John Lennon, MBE

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was a singer, songwriter and peace activist. He first achieved world fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the 1960s phenomenon, the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. He formed his first band in September 1956, called the Quarrymen, who were named after Quarry Bank High School. By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a spirited set of songs made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll.

When I was about 12, I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody’s noticed. If there is such a thing as a genius…I am one, and if there isn’t, I don’t care.

He first met Paul McCartney at the band's second performance, which was held in Woolton on 6 July at the St Peter's Church garden fête. Lennon then asked McCartney to join the band.

The Beatles received recognition from the British establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Starting in 1967, Lennon's lyrics began to espouse a pacifist message, and some of his songs were soon adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture.

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.

Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969 and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called Bag One depicting scenes from their honeymoon.

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.

It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love.

His creative focus continued to move beyond the Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three experimental music albums together: Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgin, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. 

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

In 1969, they formed the Plastic Ono Band and released the singles Give Peace a Chance, which was widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam War anthem, Cold Turkey, which documented his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin and Instant Karma!

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace. 

Lennon was known for the rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. After moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year attempt by the Nixon administration to deport him.

In 1975, Lennon disengaged from the music business to raise his infant son Sean and in 1980, he returned with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. 

He was shot and killed in the archway of his Manhattan apartment building three weeks after the album's release.

I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car, and into another.

In 1987, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Lennon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994.

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. Interestingly, Lennon was the first person to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. 

By 2018, Lennon's solo equivalent album sales had exceeded 72 million units worldwide.

You’re all geniuses, and you’re all beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are.

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