular than Jesus now" incited denunciations and Beatles record bonfires in the U.S. Bible belt. The Beatles gave up touring after an August 29, 1966, concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

After an extended break, the band returned to the studio to expand their experimental sound with drug-influenced exotic instrumentation/lyrics and tape abstractions. The first sample was the single "Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever," followed by the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), considered by many to be the greatest rock project in musical history.

The Beatles Break Up

The Beatles then suffered a huge blow when Epstein died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills on August 27, 1967. Shaken by Epstein's death, the Beatles retrenched under McCartney's leadership in the fall and filmed Magical Mystery Tour . While the film was panned by critics, the soundtrack album contained Lennon's "I Am The Walrus," the group's most cryptic work yet.

Magical Mystery Tour failed to achieve much commercial success, and the Beatles retreated into Transcendental Meditation and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which took them to India for two months in early 1968. Their next effort, Apple Corps Ltd., was plagued by mismanagement. That July, the group faced its last notably hysterical crowd at the premiere of their film Yellow Submarine . In November 1968, the Beatles' double-album The Beatles (also known as The White Album ) displayed their divergent directions.

By this time, Lennon's artist partnership with second wife Ono had begun to cause serious tensions within the group. Lennon and Ono invented a form of peace protest by staying in bed while being filmed and interviewed, and their single "Give Peace a Chance" (1969), recorded under the name "the Plastic Ono Band," became a national anthem of sorts for pacifists.

Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969, just after the group completed recording Abbey Road. The news of the break-up was kept secret until McCartney announced his departure in April 1970, a month before the band released Let It Be , recorded just before Abbey Road.

Solo Career: 'Imagine' Album

Not long after the Beatles broke up, in 1970, Lennon released his debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band , featuring a raw, minimalist sound that followed "primal-scream" therapy. He followed that project with 1971's Imagine , the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed of all Lennon's post-Beatles efforts. The title track was later named No. 3 on Rolling Stone magazine's "All-Time Best Songs" list.

Peace and love, however, was not always on Lennon's agenda. Imagine also included the track "How Do You Sleep?," a vehement response to veiled messages at Lennon in some of McCartney's solo recordings. The friends and former songwriting duo later buried the hatchet, but never formally worked together again.

Lennon and Ono moved to the United States in September 1971, but were constantly threatened with deportation by the Nixon Administration. Lennon was told that he was being kicked out of the country due to his 1968 marijuana conviction in Britain, but the singer believed that he was being removed because of his activism against the unpopular Vietnam War. Documents later proved him correct. (Two years after Nixon resigned, in 1976, Lennon was granted permanent U.S. residency.)

In 1972, while battling to stay in America, Lennon performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City to benefit mentally handicapped children and continued to promote peace. His immigration battle took a toll on Lennon's marriage, and in the fall of 1973, he and Ono separated. Lennon went to Los Angeles, California, where he partied and took a mistress, May Pang. He still managed to release hit albums, including Mind Games (1973), Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock 'n' Roll (1975). During this time, Lennon famously collaborated with David Bowie and Elton John .

Lennon and Ono reconciled in 1974, and she gave birth to their only child, a son named Sean, on Lennon's 35th birthday (October 9, 1975). Shortly thereafter, Lennon decided to leave the music business to focus on being a father and husband.

Tragic Death

In 1980, Lennon returned to the music world with the album Double Fantasy , featuring the hit single "(Just Like) Starting Over." Tragically, just a few weeks after the album's release, Mark David Chapman, a deranged fan, shot Lennon several times in front of his apartment complex in New York City. Lennon died at New York City's Roosevelt Hospital on December 8, 1980, at the age of 40.

Lennon's assassination had, and continues to have, a profound impact on pop culture. Following the tragic event, millions of fans worldwide mourned as record sales soared. And Lennon's untimely death still evokes deep sadness around the globe today, as he continues to be admired by new generations of fans. Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: John Lennon
• Birth Year: 1940
• Birth date: October 9, 1940
• Birth City: Liverpool, Merseyside, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Famed singer-songwriter John Lennon founded the Beatles, a band that impacted the popular music scene like no other.
• Astrological Sign: Libra
• Quarry Bank High School
• Liverpool College of Art
• Death Year: 1980
• Death date: December 8, 1980
• Death State: New York
• Death City: New York
• Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: John Lennon Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/john-lennon
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 14, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliché that should have been left behind in the '60s, that's a problem. Peace and love are eternal.
• The more that I see, the less that I know for sure.
• All you need is love.
• There is nothing conceptually better than rock.
• We're all responsible for war ... we all must do something, no matter what.
• The thing the '60s did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.
• If there is such a thing as genius, I am one. And if there's not, I don't care.
• I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity.
• What we got to do is keep hope alive. Because without it we'll sink.
• You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
• Declare it—just the same way we declare war. That is how we will have peace ... we just need to declare it.
• Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
• Let it be. Whisper words of wisdom. Let it be.
• As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.
• Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.
• We're more popular than Jesus now.

Famous British People

William Shakespeare

Anya Taylor-Joy

Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales

Kensington Palace Shares an Update on Kate

Amy Winehouse

Prince William

Where in the World Is Kate Middleton?

Christopher Nolan

Emily Blunt

Jane Goodall

Princess Kate Is Seen for First Time Since Surgery

Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

IN HIS LIFE: THE JOHN LENNON STORY

A film about the early life of the rock musician and his burgeoning career as a member of the Beatles.

• Beatle people
• John Lennon

John Lennon biography

John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool on 9 October 1940 . A founder member of The Beatles, and their singer, songwriter and guitarist, he was murdered in New York City on 8 December 1980.

The early years

Julia Lennon taught her son to play the banjo, and they shared a love of Elvis Presley’s music. The first song he learned to play was Fats Domino’s ‘Ain’t That A Shame’.

In 1957 she bought John his first guitar, a Gallotone Champion acoustic “guaranteed not to split”. Julia ensured it was delivered to her house rather than Mimi’s, as her sister was disapproving of music. She told her nephew, “The guitar’s all very well, John, but you’ll never make a living out of it”.

Lennon’s first school was Mosspits Lane Infants School in Wavertree, Liverpool, which he attended from November 1945 to May 1946. He then changed to Dovedale Primary School, and upon passing his 11 Plus attended Quarry Bank Grammar School (1952-1957). He formed The Quarrymen in March 1957, and in July the same year met Paul McCartney at the garden fete at St Peter’s Church in Woolton, Liverpool.

The pair quickly bonded, and began rehearsing and writing songs together at McCartney’s home at 20 Forthlin Road. Lennon’s first completed song was ‘Hello Little Girl’ , later a hit for the Fourmost. McCartney also introduced Lennon to George Harrison , and convinced him to let the young guitarist join the group, eventually named The Beatles after a series of other names were rejected.

We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader – he was the quickest wit and the smartest and all that kind of thing.

Lennon failed all his GCE O level exams, but with the help of his head teacher was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art. There he met Cynthia Powell , who became his first wife. They married after she became pregnant with their son Julian, who was born on 8 April 1963 .

With The Beatles

An unruly pupil, Lennon dropped out of college before his final year. By this time, however, The Beatles were working hard to establish a name for themselves. Initially managed by Allan Williams from May 1960, they were booked later that year to play at the Indra club in Hamburg. The trip wasn’t a success: McCartney and drummer Pete Best were accused of arson after a fire started in the cinema where they were staying, and George Harrison was deported for working while under the age of 18. Lennon returned to Liverpool after his work permit was revoked.

The Beatles returned to Hamburg after Harrison turned 18, and from April 1961 began another residency. While there they recorded ‘My Bonnie’ with singer Tony Sheridan .

In 1962 they returned to Hamburg to play at the Star Club, and in May were signed to EMI subsidiary label Parlophone. Their first single, ‘Love Me Do’ , was released on 5 October.

By the following year The Beatles had become a worldwide phenomenon, under the auspices of manager Brian Epstein . Their success looked unstoppable, though in March 1966 Lennon was interviewed by journalist Maureen Cleave, who quoted him as saying:

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I do not know what will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. We’re more popular than Jesus now . Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.

The quote led to protests in the southern and midwest US states, which included public bonfires of Beatles records and memorabilia. Lennon issued an apology of sorts at a Chicago press conference in August 1966, saying:

I was not saying whatever they’re saying I was saying. I’m sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologise if that will make you happy. I still do not know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do, but if you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.

By this time The Beatles had long tired of the demands of Beatlemania and the frenetic pace of touring. Lennon later wrote:

I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn’t said that The Beatles were ‘bigger than Jesus’ and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus.

Latest Comments

John was one of the best musicians of all time, possibly the best, certainly a genius.

