John Lennon Reality,’ He Sang in a Still, Small Voice on Been the Enemy of Pretence

ICON OF THE MONTH or some, afterlife begins at 40. In knows what else, did not lessen his cannabis, acid and heroin flexed and Fthe final years before he died, John desire to be real. He believed in a twisted into a dozen contradictory Lennon was a fading star: eccentric, hundred and one different things, but shapes – to all of which his songwriting reclusive, his talent and his passion he was always a believer in truth. gave a voice. apparently burnt out as he devoted Not that the truth of him was ever Perhaps this is one reason for his himself to making bread in the easy to get at. The other dead gods of enduring popularity: there is a Lennon luxurious home he shared with his popular culture – Marilyn, Jimi, Elvis, for every taste. When Liam Gallagher dominant wife and cute little son. He prostrated himself on stage before a no longer seemed even vaguely hip. vast back-projection of him a few years His murder (some called it an ago, the question that springs to mind assassination) changed all that. His is not so much ‘Why?’ as ‘Which?’ death at the hands of a disillusioned Was it the man who wrote ‘Girl’ or fan transmuted even the base metal of the one who wrote ‘God’? The poet, Double Fantasy , his final collaboration the peacenik or the wit, the cynic or the with Yoko Ono, into platinum. sentimentalist, the idealist, the realist, Instant karma finally got him. the surrealist, the lover of the Goons or Weeping crowds kept vigil in Central the lover of Yoko, the drunk or the Park, burning candles in devotion to a health freak, the innocent or the bully, man who had always rejected such the Liverpudlian, the New Yorker or adulation. Everyone covered his songs. the ambassador of Nutopia? Was it Roxy Music covered ‘Jealous Guy’ with the Walrus or Dr Winston O’Boogie? sugar and got to number one. Pop culture has produced other B The iconoclast who had demolished O quick-change artists, from David Bowie B his own myth as enthusiastically as G to Madonna, but with Lennon each R U anyone else’s was suddenly turned back E mutation was real: not a manipulation into an icon. The words on the frame N of image but an expression of himself. declared that he gave his life for the The most powerful lines he wrote cause of peace, love and domestic bliss. Icon of the Month were generally the most personal. ‘I just It was all so much bullshit – and the believe in me/Yoko and me/That’s irony was that Lennon had always No 31: John Lennon reality,’ he sang in a still, small voice on been the enemy of pretence. For all his the untitled Plastic Ono Band album. espousal of love in the Sixties and peace Diana – have all become so familiar to We may say we believe in something in the Seventies, the principle he really us: we know them by their first names rather bigger, but faith without honesty stood for was truth. and a handful of ‘typical’ images. is a fraud. In the end, his big statements The fact that he pursued it down so Lennon remains a stranger, elusive for about love and peace have passed many dead ends, from rock’n’roll to all his honesty. away; but Lennon’s commitment to LSD to Transcendental Meditation to He had a complex personality, that truth abides, an inspiration and a the avant-garde to heroin to primal early bereavement, unprecedented fame challenge in a resolutely superficial screaming to radical politics to who and huge quantities of alcohol, speed, world. Huw Spanner.

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