John Lennon: Man of the Decade (1960's)
Desmond Lewis is a distinguished anthropologist and sociologist whose writings have influenced many generations worldwide. In 1969 he interviewed John Lennon and Yoko Ono shortly before naming Lennon his choice for "Man of the Decade."
Today we draw from "Memories of John Lennon," Edited by Yoko Ono, Harpercollins Publishers, 2005.
We start today with a verbatim quote from Lennon when asked by Lewis in 1969 (with the Vietnam war still raging in Southeast Asia) about whether or not he was optimistic about the future. This quote was made famous by this very interview:
"I can't wait. I'm so glad to be around and it's going to be great and there'll be more and more of us and whatever you're thinking there, Mrs. Grundy of Birmingham-on-Toast, you don't stand a chance. You're not going to be there when we're runnin it, and you're going to like it when you get less frightened of it, and it's going to be wonderful, and I believe it, and of course we all get depressed and down about it, and when I'm down, and Yoko's down, Desmond will be up, or somebody else will be up. There's always somebody carrying the flag and beating the drum, so they - whoever they are - don't stand a chance, because they can't beat love, because all of those bits from religeon about love being all- powerful are true, and that's the bit they can't handle."
John and Yoko, 1969.
In 1969, Lewis was asked by a TV producer who was working on a show about the most influential figure of the 1960's, to take part in it. The show was to be called "Man of the Decade." The idea was to have three people on the panel and each would have 20 minutes to make their case. Alistair Cooke was one and he had chosen John Kennedy. Mary McCarthy was the other panelist and she had chosen Ho Chi Minh. When Lewis was asked, he replied, "The Beatles." He was told that this was not allowed, it had to be just one man. Lewis didn't like the idea of separating out one band member because it was terribly unfair to the other Fabs but with no way out of the dilema, Desmond Lewis chose Lennon because he was the natural rebel in the band.
Part of Desmond Lewis' defense calculus was that Kennedy and Minh had both been involved in a war that had killed tens of thousands of young men to say nothing of all the civilians in Vietnam who were perishing. In the alternative, John Lennon was a creative rebel who had given nothing but pleasure through his band's music to the entire world. Adding to that, Lewis pointed out that Lennon was so much more than just another pop star. Lennon had introduced a whole new social attitude that had truly influenced his entire generation.
As just one example, thanks to Lennon, regional dialects were no longer looked down upon as a hindrance, especially in the class conscious UK where cut-crisp Oxford English had heretofore been the media friendly dialect of choice and favor with the Royals and anybody else in the UK. John changed all that. He made no attempt to tone down his Liverpudian scouse accent, indeed he exaggerated it from time to time and screw anybody who didn't like it. The youth of Great Britain and all other quasi socialist countries just loved him for that.
The television show came to pass. Desmond Lewis got his chance to defend his choice. Here now, the second half of his opening monologue:
" . . . The rebellion of youth in the 1960's is all too often measured in terms of brick-throwing extremists - the pathetic paradox of violent antiviolence - but this is too easy. It is a convenient but gross distortion of what has really been happening in the minds of the younger generation, and it has precious little to do with the great wave of exhileration that started to spread as the Beatle phenomenon began to work it's magic.
The message was simple enough: If you had talent and energy you could beat the system - you could have a ball- and to hell with traditional values and traditional symbols. Ths 60's was the decade in which social foreground became more important that social background."
John and Yoko in Montreal in May, 1969 after their wedding recording "Give Peace a Chance." Can you guess who has their back to us in the photo? Who is the man in profile up front?
Desmond Lewis gives us an interesting summary of John Lennon's complex personality at the end of the article. I'll sum it up here:
There is always the omnipresent contradiction of how a rebellious young lion from Liverpool who stoked the fires of musical imagination where it had never gone before ended up an international campaigner for peace. To grasp the change one has to consider Lennon's inner conflict. Here was an angry young man with a sharp, sarcastic, healthy disrespect for authority who simultaneously also had a sensitive, hugely generous side. He was a confused, rejected child abondoned by his father and mother but shown infinite love and patience by his Aunti Mimi. As an adult, that terrible contrast left him seeking a peace and love he knew existed but that he hadn't found yet. His inhernent distrust of people and cynical attitude had shielded him, for better or worse, his whole life. Thus, incapable of finding inner peace, he looked elsewhere. "Give Peace A Chance" may well have been more than an international anthem; it may also have been a private cry to the endless demons inside himself.
There was no right or wrong answer to "The Man of the Decade" and no winner as such. But it was interesting to see Lennon's name along side Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh and many other names that callers to the show suggested such as Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson.
Needless to say, the peace activism that Lennon spawned in the late 1960's started a huge trend of Pop Stars to get involved and make choices beyond their art just as Lennon did. Bono of U2 is a good current example for it is Lennon that Bono idolizes to this day. As for the two mystery guests in the picture above, the man with his back to us playing guitar is Tommy Smothers. The man in profile is the late, great Dr. Timothy "Drop Acid" Leary. God Bless.