The greatness of John Lennon as i see it:

–The increasing tension. For example I Should Have Known Better. Before Lennon, all pop music structure was AABA, where the tension decreased in the middle part B. But with Lennon the tension from the verse continued in the middle part. Besides that, in this song it is not only a key change in the transition to the middle part, it is even a little key change in it. The increasing tension was what first characterized The Beatles. The first single where the verse lacked this increasing tension was Can´t Buy Me Love. (But the chorus is OK). I didn´t know then it was a McCartney composition. – Other ways of increase the tension by Lennon is to pack together several little songs. Happiness Is A Warm Gun consists of three or four songs, and Bring On The Lucie consists of three songs. –All You Need Is Love has another way: First talking, then repeating half singing, then singing, and finally the climax in chorus. –The melody does not changes, but the background. For example in Strawberry Fields Forever and in Julia the singing melody uses the same notes, but instead the accompaniment changes! Listen to Puccini. He got tired of his sang melodies in Boheme and in Tosca he composed a lot where the sang melodies are often on the same notes, but the background changes instead. The effect can be stronger. –Octave Leap. For example, in the middle part of Please Please Me, Lennon makes an octave run in “…it´s so hard to reason with YOU…”, the climax of the song. George Martin didn´t understand the quality in that. In his orchestration of it in Off The Beatle Track, Martin excludes the octave, the most important bit of the song! –Verse and resolve. Typical for Lennon is a melody followed by a resolve, for example in No Reply “…I saw the light!”…and in Girl “girl! girl!…”. Lennon said that “a good song must have climax and resolve”. –Only one chord. In Tomorrow Never Knows there is only one chord, or bass note, an innovation in pop music. In the Middle Ages it was common with that bordun note, an unchanged bass note. When Lennon played the song the first time for George Martin, Martin didn´t like it. –Whole-tone scale. Most scales have both whole step and half steps between the notes in an octave. In the verse in Norwegian Wood, there is most whole steps, and that´s like the impressionists, for example Debussy. It sounds very clean. –Church Modes. A Hard Day´s Night is written in the mixolydian mode, an ancient vocal scale, preserved in British, Irish and American folk song. –If you play the beginning of Please Please Me slowly, you can hear the similarities with the Westminster bells ringing. When Lennon was a little boy, he loved visiting the divine services. Afterwards he used to improvise anthem music. Westminster bells could unconsciously have inspired him to the beginning of Please Please Me. There is also anthem music in the beginning of All You Need Is Love: “love love love…”. –The lamentation second. A little half step up in the scale. And that´s to indicate a pain. In All You Need Is Love Lennon sings the refrain twice unchanged and then suddenly the third time, rises a little, a very expressive and important step up. That step up started in the baroque epoch, and was called The lamentation second. When Lennon played it the first time to George Martin, Martin didn´t like it. He leaned towards McCartney and muttered: “It´s certainly repetitive”. –From darkness to light. Happiness Is a Warm Gun starts with a little melancholy, and ends with enthusiasm.—In the middle part of I Am The Walrus the darkness switches over to light: “sitting in an English garden…”. And the transition from the chaos and darkness in Revolution 9 to the light in Good Night. That is very typical in Wagner´s music. I think that temperamentally the two were similar. And I think Wagner would have loved the arrangement in Glass Onion. –Suggestive and hypnotic music. With small intervals between the notes in combination with some dissonance chord, Lennon can create a suggestive and hypnotic feeling in for example Across The Universe. It is more like Wagner than pop music. –Few notes. With few, but effective notes, Lennon can create more feeling than McCartney with all his notes, for example in If I Fell and Love. –A melody sang three times, in succession, with just a little change every time. When you hear it you can get frustrated or desperate not getting out from the melody. That we have in the middle part in I Call Your Name and in the middle part in And Your Bird Can Sing. And at the same time the melodies are stick together with a countermelody at the guitar. Rather hypnotic

get a life u spent way tooooooo much time on this

When does healthy admiration become obsession?

Live and let live. This man is happy writing what he wrote, and his chosen subject was a brilliant choice: the musical genius and founder of the Beatles, John Lennon. YOU are the one who needs to get his own life.

Wrong , Tony. Johan spends a great deal of his time throughout these blogs with his obsessive love of Lennon and obsessive ignorance/hate of McCartney, this with opinions and self-created thoughts presented as fact with no corroborating sources or quotes. Johan is indeed in need of a life; dog and Robert (particularly) know of what they speak.

Thank you Mike.

Is there a problem with someone wanting to inform other people of famous people? I think it is interesting

beautiful, are you a writer?

Thank you. I am not a writer. I just happened to be paralyzed when I heard Please Please Me and Do You Want To Know a Secret the first time.

John Lennon will never die.

Much of pop and rock music, including heavy metal, is written in the mixolydian mode. As for the rest, you have mischievously selected aspects of music theory to suit your argument. I’m not fooled and I suspect many others aren’t either.

From what I can gather a lot of what makes John Lennon’s Beatle songs musically interesting comes from Paul Mccartney’s involvement (Tomorrow Never Knows, Come Together, A Day in the Life). This is made clear when you look at their solo works.

If you want to talk about Lennon’s genius talk about his lyrics, which flow wonderfully and are full of wonderful imagery. Across the Universe is the best example of this and might very well be Lennon’s best work (it’s also my favorite Beatles song, which is amazing since Paul is my favorite Beatle not John).

I agree! I love John Lennon

When John is still living, I always wish for a Beatles reunion. The day John Lennon died, my wish & hope for their reunion also died. 🙁

All I can say is that it still breaks my heart to know John is no longer here. I was 17 when he was senselessly murdered. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. John is the best musician ever, sadly we only got a small sample of his work. He is so greatly missed by so many. We will always have you in our hearts and mind through your creativity. I so glad you were with us as long as you were.

You forgot to mention the family home before he moved in with his aunt Mimi. He originally lived at 9 Newcastle Road, Wavertree when he was a little boy.

That insect that took him away from his family,friends and us should never be mentioned by name.Throw him on the dustbin of history,that useless git.

May the Lord Jesus, bless and keep your family and friends. I feel your pain. I suppose John had finished his course here on earth, so let’s look forward to seeing him there.

John said this out of pure honesty. At the time, The Beatles were bigger than Jesus.

I think Plastic Ono Band is one of the best albums ever. Someone at the height of his fame exposing his vulnerabilities and pain. Remarkable.

I read some where that the night that John got shot Yoko said to the doctors or the news reporters that she didn’t want to announce his death on the tv right away because she said Sean was in front of it.

If you were here today… …you’d love CD’s, email, and trolling on the Internet. Miss you, John. 🙂

that hurt more than it should have

He was controversial yet spiritual. Many never understood him. People misunderstood his words. He would use power of communication to read people. This is partly what resulted to his shooting. He knew folks hated him anyway.

He was an amazing singer. I saw John ,Paul, George and Ringo 1966 in Essen/ Germany. I will never forget the concert, when i was sixteen!!!

John was a true genius. However his most blatant act of stupidity was when he took up with Yoko. I still blame her for being one of the primary reasons for him wanting to leave the Beatles. It’s still a head scratcher to me why he was attracted to her. She had no real talent, she sang like a cat getting it’s tail pulled, her looks were a 2 on a scale of 1-10, and she was dumb as a stump. I will always believe that she somehow brainwashed him.

True. As George Michael sang: “turn a different corner and we never would have met.” I,too, wish John had turned a different corner. He might even still be alive.

I have been a Beatles fan all my life. There music was what helped me when I was growing up. John Lennon will always be a hero to me and I’ll be forever grateful for all of them in my life!

Well, Ono was from a wealthy family and as for her being all those great things you have mentioned….you are probably righ…Japan has the worst bands ever becoming famous just because Japanese tend to like crappy music.

Whatever or whoever Yoko might be, we should respect her simply because John respected her, and she probably saved him from dying of an OD in 69/70. However, her role in the murder is equivocal, and she couldn’t save him from Ronald Reagan’s minions. I agree with Paul, the assassin’s name should be forgotten, he was just a tool.

Ronald Reagans minions? Really, Manteau? Politics has no place here but if you really want to do this I’m game.

This site is intended to celebrate the Beatles’ legacy, which really centers around intimate and universal love. What ironic heartbreak that the comment section is soiled by haters and goons.

John Lennon was probably the most brilliant and prolific music composer of the 20th century. With that brilliance comes a certain inability to relate much as Edison, Tesla and Einstein had difficulty relating. They all shared the commonality of being misunderstood. The man was genius and should there be any doubt look at what he has written and its social impact. He and the rest of the Beatles changed the face of music forever.

