Imagine if John Lennon was 65.
In our minds he's still the coolest ex-Beatle. But how would we regard
him if he was still alive? The band's biographer Hunter Davies
speculates.Saturday, 8 October 2005
What would John be doing now, if he were still
with us today? Celebrating his 65th birthday, that's the easy answer.
Whatever his circumstances, I'd like to think he'd give a party similar
to the one in 1967 for Magical Mystery Tour when all the Beatles'
friends and family were invited. It was fancy dress and John turned up
as a greasy rocker with drainpipes, drape jacket, hair in a DA and
brothel creepers - just as he used to be 10 years earlier.
He had such a good time, prancing about, posing and preening. (I went
as a Boy Scout - how pathetic). It was the style and image of himself
John liked to project, the hard man, "who you lookin' at, see you
outside", which of course was laughable.
He'd run a mile at the first hint of trouble. The
difficult answer comes in two parts. Let's say he'd never become a
Beatle, just gone through life as - well, whatever life had thrown at
him. which on all the evidence of his known talents and qualifications
appeared unlikely to lead to very much.
He got
no certificates at school, not even O-level art, much to his fury, and
never passed any of his art college exams. Hard to imagine him getting
any sort of job, however humble, in the art or design world. Apart from
anything else, he was extremely untidy and messy, not that he was
bothered. In art classes, the ones he always despised most were "the
neat fuckers".
If not art, music? Again, he was
never, on his own, looked upon as anything special as a guitarist, nor
even as a singer. He was hardly any better than the five other original
members of his first group, the Quarrymen - none of whom ended up as
musicians. (One went to Cambridge and now works part-time as a lecturer
in tourism, one became an upholsterer, another a care worker, one
opened a little chain of dry cleaners, the other became a millionaire
after building up a chain of steak houses.)
The
arrival of Paul was the vital spark, igniting something that had not
previously been apparent. But without the miracle of the Beatles, what
would John have done? Paul, no question, would and could have made a
living as a musician, being by far the more naturally talented. Music
flowed from Paul. With John, it needed forcing out of him.
Failing
a career as a musician, Paul would have gone to college, stuck in and
passed his exams, and become a teacher. (Which, in a way, he has, the
Mr Chips of popular music.) John, from all we know of his character at
that time and later, would not have stuck at anything. He would have
bummed about, fallen out with all his employers, chopped and changed,
becoming a rolling stone, small letters please.
When
I was doing my biography of the Beatles in 1967, I was desperate to
track down Fred Lennon, John's father. He had abandoned John when he
was very little and never reappeared, until one day in 1964 he happened
to read that John was now something called a Beatle, and incredibly
rich.
Here's a few bob, he thought. All he got
was the bum's rush, then he disappeared. I finally tracked him down to
a roadside hotel at Hampton Court, not far from where John was then
living in Weybridge. He was working as a dish washer. I got his version
of his life story, and why he had left John, which of course was
invaluable to me whether it was all true or not. He also gave me a snap
of himself, taken on board ship in prison uniform. (Something to do
with a missing bottle of whisky, not his fault of course). The likeness
to John was eerie, giving clues to the John to come.
I
told John all about Fred, his version of events, and he agreed to meet
him secretly. John didn't want his Aunt Mimi, who'd brought him up, to
find out. She would have been furious. John gave Fred quite a bit of
money, enough for him to get new teeth, move into a flat with a
19-year-old girl, marry her, have a son. John thought it was hysterical.
"If
it hadn't been for the Beatles," John told me, "I would probably have
ended up like Freddie." But he didn't. He ended up rich and famous and
married to Yoko. Would that be the position today?
Still
rich and famous, certainly, as even John at his wildest could not have
spent all the monies which have since flooded in. The further we get
from the Beatles, the greater their importance and influence has
become. But it's often forgotten now that at the time of John's murder
in 1980, he had become a bit of a joke figure.
He'd
disappeared somewhere in America, something of a recluse, with that
funny, dopey woman, doing silly dopey things, taking lots of drugs, not
having produced anything for years, what a shame, what a waste. His
sudden, tragic death catapulted him back into our consciousness - and
to the reality of what he had given us.
