But after that, it was regarded a social force to be reckoned with. When the Beatles broke into the popular music scene in the early 60s, singers, actors, and musicians were under the thumb of record, television, and movie companies and their publicists. Entertainers adopted personas that would please their public, even to point of, for instance, agreeing to phony marriages to hide being gay. At first, the Beatles took the advice of their manager Brian Epstein and appeared as four well-dressed young men from Liverpool.
Epstein did successfully convince John to keep his first marriage a secret because fans would be disappointed. Still, he persevered with being who he was, even to the point of writing and singing about sides of himself that were shameful: his excessive drinking, drug use, and violence toward women.
The message of his emotional confessions in music was that he was a human trying to find his way — not a star whose life seemed perfect. Since then, artists, musicians, actors and entertainers have tended to show their fans who they really are — whether we want to know not.
Take the famous Bed-Ins, for instance. Realizing how any major event involving John Lennon became news, he and Yoko decided to use their marriage on March 20, to promote the cause of peace. Naturally, the press would want access to wedding, only the pair went a step further: they invited the world into their bedroom.
At the Amsterdam Hilton, every day between 9 am and 9 pm, March visitors and reporters were welcomed in to their honeymoon suite where they found the couple propped up chastely on the pillows, wearing white pajamas, talking about peace. The effect was disconcerting and provocative.
Had the reporters been duped? Was a young couple on their honeymoon in bed really news? Regardless, the press took the bait and the event was covered world-wide. In May, the couple repeated a Bed-In in Montreal. Yes, John Lennon—the great rock 'n' roll rebel and iconoclast—was once a choir boy and a Boy Scout.
Lennon began his singing career as a choir boy at St. Incredibly, one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music hated his own voice.
Lennon did not like the sound of his voice and loved to double-track his records. He would often ask the band's producer, George Martin, to cover the sound of his voice: "Can't you smother it with tomato ketchup or something? Lennon wrote some of the most indelible pop songs of the 20th century—and he apparently hated every minute of it.
On February 11, , The Beatles spent one very long day recording 10 songs that would appear on their debut album, Please Please Me. While dining with his former producer, George Martin, one night years after the band had split up, Lennon revealed that he'd like to re-record every Beatles song. Completely amazed, Martin asked him , "Even 'Strawberry Fields'? George Harrison was the first Beatle to go vegetarian; according to most sources, he officially became a vegetarian in Paul McCartney joined the "veggie" ranks a few years later.
Ringo became a vegetarian not so much for spiritual reasons, like Paul and George, but because of health problems. Lennon had toyed with vegetarianism in the s, but he always ended up eating meat, one way or another. During his Beatles days, Lennon was a devout Monopoly player. He had his own Monopoly set and often played in his hotel room or on planes.
He liked to stand up when he threw the dice, and he was crazy about the properties Boardwalk and Park Place. He didn't even care if he lost the game, as long as he had Boardwalk and Park Place in his possession. Lennon got his driver's license at the age of 24 on February 15, He was regarded as a terrible driver by all who knew him.
He finally gave up driving after he totaled his Aston-Martin in on a trip to Scotland with his wife, Yoko Ono; his son, Julian; and Kyoko, Ono's daughter. Lennon needed 17 stitches after the accident. When they returned to England, Lennon and Ono mounted the wrecked car on a pillar at their home. From then on, Lennon always used a chauffeur or driver. In , while honeymooning in Paris with Yoko Ono, Lennon began writing a song about the controversy surrounding their recent marriage.
According to Allan Williams , an early manager for The Beatles, Lennon liked to sleep in an old coffin. Williams had an old, abandoned coffin on the premises of his coffee bar, The Jacaranda. As a gag, Lennon would sometimes nap in it. McCartney was visiting Lennon at his New York apartment. Lennon and McCartney almost took a cab to the show as a joke, but decided against it, as they were just too tired. Too bad! It would have been one of the great moments in television history.
Lennon sang lead on a great majority of the early Beatles songs, but Paul McCartney took the lead on their very first one. The lead was originally supposed to be Lennon, but because he had to play the harmonica, the lead was given to McCartney instead.
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