I like John Lennon, but the most brilliant and prolific composer of the 20th century is probably George Gershwin (discounting classical music) and I would rank Cole Porter, Bob Dylan, and several others above John Lennon.

Yeah, but let’s hear those other composers sing! On several occasions when I have attended a wedding what song did they play? Not Porter, Dylan, Gershwin or McCartney! John Lennon’s Grow Old With Me.

you are right

Dear Warptek, John had been an fervent supporter of Jimi Carter back in 1976., He had been an undesirable alien in the US of A from 1972 to 1975, when he eventually was granted his green card. He had won…too easily against a disgraced Nixon. In the meantime, John had nothing to fear from Carter’s team. But in November 1980, two things happened almost at the same time : The election of Ronald Reagan and John’s own return to the forefront of the pop*rock scene. You know what happened. Now, if you say politics are a forbidden subject here, we should never talk about John at all! I hate politics, but I’m convinced ( Like Sean ) that John Lennon’s assassination was a political one.

In November of 1980, two things happened almost at the same time: John’s return to the forefront of the pop*rock scene and the “Who Shot JR” episode of Dallas. You know what happened …

he was a really good friend of mine

I noticed a mistake and would like to correct it politely. John’s first school was actually Mosspits County Primary School. He was expelled in 1946 for misbehaviour and then enrolled in Dovedale Road Primary School. My source is ‘An Intimate Day by Day History’ by Barry Miles.

Time really works for Lennon. His compositions can age better.The tendency in later years in the voting of The Beatles best 20 songs, Lennon´s compositions always are dominating, with for example: –Strawberry Fields Forever, –Come Together, –Don´t let Me Down, –I Am The Walrus, –Revolution, –A Day In The Life, –Help, — Rain, –All You Need Is Love and don´t forget Hey Bulldog, a song that George Martin and McCartney stopped being released as single! and now there is a long story of that classic Lennon song in You Tube!! Today Harrison´s songs Something, While My Guitar Weeps and Here Comes The Sun are equally popular as McCartney´s most popular songs!! And Lennon´s solo songs are today more played than McCartney´s, for example: –Jealous Guy, –Imagine, –Woman, – –Instant Karma, –Give peace a Chance, –Love, –A Working Class Hero, –Grow Old With Me (on weddings nowadays). This Lennon´s success is despite George Martin´s always patronizing of him. George Martin preferred McCartney´s conventional and “vertical” melodies.

I don’t know why people persist in describing John’s upbringing as harrowing or tragic. After WW2 there were many children of John’s age, taken from institutions in Liverpool and from dysfunctional family situations, babies to teenagers, who were shipped off to the white commonwealth countries for a supposedly better life. While many did get this, others were horribly abused, physically, sexually, and mentally in foster homes and catholic institutions. Some of these people from John’s generation grew up so psychologically damaged they were institutionalised for the rest of their lives. The rest grew up effectively stateless and denied British citizenship to return to their place of birth and their families. It was years before they received any compensation from the British government and is one of the most shameful episodes in post war British history. John Lennon had a lucky escape. He came from a broken home and that was extremely sad but he was raised by people who loved and protected him and provided the best for him that they could. He grew up to be an angry young songwriter, no doubt about it, but I sometimes sensed that John himself was gaining perspective with increasing maturity before he was senselessly murdered.

In the praised film about The Beatles Eight Days A Week by Ron Howard from 2016, Lennon´s songs are dominating: Please Please Me, You Can´t Do That, A Hard Day´s Night, If I Fell, Help, Ticket to Ride, It´s Only Love, Day Tripper, I´m A Looser, Girl, Norwegian Wood, Nowhere Man, I´m Only Sleeping, Tomorrow Never Knows, Don´t Let Me Down. When they took up the recording of Sgt Pepper, they played Strawberry Fields Forever, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and A Day In The Life, no other songs from that album,but at the same time there is a big picture of McCartney.(formerly a very common typical situation).

There’s a fine line between healthy admiration and worrisome obsession as another commentator indicated here.

Without McCartney, there would’ve been no Lennon. And vice-versa. Said and done – concisely and simply.

Johan-Thank you once again for your willingness to praise John to the heavens and criticize Paul to no end. Your opinion and you are entitled to it. But, it’s old and repetitive and boring. The Beatles were John, Paul, George and Ringo. Not just John and not just Paul. You will never be objective when it comes to this topic but you will always be a bore. Merry Christmas.

The burden that lies upon a genius’ shoulder is that in spite of the freedom in ways of living, he is driven by an unconcscious and mysterious god within himself. Certain notions and ideas come to him – not knowing where from, not knowing that something within himself is driving him to create and he does not know to what purpouse these notions have. The artist, just like the genius is in a battle between these unconscious urges and the comfort and safety which all humans strive for. For that reason the life of a genius, so often ends in tragedy.

This is, in my opninion, of the upmost truth in the case of John Lennon. His nonchalant attitude when asked about his songwriting, may suggest that he himself, is not even aware of these urges. He suggests that he’s merely “putting words together”. However, the lyrical components of songs such as Strawberry Fields Forever and Across The Universe prove to me that John, was in some sense a higher being. His mind was able to grasp certain aspects that lie in the unconscious of all human beings.

This man was extraordinary, and to me the greatest artist to ever live.

john lennon is the bet singer songwriter of all the time

I was 10 years old when he died I was such a Beatles nerd but that ended when he died.

In the twelve month period from November 1966, John Lennon wrote five of the greatest songs ever – Strawberry Fields, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, A Day in the Life, All You Need is Love and I am the Walrus. Who else is comparable?

Leave a Reply

Book and Film Globe

Books, Film, TV, Culture.

John Lennon: A Life in Film

A retrospective on what should have been his 80th birthday

John Lennon was rock’s first renaissance man. Of course, he was a musician and songwriter, but he was painting, drawing, and writing stories before he ever picked up a guitar. After rock ‘n’ roll came excursions into performance art, art installations, photography—and film.

Lennon’s feature film debut came in A Hard Day’s Night. He quickly grew bored with conventional filmmaking, and went in quite a different direction with the films he made with his second wife, Yoko Ono. They made art films shot in real time like Smile (50 minutes of Lennon doing just that), and also delved into social commentary, as in Rape, with its camera relentlessly following a woman without respite; the “rape” is not physical, but the constant scrutiny proves to be just as psychologically devastating.

But John Lennon and Yoko Ono also understood the power of the media, and tried to wield it to their advantage. By inviting the world’s journalists into their hotel room while on their honeymoon, they essentially invented reality TV. To accompany the release of Lennon’s Imagine and Ono’s Fly albums, they released what we’d now call a longform video (the complete film was reissued in 2018). Where might he have taken the format in the 1980s and beyond?

In honor of what would’ve been his 80 th birthday on October 9, here’s a selection of John Lennon’s memorable filmic moments:

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice hailed this fictionalized day in the life of The Beatles as “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals”.  He was one of many critics surprised that a film ostensibly aimed at teenagers could be so clever and witty. The innovative cinema verité shooting style gave the film an additional patina of realism, and influenced how people filmed rock groups for years to come. Each Beatle got a solo scene (though they cut Paul McCartney’s; he was too self-conscious, director Richard Lester said). In Lennon’s solo spot, he faces off with a condescending older woman (Anna Quayle) who insists he must be someone famous; if only she could remember his name….

Help (1965)

Lennon was dismissive about the Beatles’ second feature film. “It was like being a frog in a movie about clams,” he later said. “We felt like extras in our own film.” He’s not wrong; with Ringo Starr as the centerpiece, pursued by various nefarious types who want a ring stuck on his finger, the other Beatles mainly serve as satellites whizzing around the action, occasionally pausing to make a deadpan observation.

But the film’s comic book, pop art look parodied the style of the latest James Bond films, and presaged the stylized camp of TV’s Batman. Lennon referred to the Help! era as his “fat Elvis” period, saying of his cinematic alter ego, “He—I—is very fat, very insecure, and he’s completely lost in himself.” He also said that the title song itself was a cry for help, the message obscured by the uptempo music. But he nonetheless acquits himself nicely in the film, with his casually sardonic delivery.

How I Won the War (1967)

A Hard Day’s Night director Richard Lester was so impressed by Lennon’s acting chops that he later cast him in this anti-war feature. The absurdist plot has Michael Crawford as the comically inept Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody, charged with having his regiment build a cricket pitch behind enemy lines in Africa during World War II; Lennon has a secondary role as Musketeer Gripweed.