By John Haberstroh (Bassist for BeatleTracks) Find us at www.beatletracksband.com
Today we draw from "Memories of John Lennon," Edited by Yoko Ono, Harpercollins Publishers, 2005.
We start today with a verbatim quote from Lennon when asked by Lewis in 1969 (with the Vietnam war still raging in Southeast Asia) about whether or not he was optimistic about the future. This quote was made famous by this very interview:
"I can't wait. I'm so glad to be around and it's going to be great and there'll be more and more of us and whatever you're thinking there, Mrs. Grundy of Birmingham-on-Toast, you don't stand a chance. You're not going to be there when we're runnin it, and you're going to like it when you get less frightened of it, and it's going to be wonderful, and I believe it, and of course we all get depressed and down about it, and when I'm down, and Yoko's down, Desmond will be up, or somebody else will be up. There's always somebody carrying the flag and beating the drum, so they - whoever they are - don't stand a chance, because they can't beat love, because all of those bits from religeon about love being all- powerful are true, and that's the bit they can't handle."
John and Yoko, 1969. In 1969, Lewis was asked by a TV producer who was working on a show about the most influential figure of the 1960's, to take part in it. The show was to be called "Man of the Decade." The idea was to have three people on the panel and each would have 20 minutes to make their case. Alistair Cooke was one and he had chosen John Kennedy. Mary McCarthy was the other panelist and she had chosen Ho Chi Minh. When Lewis was asked, he replied, "The Beatles." He was told that this was not allowed, it had to be just one man. Lewis didn't like the idea of separating out one band member because it was terribly unfair to the other Fabs but with no way out of the dilema, Desmond Lewis chose Lennon because he was the natural rebel in the band.
Part of Desmond Lewis' defense calculus was that Kennedy and Minh had both been involved in a war that had killed tens of thousands of young men to say nothing of all the civilians in Vietnam who were perishing. In the alternative, John Lennon was a creative rebel who had given nothing but pleasure through his band's music to the entire world. Adding to that, Lewis pointed out that Lennon was so much more than just another pop star. Lennon had introduced a whole new social attitude that had truly influenced his entire generation.
As just one example, thanks to Lennon, regional dialects were no longer looked down upon as a hindrance, especially in the class conscious UK where cut-crisp Oxford English had heretofore been the media friendly dialect of choice and favor with the Royals and anybody else in the UK. John changed all that. He made no attempt to tone down his Liverpudian scouse accent, indeed he exaggerated it from time to time and screw anybody who didn't like it. The youth of Great Britain and all other quasi socialist countries just loved him for that.
The television show came to pass. Desmond Lewis got his chance to defend his choice. Here now, the second half of his opening monologue:
" . . . The rebellion of youth in the 1960's is all too often measured in terms of brick-throwing extremists - the pathetic paradox of violent antiviolence - but this is too easy. It is a convenient but gross distortion of what has really been happening in the minds of the younger generation, and it has precious little to do with the great wave of exhileration that started to spread as the Beatle phenomenon began to work it's magic.
The message was simple enough: If you had talent and energy you could beat the system - you could have a ball- and to hell with traditional values and traditional symbols. Ths 60's was the decade in which social foreground became more important that social background."
John and Yoko in Montreal in May, 1969 after their wedding recording "Give Peace a Chance." Can you guess who has their back to us in the photo? Who is the man in profile up front? Desmond Lewis gives us an interesting summary of John Lennon's complex personality at the end of the article. I'll sum it up here:
There is always the omnipresent contradiction of how a rebellious young lion from Liverpool who stoked the fires of musical imagination where it had never gone before ended up an international campaigner for peace. To grasp the change one has to consider Lennon's inner conflict. Here was an angry young man with a sharp, sarcastic, healthy disrespect for authority who simultaneously also had a sensitive, hugely generous side. He was a confused, rejected child abondoned by his father and mother but shown infinite love and patience by his Aunti Mimi. As an adult, that terrible contrast left him seeking a peace and love he knew existed but that he hadn't found yet. His inhernent distrust of people and cynical attitude had shielded him, for better or worse, his whole life. Thus, incapable of finding inner peace, he looked elsewhere. "Give Peace A Chance" may well have been more than an international anthem; it may also have been a private cry to the endless demons inside himself.
There was no right or wrong answer to "The Man of the Decade" and no winner as such. But it was interesting to see Lennon's name along side Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh and many other names that callers to the show suggested such as Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson.
Needless to say, the peace activism that Lennon spawned in the late 1960's started a huge trend of Pop Stars to get involved and make choices beyond their art just as Lennon did. Bono of U2 is a good current example for it is Lennon that Bono idolizes to this day. As for the two mystery guests in the picture above, the man with his back to us playing guitar is Tommy Smothers. The man in profile is the late, great Dr. Timothy "Drop Acid" Leary. God Bless.
By John Haberstroh (Bassist for BeatleTracks) Find us at www.beatletracksband.com
Comments