So,
mega-rich still, awfully famous but I doubt if he'd still be with Yoko.
He'd already have gone off with someone else, fixed up by Yoko, with
her blessing.
Would Yoko have been so wise,
compliant or just cunning again? And again and again? Unlikely. I think
there would have been several more partners, probably wives, as he was
daft enough, and romantic enough not to worry about the financial
consequences. Like Freddie, there would have been a 19-year-old Thai
bride, or similar, plus more children.
No
affairs with blokes, though. Suggestions of homosexuality, which still
get aired, are cobblers. It is true that after the birth of his son
Julian he left his wife Cynthia and went off with Brian Epstein for a
twosome holiday in Spain. Something did happen between them, so John
told me. He could of course have been lying, saying it for effect.
Whatever it was - possibly little more than mutual masturbation - John
would have tried it once, for a laugh, to see what it was like.
Politically,
if with us today, he would have been on all the anti-Iraq marches. He'd
have appeared naked in the Trafalgar Square rally, burst into George
Bush's bedroom and set fire to his stetsons, broken into 10 Downing
Street and smashed all Tony's guitars. For peace and love of course.
He
also had eccentric causes he supported. This weekend, Mr Wolfgang, who
shouted "Nonsense!" at the Labour conference, would be living it up in
New York at John's apartment, having been flown out on his private jet,
plied with champagne, endless spliffs, whatever he requested. John
would now be buying him a house in Westminster - handy for heckling
Parliament.
I don't think he would have
supported Live Aid. Too slick, too successful, too glib. And I bet he
would have turned down a knighthood, just to taunt Paul and Mick. But
he might have stood for Parliament, on the Save the Tortoise ticket.
And got in.
I think he'd still be living in his
vast Dakota apartment in New York. People of his age, and musical
interests, grew up loving America. But he would be growing homesick.
At
the height of Beatlemania, the Beatles had no interest in the Beatles,
where they'd come from, how they'd got here. They were only interested
in today and, even more so, tomorrow, with its promise of new
sensations.
I noticed with Paul and George that
it took them till their fifties to realise something unusual had
happened to them when they were young, which obviously wasn't going to
happen again.
They began, often secretly, using
other people as front men, to acquire items about themselves. It
happens to us all, with age. The past gets more interesting and somehow
clearer. Before John's death, that process had begun, asking Aunt Mimi
to send over his old school drawings and tie.
I
think that nostalgia could have continued. By now, he'd have bought a
place in Liverpool. Not out in the Wirral, like Paul but a large semi
with pebble-dashed walls and stained-glass doors in Woolton, using it
as a holiday home, dangling his grandchildren on his knee, taking them
for walks to Strawberry Fields, telling them about his childhood. He
would be nice to Cynthia, and Julian, making amends, seeing them all
right.
Paul has backed a musical college in
Liverpool. John would have bought and funded his own art college in
Liverpool, where there would be no exams and all the students had to
produce were cartoons. It would now be world famous.
Two
little memories of John keep coming back. While on the book, I wrote
the obituary for The Times of Brian Epstein. The paper then asked me to
do all four Beatles. I told them about it later, that it was standard
practice, to have in the vaults basic biogs of well-known people. They
would not be used for years or, in their case, being so young, for
decades and decades. They all frowned, made faces. Only John asked to
read his, which of course turned out to be the first to appear.
Another
time I had gone to his home, by arrangement, on a day he had then
decided not to talk. We had lunch, not talking. Watched children's TV,
not talking. Had a swim in his pool, each of us going round and round,
in silence. As we swam we heard something from down the hillside
towards Weybridge. It was the sound of a police siren giving that
familiar wailing. John picked up the rhythm and played with it. Back in
the house he continued humming, creating a tune out of nothing.
It
didn't appear on any record, for a long time. John always had lots of
half tunes which never got finished. Then, on Let it Be, I could hear
it clearly in "Across the Universe".
Happy Birthday, John, wherever you are. Hope you are still picking up the tunes.
Hunter Davies's The Beatles, the only authorised biography, is available from Cassells for £15.