The film fails as satire because of its slow pacing, and it fared poorly on its initial release (Roger Ebert, in his 1968 review , called it “a film almost contemptuously indifferent to its audience”). But given what was to come, Lennon’s death scene is particularly eerie. The film’s greater impact at the time was that it allowed Lennon to leave his “Beatle John” look behind, as he kept the short haircut and wire frame glasses his character wore, sparking off a craze for such eyewear. And while filming in Almeria, Spain, he wrote his classic song “Strawberry Fields Forever” during his off hours.

Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

This improvisational made-for-TV film was McCartney’s concept, to get the group moving again following the death of their manager, Brian Epstein. “[Paul] came and showed me what his idea was for Magical Mystery Tour… and he said, ‘Here’s the segment, you write a little piece for that,’” Lennon later remembered. “And I thought, ‘Fuckin’ hell, I’ve never made a film, what’s he mean?’” He eventually came up with a surreal dream sequence, casting himself as a smarmy waiter, shoveling pasta onto an unhappy woman’s plate. Even better, he contributed the dark psychedelic masterpiece, “I Am the Walrus.”

The Ballad of John and Yoko (1969)

The video for the Beatles’ June 1969 single essentially functioned as a newsreel about the recent activities of Lennon and his new wife (their wedding, their honeymoon and first “bed in”), or, as they came to be called, JohnAndYoko. The footage of the Beatles comes from the Let It Be filming in January 1969; the only Beatles who appear on the actual “Ballad” single are Lennon and McCartney.

Facing off with Gloria Emerson (1969)

Lennon and Ono’s peace campaign often baffled the public. Bed Ins? Planting acorns for peace? What did that really accomplish? Lennon reasoned that since the media covered everything he did anyway, why not turn these encounters into “commercials” for peace? One critic who took exception to such tactics was New York Times reporter/author Gloria Emerson, who interviewed Lennon and Ono at the Beatles’ posh Apple Corps offices on London’s tony Savile Row. You could later see excerpts of their combative argument in documentaries like Imagine: John Lennon.

Let It Be (1970)

Lennon called the film shoot for what became the Let It Be film and album “the most miserable session on earth.” Filmmaker Peter Jackson, charged with doing a re-edit of the film, due for release next year, begs to differ, saying in a statement, “The reality is very different to the myth … Sure, there’s moments of drama—but none of the discord this project has long been associated with.”

There’s likely truth to both perspectives. But what’s striking about the original Let It Be cut is how, aside from McCartney, the rest of the band seems to be desultorily going through the motions. “I just didn’t give a shit,” Lennon later told Rolling Stone, “nobody did.” But even he seemed to be enjoying himself when the group took to the roof of their Apple Corps office for an impromptu concert that turned out to be their last public performance.

Instant Karma (1970)

Freshly shorn to greet the new decade, Lennon and Ono appeared on UK music show Top of the Pops on February 11, 1970, to promote Lennon’s third solo single, recorded just 15 days before. Lennon sang a live vocal to a backing tape, with the musicians miming their instruments; Ono added a performance art touch, sitting blindfolded and holding up signs reading “Smile” and “Peace” (during a second take, she knitted throughout). It’s an exuberant performance of a song that became Lennon’s first solo Top 5 hit in the US.

Imagine (1971)

Today we best know “Imagine” for its presentation of the title song, an elegant sequence that shows Lennon playing a white piano in an all-white room in his Ascot, England, mansion, as Ono opens the shutters, letting the room fill with light. It’s also the most conventional sequence, the only time Lennon or Ono mime singing to one of their songs.

The rest of the film is more free form, showing the couple at their English home, or wandering around New York City. “We’re just making it up as we go along,” Lennon said at the time, stressing there would be no scenes of the couple in the recording studio, a la Let It Be, as that approach was “boring.” Though of course the couple’s recording sessions were filmed at the time as well, the footage later released in the documentaries Gimme Some Truth (2000) and Above Us Only Sky (2019).

“One to One” concerts (1972)

Lennon made few concert appearances post-Beatles. His last complete shows were two charity concerts held on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden. With the backing of New York boogie band Elephant’s Memory, Lennon and Ono performed a selection of the solo material, with a nod to Lennon’s Beatles past (“Come Together”) and his rock ‘n’ roll roots (“Hound Dog”). The afternoon show was released on video and LP in 1986 a s John Lennon Live In New York, and fans have been patiently waiting for a DVD/Blu-ray release of both shows ever since.

Salute to Sir Lew: The Master Showman (1975)

John Lennon didn’t appear on this show, which he taped on April 18, 1975, and aired in June, because he was a fan of Sir Lew Grade, a media mogul who just happened to own the Lennon/McCartney songwriting catalogue. The two had been involved in a legal dispute, ultimately settled, and Lennon’s appearance was part of the deal. Lennon glides onstage in a red jumpsuit, performs two songs from his recent Rock ‘n’ Roll album, “Slippin’ and Slidin’” and “Stand By Me” (the latter not broadcast), then serves up what was already his signature song, “Imagine.”

The backing band (including Vinny Appice, later of Black Sabbath) wore facemasks on the back of their heads, “a sardonic reference to my feelings on Lew Grade’s personality,” Lennon explained. Or maybe not; Mark Rivera, another band member, said they were Ono’s idea, “to show the duality of American society.” The canned applause adds to the surreal mood. This was Lennon’s last-ever public performance.

“Walking on Thin Ice” (1981)

On November 26, 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono filmed the sex scenes that would later appear in the “Thin Ice” video, when Ono released the single the next year. The video mixes together home movie footage of the couple with poignant shots of a solitary Ono walking around New York City. It was the last film work Lennon ever did. Lennon played a searing guitar line on the song, and the couple was working on the track the night he was murdered, December 8, 1980. Ono’s eerily prescient lyrics perfectly summarize the story of JohnAndYoko: “I may cry someday/but the tears will dry whichever way/And when our hearts return to ashes/it’ll be just a story.”

 You May Also Like

• ← Too Soon
• The Last Picture Show →

Gillian G. Gaar

Seattle-based writer Gillian G. Gaar covers the arts, entertainment, and travel.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

John Lennon

• Overview ↓
• Filmography ↓
• Other Appearances ↓
• Awards ↓

Filmography

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, john lennon.

Find on IMDB

Find on Wikipedia

If These Walls Could Sing (2022)

Robert daniels.

Self (archive footage)

The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

Sheila o'malley.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016)

Godfrey cheshire.

Himself (archive footage)

How I Won the War (1968)

Roger ebert.

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Festivals & Awards

War was not over at the 2024 oscars.

The glamour inside, the protests outside, and everything in between.

We Loved You Best: Tom Smothers (1937-2023)

A tribute to Tom Smothers.

Book Excerpt: In the Time of Kiarostami: Writings on Iranian Cinema by Godfrey Cheshire

An excerpt from contributor Godfrey Cheshire's new book about Abbas Kiarostami.

Barbara Walters (1929-2022)

A tribute to television news legend Barbara Walters

Some Idea of Me: On the 10th Anniversary of Ruby Sparks

On the 10th anniversary of Ruby Sparks and the impact of the script by Zoe Kazan.

A Look Back at Tribeca 2022: The Documentary Features

A look at many of the documentaries that premiered at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.

Home Entertainment Guide: April 2022

The latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including Death on the Nile, Cyrano, and 4K releases of The Apartment, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and 'Round Midnight.

Hulu's McCartney 3,2,1 Deconstructs a Legend

A review of the new series McCartney 3,2,1, premiering on Hulu on July 16.

After Yesterday: A Beatles Film Festival

An ode to the movies starring, about, and influenced by The Beatles in honor of Danny Boyle's Yesterday.

From Don't Look Back to Rolling Thunder Revue: The Cinema of Bob Dylan

A look back at the films that complement Bob Dylan's groundbreaking work as a singer and songwriter.

Toni Myers: Not All Stars Are in the Sky (1943-2019)

A remembrance of award-winning filmmaker and Ebert Symposium guest Toni Myers.

Far Flungers

Return to terror: why the election of jair bolsonaro would be a disaster for brazil.

One of our Far Flung Correspondents talks about why the election of Jair Bolsonaro would be a disaster for Brazil.

Mourn the Living: Felix Van Groeningen on Beautiful Boy

An interview with Felix Van Groeningen, director/co-writer of "Beautiful Boy."

Inaugural Roger Ebert Symposium Set for October 1st in Urbana

An article about the first ever Roger Ebert Symposium entitled "Empathy for the Universe" set for Monday, October 1st, in Urbana.

Comic-Con 2018: Bill Morrison Tells Us of His Yellow Submarine Graphic Novel

Bill Morrison's graphic novel based on the movie comes out this week, from Titan Comics.

Forever Contemporary: Julie Taymor on the Rerelease of “Across the Universe”

An interview with Julie Taymor, director of "Across the Universe," which will be rereleased in theaters for three days only, courtesy of Fathom Events.

