More on Lennon

Dudes, dudes, dudes--it's just an opinion. And PLEASE: sign your comments. Don't make me argue with the aether. (Thank you, Devin. I am chuffed that you, as a true Beatle expert, thought I made some sense.)

I know about and have considered the "phony" aspect of it all--the Esquire article of October 1980 which painted Lennon as a hippie mogul, etc (I would argue that it was Yoko who was interested in accumulating money through slick operating, not Lennon). MDC said at the time he thought Lennon was a "phony," although perhaps a hypocrite is what he was really getting at. And there IS a definite dissonance between the man who sang "Imagine no possessions" and the reality. Lennon was not Gandhi, no matter how hard Lennon, Inc. now attempts to make him so. The approved vision of Lennon is one of right action through consumption, and I don't agree with that.

Not to be provocative, but here's what I'd say in response to Anonymous: my theory was "personal" to whom? John Lennon? Lennon's dead, so he doesn't care. I claim no special insight besides reading and thinking about him. You, I assume, didn't know him, either. And even if you did, so what? The interesting question is: why the hell do either of US care? Because, I would argue, that this stranger created a vision in our heads of real intimacy, of a personal connection with him via the mechanism of mass-media. Which was a fantasy, NOT a reality. Mass media cannot deliver real intimacy, which is by definition a one-to-one thing.

Some people really love Lennon's Beatle persona, of the super-sharp, witty working-class kid made good. (He wasn't exactly working-class, not like George or Ringo, but that's the persona.) Some people really love Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll Rebel persona, the one that Brian Epstein supposedly "tamed" and Paul McCartney supposedly gelded with songs like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." Some people really love the Liberated Soulmate persona, where John and Yoko fused into one person. Some people really love the Political Activist persona. Some people really love the Devoted Father persona. And some people really love the Taken-From-Us-Too-Soon persona; which of course can't be laid at the feet of Lennon, but has the same relationship to the real person as all the other personas do--it ain't it.

Lennon couldn't play these roles without some part of him believing them, at least for a time. But when you add all this up, what do you get? You get a deeply appealing, deeply fractured individual. Someone who--in my opinion--was deeply, desperately attractive to people who did not know him at all, and became much less appealing the closer in you got. Because Lennon was--in my opinion--in a state of psychological crisis for most of his life.

The more you dig at Lennon's character, the more unresolved you find that it is. He was very smart, yes. Also really talented, certainly. But under this, unchanged by success, there is a desperation in his life--first for fame, then for drugs, then for Yoko, then for political relevence, then for perfect parenthood--and always for authenticity. Lennon encouraged MDC to judge him a "phony" because authenticity was the message of his post-Beatles persona. That's why he wasn't Paul McCartney.

Finding out "who you are" is a lifetime project for us all, and the real shame about Lennon's death wasn't that the Beatles didn't get back together (as happy a moment as that might've been) but that John Lennon the person never got a chance to become a true, fully functional adult. He was getting there--you can hear it in his interviews of 1980; there's less boilerplate, and more healthy perspective. But in many ways, he was still struggling with the same stuff he'd been fighting since he picked up a guitar. He was still using drugs. He was still freakishly dependent on Yoko. He was still prone to messianic flights of fancy. Lennon had a long way yet to go, and in my opinion, needed nothing so much as some gut-wrenching, utterly honest, utterly private years with the right kind of therapist. (By the way, I'm more than willing to admit that as usual, what you think of Lennon has more to do with your own beliefs and reality than his. That is what made him iconic--like JFK, for example.)

Lest you think I'm being too hard on the poor fellow, keep in mind that I also believe that Lennon was largely reacting to demands and pressures the scale of which none of us could ever understand. He had messanic tendencies because people treated him like a messiah. He had easy access to sex and drugs and booze and God knows what else from the age of 21 on; any one of those things can warp one's personality, as well as provide an easy escape from psychological problems better faced. Furthermore, I don't think that Lennon avoided the syncophants any more than Elvis did; I suspect he was trapped in the same cycle of using/being used that superfamous people are. AND, until 1966 at least, and maybe a lot longer than that, he was forced to work--and produce creative material--on a killing schedule. So my primary feelings towards Lennon aren't disapproval, but wonder that he held up so well, and respect for the toll all that must've taken on him. And sadness, too, for some of the choices he made.

Some of my sadness is the selfish brand of the fan; I think had he ever gotten enough of the right kind of help, he would've produced even more fantastic music. Whenever he took a step towards mental health--whether through TM or through Janov and primal scream--his work flourished. But most of my sadness is that this person, who I feel no little gratitude towards, thanks to the pleasure the Beatles have given me, died without truly relieving himself of the psychological burdens he obviously labored under. He deserved better than what he gave himself, not because he was special, but because nobody deserves to suffer needlessly. We all make ourselves suffer, and if people studied the life and works of Joe Blow as closely as they do that of John Lennon, they'd see similar--but different--pressures and compromises and pain. So when I think of John Lennon now, the message I get isn't "be a Beatle and make people love you" (the message I got when I was a kid) or the Yoko-approved Prince of Peace piffle that I think Lennon would've snickered at (all the way to the bank and reliquary), but a reinforcement of how important it is to examine yourself courageously, to be humble in the face of your own shortcomings, and for the good of yourself and those you love, work on those shortcomings in an effective way. To live in reality, to accept reality, and (I hope) eventually come to love reality.

Not a bad lesson, I suppose... And as always, it's just my opinion.