Lennon’s Lasting Legacy
I would feel somewhat remiss if the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s untimely death passed without a thought or two on my end. After all, in highschool I grew my hair long and sported specs to emulate the White Album persona of the late Beatle. As I’ve grown older, a deeper appreciation for the other three members of the fab four has developed. In fact, I must admit, Paul McCartney’s songmanship, his ear for music, and his pop aesthetic surpasses his more rebellious writing partner. I have also come to admire the thoughtful introspection and spiritual acquiescence that the “Dark Horse” of the band, George Harrison, embodies. In addition, over the years, I have come to recognize Ringo Starr as a truly groundbreaking rock drummer, pounding and propelling the music that can only be described as the earliest form of hard rock. The eminence of the Beatles is measured both by the individual vision that each member brought to the group as well as what the four (with help from George Martin) were able to do as a unit. But there is something about Lennon that always resonates at a deeper level than the other three. For all the polished pop of a Hey Jude or Let it Be, give me Happiness is a Warm Gun. In the midst of the squeaky clean early candy coated hits I’ll take Lennon’s dark, cry for Help. For all of the disjointed galloping strangeness of Ringo’s Don’t Pass Me By- give me the lyrical surreality of Come Together or the groundbreaking, dis-understood pastiche that is Revolution 9.Despite the beauty of George Harrison’s later Beatles’ work like Something, I’m still partial to Lennon’s anthemic Imagine. But it’s more than the songs.
It is more than the melodies and wry glimpses toward the camera. I suppose as a person who puts the utmost stock in the creative power of words it is Lennon’s message that resonates. When I say the creative power of words I honestly mean that, like man and woman come together to create a new and individual entity, words (language), strung together with the right friction, create a tangible presence out of that which had previously been mere sounds in cacophonous disarray. Lennon did not create simply little ditties to which we can tap our toes- though that is part of what he did. He expressed what others knew-what settled at the base of the unconscious- but couldn’t conceptualize. As I have grown older I have cared less about his personal life, in fact I find little in it that I would condone. Finding he was a heroin user and an adulterer tarnished his image, in my estimation, long ago. More importantly and more to the point, at some point in everyone’s life, one must be let down by (another JL plea) and cast aside their idol and realize the fallibility that resides within the human form. One must experiment with and create one’s own meaning and purpose. In this context it is quite easy to separate the man from the message. Hell, Lennon was only ten years older than me when he was murdered. He wrote, arguably, all of his best material before the age of 31. For all the violence and turmoil of his existence, shot in cold blood on a cold night, he was a man who called for peace. And isn’t this the measure of an enlightened man? Not the ability to overcome the earthly obstacles but to recognize, firstly, the imperfection in us all, and secondly the potential for perfection, the quest for the ideal. Perhaps his most symbolic act, laying with his wife in an Amsterdam bed, is the memory that we should take with us. It is misguided action that gets the human species in trouble. The quick temper, the volitionless leap into the abyss, as well as the belief that our rationality will always result in what is right. As exiled Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said “first you must learn to still the mind. Then you don’t take action; action takes you.” Lennon showed the world in this one “act,” this peaceful and heavily publicized protest, that it is inaction- meditation, contemplation, listening in order to understand- that charts the progress of mankind. I do not mean progress in terms of high rise buildings and plasma screens. I mean spiritual progress. In this regard, for all the ambivalence his life represented, Lennon’s core message is quite Christ like- the recognition of the imbalance of life and a life’s quest to find the equilibrium.
“Better recognize you’re brother- everyone you meet,” said Lennon in Instant Karma. Perhaps his profundity is in his simplicity. This line is merely the golden rule, that which, regardless of religious, political, or philosophical belief, we are taught at a young age. Perhaps my own attraction to the Lennon legacy, and the reason why his songs have remained so close to my heart is the fact that he was able to plot both the depths of despair and the highest idealism. This is something that we as humans experience everyday. Does it seem contradictory that my favorite Lennon song contains the lyric- “Yes, I’m lonely, wanna die”- yet every time I hear Imagine my eyes mist? This is the genius of Lennon. The one song, Yer Blues, is both an expression of his own deep despondency as well as a satirical dig at the blues genre in general. It is dirty, gritty, Rolling Stones swagger, and made even suicide seem right. The other song is polished, sparse, poignant. In this way Lennon lived the archetype of the artist, patrolling the hinterlands of the frail human psyche and stripping away the vizard of invincibility to reveal the vulnerability inherent in the human condition, while at the same time hoping, having faith in, the possibility of the human spirit. This is something that his partner was unable to do- and that is no dig at McCartney, a brilliant musician and one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. But this is the thing about Lennon that gets me- an average musician, a decent singer, a good song writer- and yet a true visionary, an embodiment of the conflicts and chaos of the human animal.
Rest in Peace