A difficult friend: Ed Copeland, AKA Scott Schuldt, 1969-2015

A remembrance of critic Scott Schuldt, who blogged under the name Ed Copeland.

30 Minutes on: "Cool Hand Luke"

"Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."

Straight Outta Culture: Sexism in Black and White

A piece on the response to the sexism in "Straight Outta Compton."

Keep Moving!: The Films of Richard Lester.

An appreciation of Richard Lester as a retrospective of his work is about to unfold in New York City.

Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: July 9, 2015

The latest and greatest on Blu-ray and streaming services, including "The Killers," "While We're Young," "Home," "Maggie," "Danny Collins," and more!

#254 June 10, 2015

Sheila writes: John Lennon kept a sketchbook throughout his life, filled with little drawings and doodles, and in 1986 Yoko Ono commissioned Oscar-winning animator John Canemaker to make them into a short film. The short film, "The John Lennon Sketchbook" hit Youtube officially on May 15 of this year. The images are accompanied by audio recordings of John and Yoko talking about their relationship, bantering and joking. It's lovely. You can watch the film below.

Pacino, Lennon and “Danny Collins”: A Chat with Dan Fogelman

An interview with Dan Fogelman, writer/director of "Danny Collins."

#240 November 26, 2014

Sheila writes: Recently, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Patti Smith sat down and interviewed director David Lynch for the BBC. The result is a fascinating and atypical interview, revealing and evocative, giving the sense of two people sharing an experience, rather than a strict Q and A format. It makes me want to see more. The two discuss "Twin Peaks," "Blue Velvet," and other topics. You can watch the interview here.

Interview: Erich Bergen and Michael Lomenda Take "Jersey Boys" From Stage to Screen

A discussion with two stars of Clint Eastwood's "Jersey Boys."

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Entertainment

Remembering John Lennon and Paul McCartney's Last Recording Together — Four Years After the Beatles’ Split

Fifty years ago, the pair put aside the pain of the band's breakup to quietly reunite in the studio — and the result is not what you'd expect.

Getty Images

Last fall the Beatles released “Now and Then,” a long-awaited digital reunion between all four Fabs was made possible through cutting edge technology. Touted as the final entry in the band’s storied cannon, it provided fans with a happy ending to a 60-year saga and the chance to hear Paul McCartney join voices with his late partner John Lennon once again. Though indeed moving, it was a reunion that didn’t occur in reality. The Beatles tragically never reconvened in the studio prior to Lennon’s murder on Dec. 8, 1980 — robbing the world of more potential Beatles albums, and McCartney of his dear friend.

Many assume that Lennon and McCartney’s recording relationship ended with the band’s breakup at the dawn of the ‘70s. But in truth, they quietly teamed up in an LA studio for a one-off impromptu session in 1974. The results were chaotic, unfinished, and (technically) unreleased, but the bootleg tapes are historic for capturing that iconic vocal blend for the very last time. It proves that despite the bitterness of the prior breakup, their bond remained intact. 

The diverse and nuanced reasons for the Beatles’ split are as complex as the men themselves, requiring volumes of books — not to mention legal documents — to unravel. The partnership was dealt its mortal blow with the death of band manager Brian Epstein in August 1967. McCartney did his best to navigate the group through the ensuing upheaval, but his de facto leadership was read as overbearing by his band mates — particularly Lennon, who, since the world beating success of 1967’s groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , had largely abdicated his creative role due to his own emotional maelstrom of insecurity, boredom, and resentment. “After Brian died, we collapsed,” Lennon said in an infamous interview with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner in December 1970 . “Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we went round in circles? We broke up then. That was the disintegration.”

McCartney’s perfectionism in the studio gave him a reputation as a hard task master — “He’s the workaholic!” Ringo Starr once joked, while the band’s producer George Martin chose the word “overbossy” — but beginning with sessions for the ‘White Album’ in 1968, Lennon began openly sniping at McCartney’s work. He particularly loathed the music hall influenced numbers like “Martha My Dear” and “Ob-La-Da, Ob-La-Da,” which he memorably dismissed as “Paul’s granny music s---.” The latter song nearly provoked a battle royale in the studio before Lennon stormed out — only to return again hours later, in a chemically altered state of consciousness. (The sessions for the song were so unpleasant that longtime engineer Geoff Emerick resigned rather than tolerate the bad vibes.) 

For McCartney, the hostility was painful. “John and I were critical of each other's music and I felt John wasn't much interested in performing anything he hadn't written himself,” he told Life in 1971. “So I felt the split coming. And John kept saying we were musically standing still."

Lennon wasn’t particularly taken with the high concept McCartney-helmed projects that the band were obliged to go along with. The 1967 television film Magical Mystery Tour had been a costly flop that was barely salvaged by the soundtrack EP (and eventual album), and the tense sessions recorded for the Let It Be documentary captured just as many squabbles as songs. “The film was set up by Paul for Paul,” Lennon told Wenner. “That is one of the main reasons the Beatles ended. I can't speak for George, but I pretty damn well know we got fed up of being sidemen for Paul…The camera work was set up to show Paul and not anybody else. And that's how I felt about it." The lead single from the project, “Get Back,” was a McCartney composition that Lennon (supposedly) took to be a thinly veiled dig at Yoko Ono , his new romantic partner, who attended each session along with the band. “When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line 'Get back to where you once belonged,' he'd look at Yoko," he claimed. 

This particular instance is likely a product of Lennon’s own paranoia, but the Beatles hardly welcomed Ono with open arms when Lennon chose to make her a permanent fixture at the band’s sessions. "It was like old army buddies splitting up on account of wedding bells,” McCartney reflected in the Beatles Anthology . “He'd fallen in love, and none of us was stupid enough to say, 'Oh, you shouldn't love her.' We could recognize that, but that didn't diminish the hurt we were feeling by being pushed aside.” 

McCartney’s rejection of Ono — real or imagined, playful or malicious — stung Lennon in a way that few things could, and he began to emotionally distance himself from his longtime partner as a self-protective measure. “[Paul] said it many times that at first he hated Yoko, and then he got to like her. But it's too late for me,” he told Wenner. “Ringo was all right, but the other two really gave it to us…I can't forgive 'em for that, really. Although I can't help still loving them either."

When McCartney married Linda Eastman in 1969, he proposed that her father Lee, a prominent New York entertainment lawyer, take over the band’s business affairs that had previously been managed by Epstein. Lennon understandably feared that McCartney’s father-in-law could never be a neutral third party, and instead favored Allen Klein, a brusque and streetwise business barracuda. His shady business reputation had earned him somewhere in the vicinity of 50 lawsuits — Epstein met him once and refused to shake his hand — but Lennon was drawn to his down-to-earth nature. Starr and Harrison followed suit, leaving an awkward three-to-one vote. McCartney never accepted Klein as his manager, taking issue with all manner of business and creative decisions made under his direction. Lennon took this as a personal affront. 

On Sept. 26, 1969, with his confidence bolstered by his first major non-Beatle live performance in years at the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival Festival, Lennon reported for duty at a Beatles business meeting and made his push for independence. When McCartney suggested the band return to their roots by going on tour, Lennon shut him down immediately. “I think you're daft,” he snarled. “I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm breaking the group up. It feels good. It feels like a divorce.” No one — not even Ono — had seen it coming. "Our jaws dropped," McCartney recalled. Klein and the other Beatles convinced Lennon to keep the news under wraps so it wouldn’t disrupt lucrative business deals in the works. McCartney hoped it was one of Lennon’s moody outbursts, but he remained resolute. When McCartney called six months later to say that he was also leaving the group and readying a solo album, Lennon was unmoved. “That makes two of us who have accepted it mentally,” he replied.

The album in question, titled simply McCartney , was released in April 1970. Press copies included a Q&A that spelled out the fact that the Beatles were finished due to “personal differences, business differences, and musical differences,” and he didn’t foresee a Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership continuing into the future. The stunt, which made global headlines on April 10, enraged Lennon, who had planned to make the big announcement himself when the time was right. "I wanted to do it and I should have done it,” he said later. “I was a fool not to do it, not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record." 

On Dec. 31, 1970, McCartney began legal proceedings to dissolve the Beatles partnership, stretching relations between the formerly Fab foursome to the breaking point. According to legend, at one point Lennon was chauffeured over to McCartney’s London home and tossed a brick through his front window. (Another version has Lennon breaking in and destroying a painting he had gifted him.) Both stories are likely apocryphal but the sentiments were based in reality. 

