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Philip Watson

Appreciation of World and Western Music

Musical Heritage Paper: John Lennon

October 19, 2012

Peaceful Soul: John Lennon

Part I: Early Life

John Lennon once said “You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are or what you are,

you are what you are,” throughout this this paper I will explore topics that pull together my

musical heritage. Choosing an artist for this project proved harder done than said, while my

listening preferences are not that of the artist I chose I did this to broaden my horizons. Learning

more about John Lennon I made many connections to his life, peaking my interest and helping

me to appreciate his genre of music.

Pennock Hospital in Hastings, Michigan is where my story starts; I was brought into this

world on sunny June 2, 1990. Sunny may be a bit of a stretch as the day I was born there was a

tornado outbreak across parts of the Midwest and Ohio River Valley. These tornadoes were a

perfect way for me to arrive, shake the earth, show them my presence. During the first few years

of my life I am told that I enjoyed the song ‘You are my Sunshine,’ when it was sung to me I

would light up. Nurturing was a gene that my parents were not born with, so I attribute the like

for this song to the attention that came with it.

From what I recall the younger years of my life were pretty normal. I was the youngest

child, and by far the shyest. My mother stayed at home with me and my next eldest sister, caring

for us. Living in the country limited the interactions I had with other children my age, so I was

very particular to socializing once school started. When I went to the area elementary school to

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be tested if I was ready for kindergarten, I struggled with the tests as my mother had failed to

teach me very much. Though I struggled and the administrators suggested I be put in a head

start program I was ultimately allowed to begin school as my age was too high to be in a

preschool.

The first day of school I was scared beyond belief, I had never been left any place other

than my grandmother’s house. My teacher, Ms. Austin had curly scary hair that made me want

to run away instantly, though she did turn out to be a nice person. Once I started school my

mother got a job as a waitress thus forcing me to need a babysitter for the mornings before

school. Mrs. Kunciatis became my babysitter, she had a son in my class who I did not get along

with, but we soon became friends talking over GI Joes.

In class we sang many songs to help us remember things such as the alphabet and

counting. Whenever I sang my alphabet I would slur together many of the letter such as L-M-N-

O-P, my mother would make me stop and redo it until I got it right. This annoyed me so much, I

had such a hard time getting it right I would have to repeat it a million times. In all I was not a

fan of the music selection in my early years in school. The only music I enjoyed when I was

young was from Veggie Tales, watching them was always a treat provided by grandma, as my

mother was not one to allow us to watch television.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool England. His name was

derived from his grandfather John while the Winston part was pulled from the then Prime

Minister Winston Chruchill. John’s father was absent for much of his younger years, when he

finally returned his mother had moved on and was impregnated with another man’s child. Soon

after this the care of young John was handed over to his mother’s sister, Mimi. When John was

five years old his father visited him and intended to secretly leave the country with him. This

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plan was squashed by his mother, arguing for her son back. This caused John’s father to force

the young child to choose between his parents, at first he chose his father but watching his

mother walk away was too much for him and he followed her. After this traumatic event John

did not see his father again for quite some time.

Growing up in a divorced home shared a similar dynamic to what Lennon had to go

through. While Lennon was forced to choose between father and mother at the age of five, my

sister and I were thrown through custody battles. At the end of kindergarten my mom decided to

leave my dad, this was not shocking as she had tried many times before to leave him but always

ended up coming back. This time though, it was different, she made us hide out at a family

friend’s house and we were not allowed to talk or see our father. The first house she was able to

afford was a trailer in the worst park in town. Finally we got to see our dad again, mandated by

the police, he was fighting to see us.

While my parents were together, Catholicism was a big part of our life, I attended Sunday

school while my older sister had just had her first communion. My mother volunteered at our

church, St. Paius, where we went with the majority of my father’s side of family. During

services here music was a big part of learning, I specifically remember singing ‘This Little Light

of Mine,’ every Sunday, church songs became my favorite music. After my parents separated,

neither of them took us to church anymore, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t see my friends or

teachers. Occasionally I would still sing the songs I learned there, but slowly they started to fade

from my memory and then they were gone all together.

Through my elementary years I enjoyed the music that was played on the radio. The first

concert I attended was quite an event for me as I had been dying to go to a concert for a long

time. This band had come into my horizon not to long before seeing them play live, but upon

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hearing them for the first time I was hooked. They had such an interesting sound, you could

distinguish a string instrument but they also had a rock element that made me want to head bang

with some songs. Skillet is their name, and I had become infatuated with their music overnight.

