October 9th, 1940 - December 8th, 1980
My personal solo song of his is Instant Karma, the energy of the song is powerful and the lyrics are undeniably true.
I have been criticized for my idealistic perspective on the hippy movement of the 60's and my adoration for people like John Lennon simply because I was not there and did not experience it first hand. As if I'm some kind of poser for having respect for an era. Shame on you criticizers, for without that period in American history in which great social change was beginning to take it's first deep deep breathes, I'd be willing to wager that life would look very differently to my own generation. The simple concepts of peace, loving one another, unity, tolerance....those are NOT flakey theories to have and I wouldn't apologize for believing in them if you asked me to. The argument is that flower children were lazy, tuning out, doing too many drugs, taking things too far. Of course they took it too far, a certain group in every generation and every culture always does, it's part of human nature to visit extremes on all ends. This fact doesn't negate the effects of a time period that to me, signifies a profound ideological shift in the American social structure.
People like John Lennon gave people hope and permission to dream and a creative outlet to explore and release. It saddens my heart that he is gone already, but what he did while he was here was beautiful to me in that iconic way that only people like him achieve. He's not such a bad guy to have your list of conceptual hero's.
Peace :)
1 comment:
I don't think anyone faults you for having the viewpoint of love and peace - but I can identify with being in the position of constantly being judged by a conservative person and it isn't fun.
I think that taking an overly-judgmental position in ANY direction (be it peaceful or non, conservative or liberal,) limits society as a whole. The 60's dealt in extremes, on so many levels - and each generation has impact on the next.
People tend to associate "Peace and Love" with the 60's - but there was more political, racial and economical conflict going on in that era than almost any other in US history.
John Lennon was an incredible creative force in our history, however I'd say that George Harrison was the true peaceful and spiritual "leader" of the Beatles.
;)
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