That same month, an emotionally raw Lennon, fresh off months of psychologically excruciating Primal Scream therapy, sat down with Wenner to give Rolling Stone ’s readers their first look at the beloved band’s dirtiest laundry. “The publication of these interviews was the first time that any of the Beatles, let alone the man who had founded the group and was their leader, finally stepped outside of that protected, beloved fairy tale and told the truth,” Wenner later wrote. “He was bursting and bitter about the sugarcoated mythology of the Beatles and Paul McCartney’s characterization of the breakup.”

McCartney’s response was, characteristically, more subtle. On his second solo disc, 1971’s Ram , he included a jab at Lennon on the opener, “Too Many People,” scoffing at the ex-bandmate’s exhortations for world peace. “The first line is: ‘too many people preaching practices,” he told MOJO in 2001. “I felt John and Yoko were telling everyone what to do. And I felt we didn't need to be told what to do. The whole tenor of the Beatles thing had been, like, to each his own. Freedom. Suddenly it was ‘You should do this.’ It was just a bit the wagging finger, and I was pissed off with it.” (The other lyrical barb, "You took your lucky break and broke it in two," is fairly self-explanatory.)

Few fans picked up on the slight, but Lennon got the reference, and perhaps invented one or two that weren’t actually there. “He’s so obscure other people didn't notice them, but I heard them,” he railed. “I thought 'Well, I’m not obscure, I just get right down to the nitty-gritty.'” He fired back on Imagine , his 1971 masterpiece best remembered for the visions of a tolerant utopia on the opening track. “How Do You Sleep” is the spiritual inverse, a diss track so venomous and overt that it borders on obscene. Even more wounding to McCartney, the slide guitar on the track was played by his fellow Beatle brother, George Harrison . 

In film footage of the session, later released as part of the Imagine documentary, Lennon can be seen huddled with Harrison and Ono, gleefully giggling like conspiratorial children as they trash their former friend. “The sound you make is muzak to my ears/You must have learned something in all those years,” Lennon sings, before taking a shot at McCartney’s most famous song: “ The only thing you done was ‘Yesterday’/And since you’re gone you’re just another day.” (The original words were “and you probably pinched that bitch anyway,” until Klein insisted that he remove the potentially libelous line.) Starr happened to be visiting the studio the day of the recording, and was so scandalized by the lines that he angrily urged Lennon to back off. 

Several years later, when he’d cooled off slightly, Lennon attempted to defuse the song, saying that he was “using somebody as an object to create something. I wasn't really feeling that vicious at the time, but I  was using my resentment towards Paul to create a song.” Even so, the lines undoubtedly hurt McCartney, though he was loathe to punch back. “When John did 'How Do You Sleep,’ I didn't want to get into a slanging match,” he told author Barry Miles in his authorized biography, All These Years from Now . “I just let him do it, because he was being fed a lot of those lines by Klein and Yoko, I had the option of going for equal time and doing all the interviews or deciding to not take up the gauntlet, and I remember consciously thinking, ‘No, I really mustn't.’ Part of it was cowardice: John was a great wit, and I didn't want to go fencing with the rapier champion of East Cheam. That was not a good idea. And I also knew that those vibes could snowball, and you start off with a perfectly innocent little contest and suddenly you find yourself doing duel to the death with the Lennon figure and it's, ‘Oh, my God, what have I carved out here?’ But it meant that I had to take s---.”

When McCartney did respond publicly, on 1971’s Wild Life , it was with an olive branch. His first Wings venture included the mournful “Dear Friend,” an open letter to Lennon that matched “How Do You Sleep” for candor. Built around a haunting solo piano figure, a grief-stricken McCartney sounds lost as he wonders if this was “really the borderline” of their friendship. Lennon kept his response to the song to himself, but the public sparring soon ceased. 

As their business and legal affairs untangled by the middle of the decade, McCartney attempted to carry on as if it were old times. “I would ring him when I went to New York and he would say, 'Yeah, what d'you want?' 'I just thought we might meet?' 'Yeah, what the f--- d'you want, man?'” he told Miles. “It was all very acrimonious and bitter. I remember one time John said, 'You're all pizza and fairy tales.' I thought, ‘What a great album title!’ I said, 'Well, if that's what I am, I'm not wholly against that description of me. I can think of worse things to say.' But another time I called him and it was 'Yeah? Yeah? Whadda ya want?' He suddenly started to sound American. I said, 'Oh, f--- off, Kojak,' and slammed the phone down; we were having those kind of times, it was bad news.”

Relations gradually thawed, and on March 28, 1974 , the unthinkable occurred: Lennon and McCartney jammed together in a recording studio. Unfortunately, the results were a drugged-up shambles. Lennon was at Burbank Studios producing what would become the album Pussy Cats for his friend, Harry Nilsson. In the midst of his 18-month separation from Ono, he frequently anesthetized himself with booze and cocaine, which he generously shared with fellow players Stevie Wonder , Jesse Ed Davis and Bobby Keys. McCartney arrived into this atmosphere of debauchery, and attempted to coax a song out of this supergroup. “There were 50 other people playing, all just watching me and Paul,” Lennon later remembered. Tapes from the session reveal only semi-complete versions of Little Richard's “Lucille” and the Ben E. King slow burn “Stand By Me,” often interrupted by technical problems. Though mostly incomplete and largely unlistenable, it’s the final time Lennon and McCartney’s sweet and sour vocal blend was captured on tape. (Though never released formally, the sessions eventually surfaced on the bootleg,  A Toot and a Snore in ’74 .)

Lennon returned to New York City several months later, where he reunited with his other great love: Yoko Ono. Their reconciliation had been mediated by, of all people, McCartney. A lonely Ono had paid him a visit and explained her terms for rekindling their romance, which McCartney dutifully passed along to Lennon. “I said, 'Yoko was through London and she said she wouldn't mind getting back together. How about you? Would you be interested in that?'” McCartney later explained. “He said, 'Yeah.' That he still loved her and stuff. So I said, 'Here's the deal. You've got to go back to New York. You've got to go get a flat, court her, so-and-so ...' and that's just what he did. That's how they got back together again.”

Soon after the reconciliation, Lennon retired from the music industry to focus on raising their newborn son, Sean. Tensions eased enough for McCartney to occasionally drop by the couple’s new Upper West Side apartment in the ultra-luxe Dakota building when business took music him to America. “He visits me every time he's in New York, like all the other rock 'n" roll creeps,” Lennon laughed at the time. “So whenever he's in town I see him. He comes over and we just sit around and get mildly drunk and reminisce.” 

On April 24, 1976, they settled in to watch the hip new comedy program, Saturday Night Live , when they found themselves in the peculiar situation of being addressed on air by the show’s producer, Lorne Michaels. Mocking the exorbitant sums of money the Beatles were being offered to reunite, Michaels held up a hilariously paltry check for just $3,000. Amazingly, the joke nearly succeeded. “John said, ‘It's only downtown, we could go now. Come on, let's just show up. Should we, should we?’ and for a second it was like, ‘Yeah, yeah!’ But we decided not to.” (Lennon admitted, “We nearly got a cab, but we were actually too tired.”) 

The night was reportedly be the last time the two men, who had shared so much over the previous two decades, ever shared a room. As they parted ways, Lennon patted McCartney on the shoulder and offered a mock-maudlin farewell: “Think about me every now and then, old friend.”

They managed to stay connected over telephone for the next several years. “I realized that I couldn't always ring him up to ask about business, which was my main priority at the time,” said McCartney . “It was better to talk about cats, or baking bread, or babies. So we did that, and I had a lot in common with him because we were having our babies and I was into a similar sort of mode.” McCartney placed a call to his old partner just before Lennon’s 40 th birthday on Oct. 9, 1980. “[It was] very nice. I remember he said, ‘Do they play me against you against me like they play you against me?’ Because there were always people in the background pitting us against each other. And I said, ‘Yeah, they do…’” It was the final time they spoke.

McCartney would always regret that he was never able to sit down and fully hash out all their differences before Lennon was gunned down on a chilly December night in 1980. But in an interview given hours before his death, Lennon spoke in uncharacteristically glowing terms of his one-time partner. “There’s only ever been two artists I’ve ever worked with for more than a one-night-stand, as it were,” he told RKO Radio . “That’s Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. I think that’s a pretty damn good choice. As a talent scout, I’ve done pretty damn well.” Though effusive words rarely came easily to the man who penned “All You Need Is Love,” mutual friend Harry Nilsson once told a story that summed up Lennon’s feelings for his musical soul mate. “Someone told me … they saw John walking on the street once wearing a button saying ‘I Love Paul.’ And this girl asked him, ‘Why are you wearing a button that says “I Love Paul”?’ He said, ‘Because I love Paul.’”