My dad knew that I loved them, and being the music junkie that he was he bought me tickets to

go see them for my birthday. The eve of the big day I could not sleep, all I could think about

was seeing them the next day, hoping they would see me in the crowd, pull me up on stage and

let me jam with them.

Once we arrived at the concert I could hardly stay in my seat, I was so excited. While

we had to wait quite a while for the band to actually come out, there were some stellar opening

acts that fueled my rock and roll love. When Skillet finally took the stage, I ran out of my seat

and was jumping up with the rest of their screaming fans pawing at them. As I watched the

guitarist’s fingers move so quickly and heard the beats he produced I felt this urge to learn his

craft. Also, watching how the girls fawned over him as if he were dropped down from heaven

made me want to learn it even more. It was decided, I would learn to play guitar.

Part II: Rebellion

John has been called a loud mouthed poet and musician, trying to tear down families with

values. He commented on this confirming its truth, that he tried to disrupt all of his friend’s

families simply out of envy. In my own broken home I felt this feeling of envy many times

throughout my life, none were more evident than sleepovers at friend’s houses.

My friend Derek invited me over for a night of video games and mischief when we were

in the eighth grade, to any other kid this sounds very normal, but to me I was very nervous.

Derek came from a very Christian based family that was big on morals, going to his house meant

seeing everything I had never had. His mother made us snacks and kept checking on us to see

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how we were doing, something I had never been accustomed to. Later that night I asked Derek

why his mom kept checking on us, thinking that she just didn’t like me or trust me. My

speculations were not true though, Derek’s mom was just a nice parent who likes to be involved

in her child’s life.

While playing video games Derek’s mom came down again and told us our ‘screen time’

was up and we had to find something else to do, Derek sighed and said alright to his mom. I

asked him what she meant, he looked at me and said that he only has a certain amount of time he

is allowed to play video games each day. This seemed odd to me, so I asked him some of his

other rules. He told me he was not allowed to be out past nine, couldn’t listen to ‘naughty’

music as he called it, had to attend a bible study and couldn’t be online without supervision.

When I was that age I thought those rules were awful, I felt bad for him, but after maturing I

wish my parents would have set rules like that for me, I wish I would have had boundaries.

We then decided to listen to music and play cards, I had brought some of my CD’s to

listen to, but he wasn’t allowed to listen to most of my music. At that time I was really into punk

music, some of my favorite bands were Blink 182, AFI, Atticus, and My Chemical Romance.

Derek’s mom politely asked that we do not listen to the CD’s that I brought as he had not pre-

approved the content. Derek was bummed that he couldn’t listen to the music that most of the

other kids at school were listening to. In a way Derek’s household was everything I didn’t have

growing up, while he strived for freedom I was striving for rules.

The next day was Sunday, his family attended a church in our small town, as I spent the

night I attended with them. This church was vastly different than any church I had ever been to.

Upon arriving every was polite and smiling, then everyone stood up and began rocking out. I

had never seen such a worship band, the lyrics were up on screen so everyone could sing along,

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the church was full of the glorious music. While everyone was singing, I paid attention to the

guitarist in the band, he was so full of life, so free in what he was doing, it was obvious he was

the leader of the band. After the service was done I made a point to ask Derek about the

guitarist, Derek introduced me to Dete and soon I would be taking lesson from him.

Dete was a great guy, he was funny when he wanted to be and serious when he needed to

be. Working with him I had lessons every Friday with a couple of other kids my age, he even let

me borrow one of his acoustic guitars. Learning guitar was fascinating to me, I practiced very

hard and wanted to be a professional when I grew up. My parents, well mostly my mom did not

think much of my guitar playing, mostly she hated the ‘awful noise’ as she so nicely put it, while

I was in my learning stages.

Lennon received his first guitar from his mother in 1956, while his Aunt Mimi didn’t

think much of his music. Mimi hoped that John might get over his love of music and move on to

something else. John though was certain that he would be famous someday. The same year that

he received the guitar from his mother John formed a band called the Blackjacks, consisting of

John and a few school friends. Julia Lennon, his mother, taught John to play the banjo which

they translated into playing the guitar as they tuned them in a similar fashion to the banjo. The

Blackjacks changed their name before any formal performances, they were now called the

Quarrymen, they played parties, dances, and cinemas. Paul McCartney joined the band in 1957,

and George Harrison joined in 1958, though Lennon was not fully on board for Harrison joined

as he believed that he was too young at the tender age of 14.

