Nina Werlberger Spezialgebiet Englisch 2000/2001 his life music and political awareness John Lennon was known best for his music, but in addition to that he was a philosopher, artist, visionary, social leader and most importantly a common man with a dream. Childhood and Youth (1940 – 1957) John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool in October 1940. The middle name was given to him because of the english Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His mother Julia was married to a british seaman named Alfred Lennon in this time. They were hardly together in the three years of their marriage because he went to India and America a lot. Julia didn’t like her life as a housewife so she had an affair during one of her husbands travels to Africa. She became pregnant again. She got a little girl who she released for adoption one month after birth. She didn’t pay much attenention to her son John. Later, Julia met her second husband and had two girls. John, her first-born child felt exluded from the rest of the family. Consequently, John grew up with his aunt Mimi, who was a very distant and reserved woman. She did not encourage Johns talents when he was young. She wanted him to become something better. Mimi thought her nephew was too good for this profane world. She did not realize that John was very emotional, creative and not conventional. Feelings where almost always forbidden and he really never became her son. Mimi was not amused when she saw John playing in the streets with ordinary working-class children. She and John where middleclass and this social system was quite important in the 50’s. In the end, Mimis endeavours were not rewarded. John was a very patient and orderly child when he was at home, but in school, he was the worst of all the pupils. Not only did he begin prawles and talked back at the teachers without shame, his grades were also low. This bad behaviour depended partly on his eyesight. John was very shortsighted and refused to wear any form of glasses in his growing years. When he went to Querry Bank High School, he was impressed by Rock’nRoll. Particularly the songs from Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Elvis Presley. He formed “The Querrymen”, a Skiffle-band. Skiffle is a very popular combination of Blues, Jazz and american Folk. The songs are very easy to play because the instruments are hand-made tools like wooden harmonicas. In the late 50’s, more than 5000 Skiffle- Bands where known in England. Skiffle was the precursor of the Beat which combined the happy energy of the Skiffle with the floating power of Rock’n Roll. The members of the band often changed because John was too fanatic. In the end, he was never satisfied with the result of the songs. The Querrymen played gigs at marriages, birthdays, church-festivals and school-happenings. One day, John Lennen got to know Paul McCartney who was two years younger. First, John didn’t accept him because of their disparity in age but John was impessed by Paul who was an obsessive musician; Paul had already written songs. John who had obviously been the boss of the band before now had a competitor and rival who was, in regard to music, much better than he was. This was the beginning of their famous friend- and working-relationship. One of their first songs, “Lennon/McCartney” wrote together was the hit “Love Me Do”. George Harrison who was even younger than Paul, played the guitar. Compared to the self- confident Paul, George was quite naïve and childish. “The Querrymen” became “Johnny and the Moondogs”. Art and Music – Liverpool (1957 – 1960) John was such a poor student, he didn’t pass one exam, so obviously did not finish High School. John began his studies at The Art College. His former teacher had noticed his talents and wrote a recommendation to the Academys director. John was quite an outsider there. Most of the others liked Jazz, John hated that style of music and dressed very conservatively. In 1958, Johns mother died from an accident. She was on her way home from visiting Mimi and was runover by a drunken off-duty policeman. John couldn’t believe her death and really started drinking regularly. He became more aggressive and his overall behavior was very rude. Stuart Sutcliffe: Sutcliffe went, as John Lennon did, to The Art College and became very close friends with John. John admired him for his ability to paint and Stu admired John for his ability to create music and a special atmosphere. In 1960 Stu sold one of his paintings for £65.00 and under pressure Sutcliffe went - as John Lennon did - to The Art College and became very close friends with John. John admired him for his ability to paint, and Stu admired John for his music and the ability to create an atmosphere around him. When Stu in 1960 sold one of his paintings for 65 he used the money, under pressure from John, on a Hofner President bass and joined The Quarry Men/Johnny And The Moondogs. (Sutcliffe couldn’t even play the guitar and he was visibly not interested in changing that) Following Buddy Hollys Band “The Crickets” (Die Heuschrecken) John contrived “The Beetles” (Die Käfer). It was Stu who invented the name The Beatles which evolved to The Silver Beetles, The Silver Beatles and finally to The Beatles. Later, Sutcliffe was known as the “5th Beatle”. Cynthia Powell: She was John’s girlfriend and later they got married. They met in 1958 at the Liverpool College of Art. It seems as though the Lennons' romance was an unbalanced one. Right from the beginning, it was Cynthia who was in love with John. She seems to have been aroused by his rebellious quality which was in contrast to her middle class snobiness. She pursued him and eventually won him, but it always appeared that he would cast her aside for things that were more important to him. Her love seems to have blinded her from much of his behavior. Until the very end, she tried to find out “what made him tick”. “The Cavern”: This Jazz-Club became famous because it was the first location the Beatles played in regularly. Hamburg (1960 – 1963) In August 1960, Drummer Pete Best joins the group, now known as simply the Beatles. He accompanies the band to Hamburg where, over five visits between now and December 1962, the group hones its sound at the Indra, Kaiserkeller, Top Ten and Star clubs. Astrid Kirchherr: In 1960, Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles for the first time on their visit to Hamburg. After becoming close friends with this unknown band, she began to do photographic studies of the members she eventually grew to love them. Included were impressive group photographs and individual pictures of The Beatles in their early days The band still included Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe. After falling in love with Astrid, Stuart left the group to follow his dream of becoming an artist. She and her friends are also said to have inspired the famous Beatle mop-top. The time in Hamburg was important for the Beatles’ personal development. All became adults except George who was shipped back to Liverpool for being underage. While the boys where in Germany, Cynthia waited everyday for letters from John. She would sit home in Liverpool, still faithful to John, while John was in Hamburg a different girl almost every week. It was often that one of the boys would get in trouble with a prostitue. They got Horst Fasher, a former German boxer, to take care of these problems and he later became their bodyguard. In Germany they met a performer named Tony Sheridan and together they made a rock and roll version of My Bonnie Lies Over The Sea, which was their first real recording single. The Mersey Beat: Mersey is a river in Liverpool and Beat is Rock-Music of the 60’s. Liverpools fast growing music scene needet to have a platform to present the ideas and musical products that had been developed by a lot of bands from Liverpool. The journal “Mersey Beat” was founded by a british journalist who was a close friend of John Lennon. “Mersey Beat” later was a generic term for a lot of bands from Liverpool. One being “The Swinging Blue Jeans” and they became almost as well-known as The Beatles). More than 350 bands had existed in the Mersey-Area in 1961. John’s short-stories, texts and paintings, which where very original and quite funny, had often been printed. His work was surreal and not just an ordinary copy of the texts of american “Beat-Poets”. First Steps (1961 – 1963) The triumph of The Beatles, which finally solidified its lineup of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr was emblematic of the cultural change that was the '60s. They started off as clean-cut pop stars Though the truth was something a bit more complicated, they grew into increasingly complex artists with far ranging interests in music, art, fashion and helped shape the tastes of a generation. Brian Epstein: Brian Epstein is the man who discovered the Beatles. He guided them to mega- stardom and made them the most successful popular artists of this century. Without Brian, the Beatles as we've come to know them today, simply wouldn't have happened. But the man who did so much for the Beatles, dying tragically in 1967, has become in recent years a comparatively forgotten man.