Related Articles

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• March Madness
• AP Top 25 Poll
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

John Sinclair, a marijuana activist who was immortalized in a John Lennon song, dies at 82

FILE - John Sinclair talks at the John Sinclair Foundation Café and Coffeeshop, Dec. 26, 2018, in Detroit. Sinclair, a poet, music producer and counterculture figure whose lengthy prison sentence after a series of small-time pot busts inspired a John Lennon song and a star-studded 1971 concert to free him, has died at age 82. Sinclair died Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at Detroit Receiving Hospital of congestive heart failure following an illness, his publicist Matt Lee said. (Junfu Han/Detroit Free Press via AP, File)

• Copy Link copied

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — John Sinclair, a poet, music producer and counterculture figure whose lengthy prison sentence after a series of small-time pot busts inspired a John Lennon song and a star-studded 1971 concert to free him, has died. He was 82.

Sinclair died Tuesday morning at Detroit Receiving Hospital of congestive heart failure following an illness, his publicist Matt Lee said.

Sinclair drew a 9 1/2-to-10-year prison sentence in 1969 from Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge Robert Colombo for giving two joints to undercover officers. He served 29 months but was released a few days after Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and others performed in front of 15,000 attendees at the University of Michigan’s Crisler Arena.

“They gave him 10 for two/What else can Judge Colombo do/We gotta set him free,” Lennon sang in “John Sinclair,” a song the ex-Beatle wrote that immortalized its subject.

AP AUDIO: John Sinclair, a marijuana activist who was immortalized in a John Lennon song, dies at 82.

AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on the death of counterculture figure John Sinclair.

Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, performed at the Dec. 10-11, 1971, “John Sinclair Freedom Rally,” held at the basketball arena in Ann Arbor. They took the stage after 3 a.m., about eight hours after the event got underway.

Earlier in the night, Sinclair’s wife, Leni, had called her imprisoned husband, and the conversation between the couple and their 4-year-old daughter, Sunny, was amplified for the crowd, who chanted “Free John!”

“I’m trying to get home. I want to be with you,” a sobbing Sinclair told the crowd that night, a Friday.

And he was by Monday.

At the time of Sinclair’s arrest, possession of marijuana was a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. He was arrested in Detroit while living as a poet and activist who co-founded the White Panther Party. He received the maximum sentence.

The day before the concert, the Michigan Legislature voted to reduce to a misdemeanor the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana, punishable by up to a year in prison.

Because he already had served 2 1/2 years, Sinclair was released from prison three days after the concert.

“For me, it’s like coming into a whole different world from the one I left in 1969,” Sinclair wrote in “Guitar Army,” a collection of his writings that was published in the early 1970s.

Sinclair continued his advocacy for marijuana , helping to usher in Ann Arbor’s token $5 fine for pot possession and celebrating when his home state legalized recreational cannabis in 2018 .

“I’m the pioneer. I was the first one in Michigan who said marijuana should be legal, and they said I was totally nuts,” he told the Detroit Free Press in 2019. “I’m proud to have played a part in this. I spent nearly three years in prison because of marijuana.”

Sinclair was born in Flint in 1941. His father worked for Buick for over four decades and his mother was a high school teacher who gave up her job to raise John and his two siblings. Sinclair grew up in Davison, a town not far from Flint, and graduated from the University of Michigan-Flint in 1964 with a degree in English Literature.

Over the next six-plus decades, Sinclair did a bit of everything — dabbling in performance art, journalism, cultural and political activism. And, of course, poetry .

“You got to/live it not just/say it or/play it that’s what this is/all/about,” Sinclair wrote in a 1965 poem.

Upon the dissolution of the White Panther Party in 1971, Sinclair formed and chaired the Rainbow People’s Party, which embraced Marxism-Leninism and promoted the revolutionary struggle for a “communal, classless, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and anti-sexist ... culture of liberation.”

Sinclair proudly and aggressively fought for progressive policies as part of the burgeoning “New Left” movement.

“In those times, we considered ourselves revolutionaries,” he said in 2013. “We wanted equal distribution of wealth. We didn’t want 1 percent of the rich running everything. Of course, we lost.”

Sinclair often kept a toehold in the world of music, managing for a time Mitch Ryder and perhaps most notably MC5, a Detroit-based quintet known for “Kick Out the Jams” and as a hard-rocking forerunner to the punk movement.

In “Guitar World,” Sinclair described “the crazed guerilla warfare we were waging with the MC5.”

Sinclair’s death came only two months after MC5 co-founder Wayne Kramer’s passing .

Sinclair also promoted concerts and festivals and helped to establish the Detroit Artists Workshop and Detroit Jazz Center. He taught blues history at Wayne State University; hosted radio programs in Detroit, New Orleans and Amsterdam; and wrote liner notes for albums by artists including The Isley Brothers and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.

Sinclair never stopped promoting — and partaking in — the use of marijuana.

He helped create Hash Bash, a yearly pot celebration at the University of Michigan, and served as state coordinator of the Michigan chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

“The only issue I’ve really kept active on is marijuana, because it’s so important,” he told the Free Press. “It’s been a continuous war for 80 years on people like you and me. They’ve got no business messing with us for getting high.”

Sinclair had two daughters from his marriage to Leni Sinclair. They divorced in 1988. In 1989, Sinclair married Patricia Brown.

Sort by Year - Latest Movies and TV Shows With John Lennon

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• Instant Watch Options
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Borrowed Time (I)

Documentary | Post-production

Director: Alan G. Parker | Stars: John Lennon , Tariq Ali , Tony Bramwell , Philip Norman

2. What the Hell Happened to High Times?

Documentary | Filming

Director: Steven Hager | Stars: John Lennon , Hunter S. Thompson , Abbie Hoffman , John Sinclair

3. The Beatles: Now and Then (2023 Music Video)

5 min | Music

The music video was almost 20 years in production, starting in 1994. Time capsule, the last song of The Beatles performed in 2023 but together with John Lennon from the late 1970s.

Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: The Beatles , John Lennon , George Harrison , Paul McCartney

4. Ticket to Ride (2023 Music Video)

Director: Gary Revel | Star: Gary Revel

5. The Weeknd: Jealous Guy (2023 Music Video)

2 min | Music

Music video for The Weeknd version of John Lennon's song Jealous Guy from the soundtrack of The Idol

Stars: Lily-Rose Depp , The Weeknd , Rachel Sennott , Moses Sumney

6. The Beatles: I'm Only Sleeping (2022 mix) (2022 Music Video)

3 min | Animation, Short, Music

Official music video promoting the 2022 remix of the Beatles album Revolver. Directed and animated by Em Cooper from 1,300 individual oil paintings handmade by the director.

Director: Em Cooper | Star: The Beatles

7. Artists of the Roundtable (2022 Video)

PG | 60 min | Documentary

Today's independent artists - filmmakers, comedians, and musicians gather to discuss this century's most meaningful people within tv, film, and music. Take a look back to remember the crazy... See full summary  »

Director: Michael J. Foster | Stars: Grae Drake , Emery Emery , Michael J. Foster , John Fugelsang

8. The Beatles: Here, There and Everywhere (2022 mix) (2022 Music Video)

2 min | Animation, Short, Music

Official video for the song 'Here, There and Everywhere' composed by Lennon-McCartney to promote the 2022 remix of the Beatles album 'Revolver'. Designed and directed by Rok Predin.

Director: Rok Predin | Star: The Beatles

9. The Beatles: Taxman (2022 mix) (2022 Music Video)

3 min | Animation, Music

Official video for the song Taxman composed by George Harrison to promote the 2022 remix of the Beatles album 'Revolver'. Designed and directed by Danny Sangra.

Director: Danny Sangra

10. Haritini: Yesterday (2022 Music Video)

3 min | Short, Music

Director: Spyros Maltezos | Star: Haritini Panopoulou

11. Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts Series (2020– ) The Young Virtuosos - FULL CONCERT - CLASSICAL GUITAR - Omni Foundation Live from St. Mark's, SF (2022 Podcast Episode)

Stars: Scott Cmiel , Elle Davisson , Jack Davisson , Emilia Diaz Delgado

12. Adrienne (2021)

98 min | Documentary, Biography

As the muse of Hal Hartley's indie classics and as writer/director of the critically acclaimed Waitress, Adrienne Shelly was a shining star in the indie film firmament.

