Hello & welcome to another edition of the GK Nugget, which turns musical this fortnight to celebrate the birth of a master singer, musician, song writer & peace activist. Imagine, Instant Karma, Yesterday, All You Need Is Love, I Want To Hold Your Hand, the list of blockbuster songs that he has been a contributor to is endless. You guessed it! I’m talking about the legendary John Lennon, co founder of the most commercially successful and musically influential band in the history of popular music – The Beatles. October 9th is his 77th birth anniversary.
While you must be well aware of his work & his life, today’s GK Nugget will share some of the lesser known facts about John Lennon.
John Lennon was raised by his Aunt Mimi (Mother’s sister) who was intolerant of his aspirations as a rocker. She famously told him, “The guitar’s all right John, but you’ll never make a living out of it.” John kept in close contact with Mimi, calling her once a week until his death in 1980.
In 1965, Lennon and the other Beatles were made members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. However, Lennon returned his medal in 1969, as a mark of protest.
Lennon and the other Beatles were once detained in West Germany for five hours when their booking agent, Allan Williams, failed to obtain their work permits. They were released after Williams convinced authorities that they were merely students on vacation.
No article about John Lennon and the Beatles would be complete without talking about “Beatlemania”. Stretching from 1963 to about 1966, the phenomenon was a representation of the meteoric rise in the popularity of the band across the globe.
The single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” entered the US charts on 18 January 1964, selling 1.5 million copies in less than three weeks. The great interest in the Beatles brought about a major change in US attitudes to popular music and marked the start of the phenomenon known as the British Invasion.
Incredibly, one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, John Lennon hated his own voice and loved to double-track his records. He would often ask the Beatles producer, George Martin, to cover the sound of his voice.
Lennon was an avid writer of short stories and poetry. He published three books: ‘In His Own Write,’ ‘A Spaniard in the Works,’ and ‘Skywriting by Word Of Mouth,’ which was published posthumously in 1986 and wanted to write a book of children’s stories.
The Beatles had a role in the “devil horns” hand gesture taking off. John Lennon’s cartoon figure on the “Yellow Submarine” cover has his right hand held up in the gesture. This is apparently the first time the symbol was on the cover of an album and is one of the earliest instances associated with a rock band ever.
Lennon moved from London to Manhattan in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by the government to deport him. Some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.
In his later years, Lennon discovered that he was dyslexic, and his eyesight was so poor that, without his glasses, he was legally blind. Perhaps because of this, he never learned to drive.
His life came to a premature end when he was shot dead outside his Manhattan apartment on 8th December 1980. His wife, Yoko Ono, had his remains cremated and fans speculate that some of his ashes were spread at Strawberry Fields, an area of Central Park that Lennon often visited and was posthumously named for his famous Beatles song.
The last picture of John Lennon
By 2012, Lennon’s solo album sales in the United States had exceeded 14 million units. He is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart as a writer, co-writer, or performer. In 2002, Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons and in 2008; Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. In 1987, he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Lennon was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—first in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and again in 1994 as a solo artist
That’s all on this edition. Let me know which is your most favourite song by John Lennon. Until next time.
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