Trivia / John Lennon

• Billing Displacement: How I Won The War, a 1966 film in which Lennon has a supporting role as Private Gripweed, was marketed with Lennon prominently featured. Roger Ebert noted this in a contemporary review of the film and it remains true in the recent DVD release.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Give Peace a Chance" (1969) or "Instant Karma!" (1970); both were Top 10 hits.
• Chart Displacement: Regarding his chart-toppers, "(Just Like) Starting Over" got there on both sides of the Atlantic, but "Imagine" only peaked in the UK, #3 in the US in spite of being Lennon's best-selling single, and "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" being a #1 in the US was a contrast to not scoring as well overseas (#36 in the UK). Also, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" never entered the Hot 100 because at the time Billboard put Christmas music in a separate chart.
• Christmas Rushed: Double Fantasy was originally conceived as a double album, but John and Yoko eventually opted to put out the songs that were ready as a single album in order to get the record out in time for the 1980 holiday shopping season. The songs left off the album were eventually released, with Lennon's in varying states of completion, on Milk and Honey.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • His highly acclaimed 1970 solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, was the fruit of months spent in "primal scream" therapy, during which he brutally confronted his feelings of Parental Abandonment and disillusionment with his life as a Beatle. Another single from this era, "Cold Turkey," is about his struggle to get over his heroin addiction.
  • To a less dramatic extent, there's also Lennon's earlier Beatles songs, "I'm a Loser" and "Help!", the product of what he later called his "fat Elvis" period, in which he felt depressed, trapped and empty inside after the thrill of Beatlemania had worn off.
  • Some of his later solo albums also reek of unfortunate situations taking their toll on the musician. Mind Games speaks from a time of disillusionment and a nagging threat of deportation^note This is depicted on the album's front cover, John in a field walking away from a prominent, overshadowing Yoko-sunset—representing the powerful impact she had on him. After that is Walls and Bridges, where John does not seem to be much better off for his temporary split from Yoko Ono.
• Creator Recovery: He was entering this when he recorded Double Fantasy in 1980, which was expressing his hopes for the near future before he was tragically murdered only weeks after its release.
• Died During Production: Various remixes, outtakes, and demos of unfinished Lennon recordings have been released, starting with the Milk and Honey album. This included Lennon's fellow Beatles adapting two low-quality Lennon home demos into "new" Beatles songs in 1995, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love."
• He Also Did: Contributed a sketch to the famously ribald show Oh! Calcutta!.
• Referenced by...:
  • Many, many musicians recorded various tributes to Lennon after his murder in December 1980:
    • The surviving members of the Beatles released "All Those Years Ago", billed as a George Harrison solo song, memorializing Lennon and referencing his work both with the band and as a solo artist.
    • Roxy Music recorded and released a Cover Version of "Jealous Guy" as a non-album single memorializing Lennon two months after his murder.
    • Queen's "Life Is Real (Song for Lennon)" is, as the title implies, a tribute to Lennon's memory following his killing two years prior. The band previously performed a Cover Version of "Imagine" on stage the night after he died.
    • Elton John's "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)" is a tribute to Lennon written after his death.
    • Paul Simon's "The Late Great Johnny Ace" connects Lennon's killing to the 1954 suicide of the titular R&B singer and the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. The key thread is that all three deaths were of famous people named John who had bullets put through their bodies.
    • Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour wrote his solo song "Murder" as a reflection on Lennon's slaying.
    • The Cranberries' 1996 song "I Just Shot John Lennon" is about the Beatle's murder.
    • Bob Dylan, a major inspiration for Lennon, wrote "Roll On John" as a way of looking back on his killing over three decades later.
    • Blue Öyster Cult played a live cover of "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" shortly after Lennon was shot. This was released as a bonus track years later.
  • The Mother trilogy of role-playing games is named after Lennon's song of the same name. Series creator Shigesato Itoi grew up without a father, much like Lennon, and was so moved to tears empathizing with Lennon's song that he used it as the namesake for his games.
  • In Forrest Gump, the title character chats with Lennon on The Dick Cavett Show after becoming a famous ping-pong athlete. Gump's conversation with Lennon goes on to inspire the Title Track of Imagine, with Gump's narration contrasting this with the brutality of Lennon's murder.
• What Could Have Been:
  • While in Canada during a Bed-In for Peace, he was asked to play Woodstock and was eager to do so, but he couldn't get back into the U.S. due to immigration problems. Talks also broke down because the festival organizers also only wanted either him alone or the Beatles, and he wanted to perform with the Plastic Ono Band.
  • According to Yoko Ono as recounted in the Keith Badman book The Beatles Off The Record: The Dream Is Over, just days before his death, John had spoken of his plans to return to England and reunite with the other Beatles. Had this happened, it’s not unreasonable to think that the reunified Beatles could have made at least one more album together. The Fab Four were still only in their late thirties or early forties, and presumably could have completely reshaped the upcoming decade music-wise.
  • He was the only one of the Beatles who hadn't appeared As Himself in The Simpsons, having been murdered 9 years before its premiere. One wonders which episodes he would've appeared in.
• Written for My Kids: He wrote "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" for his son Sean.

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