Director: Andy Ostroy | Stars: Sara Bareilles , Robert John Burke , Nathan Fillion , Andy Griffith

13. Drum Together (2021 Music Video)

10 min | Short, Music

More than 100 drummers and percussionists, along with over 50 additional musicians, have joined forces to create Drum Together - a never-before-heard, drum-focused version of The Beatles' "... See full summary  »

Director: Dakota Lupo | Stars: Alex Acuna , Billy Amendola , Adele Anthony , Carmine Appice

14. Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts Series (2020– ) Maestros of 50 Oak Street - FULL CONCERT - CLASSICAL GUITAR - Live from St. Mark's (2021 Podcast Episode)

Stars: Sergio Assad , Richard Savino , David Tanenbaum , Marc Teicholz

15. All the Stupid People (2020 Music Video)

4 min | Short, Music

Director: Don Caron | Star: Don Caron

16. Marion Aunor: All My Loving (2020 Music Video)

Short, Music

Star: Marion Aunor

17. Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts Series (2020 Podcast Series)

Stars: Emilia Diaz Delgado , Marko Topchii , Tengyue Zhang , Strauss Shi

18. Jeff Beck & Johnny Depp: Isolation (2020 Music Video)

5 min | Short, Music

Stars: Jeff Beck , Vinnie Colaiuta , Johnny Depp , Rhonda Smith

19. Welcome the Magical Mystery Tour (2019)

81 min | Documentary

Director: Gérard Courant | Stars: Groupe Houba , Raphaël Jimenez , Emmanuelle Schaaff , Benoît Delépine

20. Hey Dude (2018 Music Video)

21. the beatles: glass onion (2018 mix) (2018 music video).

2 min | Short, Music

Stars: The Beatles , George Harrison , John Lennon , Paul McCartney

22. The Beatles: Back in the U.S.S.R. (2018 Mix) (2018 Music Video)

23. imagine (v) (2017).

Short, Drama

A priest delivers the words penned by John Lennon, as a sermon.

Director: Andy Gotts | Star: John Hurt

24. Pacôme Thiellement rencontre le public de la librairie Floury Frères de Toulouse autour de son livre 'La victoire des sans roi' (2017)

69 min | Documentary

Director: Gérard Courant | Stars: Pacôme Thiellement , Gérard Trouilhet , Luc Weissmüller , Hervé Floury

25. Artists for the Arts: With a Little Help from My Friends (2017 Music Video)

6 min | Short, Music

Director: Jason Milstein | Stars: Nick Adams , Julie Benko , Ashley Brown , Corey Brunish

26. Scrambled Eggs (2017 Video)

Directors: Blythe Daniel , David Daniel , David Rapka | Stars: Jake Daniel , Selena Caballero , David Daniel , Blythe Daniel

27. The Beatles and World War II (2016)

Documentary, Music, War

An updated remake of the 1976 Beatles collage film All This and World War II by Tony Palmer (who previously researched the documentary before) featuring covers by popular artists of the ... See full summary  »

Director: Tony Palmer | Stars: The Bee Gees , Neville Chamberlain , Winston Churchill , David Essex

28. Across the Universe (2016)

Two world changers try to change how the universe looks, but realize that nothing can change it.

Director: Stan McClintock | Stars: Reed Campbell , Stan McClintock

29. Walking on Thin Ice (2016 Music Video)

Yoko Ono walks around New York City in early 1981, just months after her partner John Lennon was murdered. Taken from the album Yoko Ono 'Yes, I'm A Witch Too'. Original version on the 1981 LP 'Seasons In Glass'.

Director: Yoko Ono | Star: Yoko Ono

30. Cook & Banks (2015)

105 min | Comedy, Drama, Music

Cocky natural Jack Cook and nervous savant Oliver Banks write and record a demo that sends them down the road to becoming the most successful duo of the 1980s. With help and hindrance from their producer, their manager, Cook's girlfriend, Banks' sister, and a rival band's lead singer - Cook and Banks try everything to stay on the same page and stay together.

Director: Jørgen Pedersen | Stars: Aaron Dodd , Andrew Rea , Beacon Bowman , Ken Haller

31. Happiness Is a Warm Gun (2015)

Short, Fantasy, Music

Director: Amos Poe | Stars: Anna Rezan , Ann Rezanni

32. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2015 Music Video)

The music video is a montage of footage of their famous concert at Shea Stadium, New York City, New York, 15 August 1965.

Director: Matthew Longfellow | Stars: The Beatles , George Harrison , John Lennon , Paul McCartney

33. You Must Remember This (2014– ) Charles Manson's Hollywood, Part 12: The Manson Family on Trial (2015 Podcast Episode)

57 min | History

The trials of the Manson family became a kind of public theater which a number of current and future filmmakers found themselves caught up in. Joan Didion bought a dress for a Manson girl ... See full summary  »

Stars: Karina Longworth , John Lennon , John Waters , Moisés Tuñón

34. UNICEF: Imagine (2014 Music Video)

Director: Michael Jurkovac | Stars: Sigrid Agren , Dianna Agron , Francois Alexander , Coco Arquette

35. Free Speech & the Transcendent Journey of Chris Drew, Street Artist (2014)

Not Rated | 99 min | Documentary, Crime, History

Chris Drew, street artist and activist, was selling art for $1 in downtown Chicago to protest the Chicago Peddlers Ordinance since he believed Art is Speech, a First Amendment Right. Those ... See full summary  »

Director: Nancy Bechtol | Stars: Chris Drew , Joshua Kutnick , Deborah Drew , Mark Weinberg

36. Train: Imagine (2013 Music Video)

Star: Pat Monahan

37. Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne & ELO (2012 TV Movie)

Unrated | 60 min | Documentary, Music

As the creative force behind Electric Light Orchestra and a singularly accomplished singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer, Jeff Lynne is one of rock's most iconic--yet mysterious--figures.

Director: Martyn Atkins | Stars: Jeff Lynne , Dhani Harrison , Olivia Harrison , Eric Idle

38. Godsmack: Come Together (2012 Music Video)

Director: Ian T. Barrett | Stars: Sully Erna , Godsmack , Shannon Larkin , Robbie Merrill

39. Udo Lindenberg feat. Jan Delay: Reeperbahn 2011 (What It's Like) (2012 Music Video)

Director: Sven Haeusler | Stars: Jan Delay , Udo Lindenberg

40. Scorpions: Across the Universe (2011 Music Video)

Scorpions perform in the music video "Across the Universe" from the album "Return to Forever" recorded for Sony Records. The music video features the band performing on a darkened stage. Klaus Meine sings while the band plays around him.

Stars: Scorpions , Matthias Jabs , James Kottak , Pawel Maciwoda

41. Ozzy Osbourne: How? (2010 Music Video)

Ozzy Osbourne performs in the music video "How?" from the single released in support of Amnesty International. Ozzy Osbourne wears sunglasses and sings as he stands and later walks down the... See full summary  »

Director: Ernie Fritz | Star: Ozzy Osbourne

42. Imagine Peace (2010)

40 min | Documentary, Short

Four years in the making, the film features interviews and footage never seen before, as well as older scenes of John and Yoko together, in private and performing in public. Yoko Ono talks ... See full summary  »

Director: Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon | Star: Yoko Ono

43. Colombia 2012 (2010)

33 min | Short

Director: Orlando Arturo Avila | Stars: Hollman Morris , Astrid Uribe , Gustavo Moncayo , Juan Andrés Avila

44. Easy Go (2010)

6 min | Short, Action, Comedy

A thin line between having much and having nothing.

Director: Vit Fic | Stars: Vit Fic , Ondrej Vana , Radka Davidova

45. American Masters (1985– ) Episode: LennoNYC (2010)

Not Rated | 115 min | Documentary, Biography, History

A look at the period of time musician John Lennon and his family spent living in New York City during the 1970s.

Director: Michael Epstein | Stars: John Lennon , Roy Cicala , Earl Slick , Andy Newmark

46. The Beatles: Rock Band (2009 Video Game)

T | Biography, Family, Music

A Rock Band (2007) spin-off that focuses on The Beatles .

Stars: John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison , Ringo Starr

47. I Met the Walrus (2007)

5 min | Documentary, Animation, Short

The animated illustration of a 14-year-old's interview with John Lennon in 1969.

Director: Josh Raskin | Stars: Jerry Levitan , John Lennon

48. Liverpool Nativity (2007 TV Movie)

60 min | Drama, Musical

Liverpool's great musical heritage is the soundtrack to a contemporary music drama set in a fictitious state, a tale as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. It tells the intimate ... See full summary  »

Directors: Noreen Kershaw , Richard Valentine | Stars: Jodie McNee , Kenny Thompson , Geoffrey Hughes , Cathy Tyson

49. Kenny Everett: Licence to Laugh (2007 TV Movie)

60 min | Documentary

Directors: Clyde Holcroft , Christopher Salt | Stars: Kate Adie , Russell Brand , Adam Buxton , Billy Connolly

50. Naked Eyes: Cry Baby Cry (2007 Music Video)

Director: Dylan Byrne | Stars: Pete Byrne , Naked Eyes

Recently Viewed