This same year, only two years after buying John his first guitar John’s mother was hit by

a car and killed, John was just a boy at 17 year of age. This event greatly impacted John, he

went on to fail all of his examinations and only be accepted into the Liverpool College of Art.

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In school John was considered something of a clown, as he received horrible grades and

often disrupted classes. One particular prank stands out as very vile in my eyes, John being the

clown that he was, sat on nude model’s lap during a live drawing session. John continued to do

poorly in his classes throughout school and finally failed his final exam thus getting him thrown

out of school before his last year.

While I was in school I felt invisible, not a class clown, not a star football player, just

blending into the rest of the pack. Freshman year I had my first girlfriend, Anna, in terms of

relationships, this was a mess. As most freshman do, we continually broke up and got back

together in a sea of fighting. During this time music became an outlet, I could be fighting with

Anna over the stupidest things but come back to my iPod and everything would fade away.

Being with Anna we had a distinct group of friends, most of them listened to heavy metal and

hard core music, thus introducing me to this kind of music. During this times I listened to a lot

of Black Dahlia Murder, Lamb of God, Metallica, AC/DC and other band in this same genre.

This kind of music was not personally my favorite music, but to keep up reputation as a slightly

gothic member of our group I had to listen to this style.

On the academic side of school I managed to achieve fairly good marks, though I did

slack off on homework most of the time. One class that struck my interest was geometry in my

sophomore year of high school. The teacher in this class, Scheirbeek was by far the best teacher I

had ever had, he really cared about his students understanding the material, and also tried to help

us relate it to our outside of school lives. To me this meant he tried to help me relate geometry to

music, each equation was like bar of music, figuring out the time signature tune a right tempo.

While I am not going to be a mathematician anytime soon he helped me to discover that I wanted

to be a mechanical engineer.

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Anna and I broke up during my sophomore year of high school, this was devastating to

me, I was under the impression that we were made for each other. Looking back on the

relationship now I know that at the level of maturity we were at and the amount of fights we had

we should not have been dating in the first place. Being broken hearted and angry at Anna I

turned to music as my outlet, constantly playing my guitar and always having headphones on.

Myspace was a new webpage, after a break up it was hard to look at Anna’s profile, she updated

it only a few days later with a picture of her with another guy, this made it seem even more real,

I was furious. Through this healing process my music became louder, more heavy metal and

more scream-o.

After John’s mother passed away he lost interest in the Quarrymen for a few months as

dealing with the grief he was feeling. Once back in the swing of the band though, they were in

search of new name once again, they tried out the Silver Beatles and a few other variations but

ultimately ended with the Beatles. The band booked a residency in Germany, while Aunt Mimi

pleaded with John to continue his studies he made the choice to go with his band. While playing

many residencies John was introduced to many drugs such as amphetamines that helped him stay

awake during late night performances.

A few months after the break up Derek asked me if I would go to a Christian teen

weekend called Teens Encountering Christ. At first I was spectacle, but ultimately agreed to go.

This one event further changed my listening for the next few years, I developed a relationship

with Christ during this weekend. Having a relationship with Christ grabs your life and fully

changes it, no longer did I enjoy the heavy metal vile music of my past. Now I was enjoying

Christian based music but still enjoying the more heavy metal types.

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In summer 2008 I was invited to go on a trip to a Christian music festival called

Cornerstone. I was invited by my friend Zac to go with this church’s youth group, I wasn’t sure

I should go as I didn’t know many of the people going but ultimately decided on going. We

drove five hours south, upon arrival we set up our tents and began exploring the huge fair

grounds. There were these small campsites with bands trying to make it playing just on the

grass, they were called generator stages and they were scattered everywhere. The first band we

saw, La Dispute, was one our leader’s brother’s band, they were amazing. Now I had heard La

Dispute before, but never in person, they were a scream-o band, they knew how to control the

stage and the presence they brought just made it fulfilling. We were volunteering for the festival

so we got to be backstage security for smaller band, one of them Capital Lights was a new kind

of Christian rock, they brought kind of a pop sounds to it.

When I got home from the festival I looked up Capital Lights and downloaded their

current album. Within the week I had downloaded it I knew every word to every song they had

and frequently checked their website for tour dates close to my house. I had entered my pop era,

I enjoyed the music that was on the popular radio station for the first time in a long time. The

major influence in my music taste at this time was happiness, I was over breaking up with Anna

and found God, I was blissful.

