I'm afraid I've always been tone deaf to the John Lennon phenomenon. Seventy today, had he lived. Here
Yes, he wrote a few good pop songs in the 1960s, but exactly why he has been such an cultural influence completely escapes me. Perhaps I'm just a couple of years too young to get it.
O.K. the tragic, untimely death - but, then, that's true of Glenn Miller -who didn't think he was more popular than Jesus.
As for 'Imagine' it has to be one of the most dishonest songs ever written.
"Imagine there's no heaven."
Yes - Hitler, Stalin, Mao et al did just that...
But then Lennon knew, or he should have done if he were all he is cracked up to be...
I never understood the Beetles phenomenon; give me Glen Miller any day. Clicking on yesterday's 'Google' logo my wife exclaimed, "What do they mean John Lennon is 70 today, he's been dead for years?"
ReplyDeleteNote too, 'dead', not gone on, passed away, left his loved ones to meet later, etc, etc.
There must be a song there somewhere.
Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYes, Glenn Miller, RIP. (To be fair, he wasn't murdered, a true part of Lennon's legend.)
I like much of the Beatles' music, partly out of nostalgia for the culture they helped destroy, and I don't know why or how they did, and partly romantic anglophilia (the Victorian whimsy of 'Sgt Pepper').
Talented but an instrument of great evil (again I don't know how or why), obvious by the time Lennon wrote 'Imagine', a truly wicked song partly because it's beautiful music.
(Once stood 20 feet from Paul McCartney in concert: charming and talented.)
God have mercy on him.
Thank you. I agree totally: his murder probably explains the enduring legend more than anything else.
ReplyDelete'Imagine' does sound beautiful, but more perhaps in the way of the sirens luring us to our death than that of the song of the angelic choirs!
But yes: God have mercy.