John Lennon and the Beatles became the most proclaimed music act in all of musical

history. Achieving this was not without trials and tribulations, as many of the members

struggled with drugs and alcohol abuse, Lennon included. The drop of their album, Please

Please Me, had many singles hit the number one spot. Beatlemania hit the world as they

embarked on their first nationwide tour in 1963, they were not front stars but took over the show

in the end taking the light from American acts such as Tommy Roe. With all the attention from

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the press the members of the Beatles did not react as many other bands did at the time, they

appeared to not care, something that sparked more intrigue.

The Beatles ruled the world with such iconic songs as Help, Yesterday, and Yellow

Submarine. These songs were written in a partnership of Lennon and McCartney, over the years

their songs grew up with them. Music that was produced during the early years of the Beatles

shows where they were in their lives then, the sounds, wonders of the world, and images that

took their minds and souls at that young age. As they matured together their songs started to

show more depth.

In 1966 many controversies surrounded the Beatles and specifically John. First, the

album Yesterday and Today came out with a cover that had tremendous backlash. The cover

featured all the members in butcher outfits with raw meat and mutilated baby dolls. John started

quite a huge controversy in making this statement, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and

shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than

Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright but his

disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." The Vatican issued a

protest and bans were issued against their music. It was apparent that Lennon did not care that

what he said bothered many people as he apologized by saying, , "If you want me to apologise,

if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry."

As the Beatles were getting ready for their next tour they started to think about their

current shows. Shows had become so loud with fans that hearing themselves play was hard, they

were becoming increasingly bored with the performances. Finally they realized that their shows

were no longer about the music for them, they were simply putting on the shows for the fans.

John particularly was not alright with this, his life had always been about the music, it had been

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his refuge in hard times after his mother passed away , it seemed what he loved had been

commercialized.

The Beatles decided that this would be their last tour as a band. This sparked some

feuding between Lennon and McCartney as McCartney made it public that he was leaving the

band when he released his solo album early in 1970, even though they had said they would not

inform the media. Lennon reacted to McCartney’s solo album harshly stating that he had formed

and disbanded the band but McCartney was taking the credit for it. After the band broke up

John went through therapy to help him deal with the emotional damage left over from his

childhood. He released a very emotional first solo album that was met with great reviews and

praises, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Imagine was John’s next album, while it was met with

not as great reviews, John was still perceived as a great musician. The single from this album,

also named Imagine is John’s most famous post break up track.

Part III: Current

Coming out of high school I had not properly prepared for a four year university so I

embarked to the local community college to take mechanical engineering classes. Once I started

in college I heard so many different types of music that my small town ears had not yet been

exposed to. Eminem and rap became a big front in my life while I was a freshman, his words

strewn together so nicely with just a touch of rebellion helped me figure out who I really was. I

was not raised in a church attending Christian house, it was hard for me to go to church as the

rest of my family did not attend, I needed to find myself through Christ on my own, without the

pressure of a teen weekend.

John did not always succeed in his musical attempts but he did leave his mark on the

industry both in the Beatles and on his own. One song of his that almost had him deported for

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antiwar propaganda, Happy Xmas (War is Over), shows that he had no fear in showing the world

who he was and what he believed. His famous feud with Paul McCartney was showed in several

songs, John’s blunt honesty is refreshing. On December 8, 1980 John was shot four times in his

back by a stranger to him Mark Chapman. There was no funeral for John, on the words of his

wife Ono, “ John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him.” Overall

John’s life had many musical and spiritual events in it that made him one of the greatest musical

performers of all time.

While I was finding myself through school I was developing a new taste in music. One

of my new college friends introduced me to Bullet for my Valentine, soon they became and still

are my favorite band. Currently the biggest influence on my musically listening is my friends

and girlfriend, Julie. Julie, plays violin and has a vast love in all things music, her inspiration

and love of music has helped me to appreciate more genres. Also, I have continued to enjoy

Bullet for my Valentine and try to see them whenever possible. In the future I hope to still be

listening to rock and roll and never be one of those old people who need kid to turn their music

down. My dad listens to jazz on vinyl, to me this would be torture, while listening to vinyl does

produce an amazing sound, listening to jazz just bores me. Altogether, my musical heritage is

vast and complex, I have matured as a listener and I hope to continue to mature.

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Reference

Norman, Philip. John Lennon: The Life. Kindle ed. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2009. Web. 12

Sept. 2012. <http://www.amazon.com/John-Lennon-The-Life-

ebook/dp/B001FA0T78/ref=sr_1_22?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1347465441&sr=1-22>.