10/9/40
Let's speak today of pretty things. Of good, and peace, and love. It is John Lennon's 70th birthday after all. John could have spent a life in Key West with Yoko and Sean, and walked out to the mailbox every afternoon and picked up his royalty checks. I would have.
John risked everything, all the time, for an end to war (WAR IS OVER...IF YOU WANT IT) and a start to peace. He was willing to play the fool to some, if it meant gathering steam for a world based on a Lennon model rather than what all the rest of us expected, to throw up our hands, and just give into...war. He would do anything to focus our minds on peace. Too many of us grooved just on the music. Unless we listened to Professor Lennon talk.
Meeting the world from bed, taking up with that woman, fighting the United States government to stay in the country and winning was what John wanted to do in the 70's. And, boy, did we need a John Lennon. Music? Ok, the contract calls for this and that and "here it is...sorry its not the best it could be, but I was in bed for peace"!
The Beatles, of course changed everything, sometimes for the better (mostly) sometimes for the lesser (everything prior to 1964 suddenly disappeared). The four of them, as a group, were together less than eight years. And then they scattered to the edges of music and the world, never to be whole again.
John came out ok. It wasn't as good, but it was John Lennon. He put out a few great albums, a few stinkers, and lost his way, some, while away from Yoko. But his voice, not the yeah yeah yeah, but the "Give Peace A Chance" voice put him in the cross hairs of the Nixon Administration to"get this beatnik out of the country". But John kept a 'comin'. It was for peace, not the victory of the Viet-Cong, or Mao's Cultural Revolution (if you go carrin' pictures...) or war mongers on the left. John fought off the critics on the left and right and did whatever was required for an end to war. He was quite good at that. But war is stronger than one man. If only that one man, followed by us, his folks, could bring us closer to peace, then and only then is peace stronger than war. Peace CAN trump war. WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT! Then John would go along, some, to get along. By 1980, he had fully grown up, and dismissed his flirtation with the left only as a means to whack war to peace.
He couldn't have done it all without the music. That gave him standing. But he didn't have to do it. He could have lost it all, and been as poor as Frank Zappa. Peace and Yoko were what he lived for. And today, October Ninth, 2010 I want to wish John Lennon A Happy Birthday. You will be alive in my heart as long as my heart continues to rock to the beat of the music and the beat of the peace.
I love you.
Joe
John risked everything, all the time, for an end to war (WAR IS OVER...IF YOU WANT IT) and a start to peace. He was willing to play the fool to some, if it meant gathering steam for a world based on a Lennon model rather than what all the rest of us expected, to throw up our hands, and just give into...war. He would do anything to focus our minds on peace. Too many of us grooved just on the music. Unless we listened to Professor Lennon talk.
Meeting the world from bed, taking up with that woman, fighting the United States government to stay in the country and winning was what John wanted to do in the 70's. And, boy, did we need a John Lennon. Music? Ok, the contract calls for this and that and "here it is...sorry its not the best it could be, but I was in bed for peace"!
The Beatles, of course changed everything, sometimes for the better (mostly) sometimes for the lesser (everything prior to 1964 suddenly disappeared). The four of them, as a group, were together less than eight years. And then they scattered to the edges of music and the world, never to be whole again.
John came out ok. It wasn't as good, but it was John Lennon. He put out a few great albums, a few stinkers, and lost his way, some, while away from Yoko. But his voice, not the yeah yeah yeah, but the "Give Peace A Chance" voice put him in the cross hairs of the Nixon Administration to"get this beatnik out of the country". But John kept a 'comin'. It was for peace, not the victory of the Viet-Cong, or Mao's Cultural Revolution (if you go carrin' pictures...) or war mongers on the left. John fought off the critics on the left and right and did whatever was required for an end to war. He was quite good at that. But war is stronger than one man. If only that one man, followed by us, his folks, could bring us closer to peace, then and only then is peace stronger than war. Peace CAN trump war. WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT! Then John would go along, some, to get along. By 1980, he had fully grown up, and dismissed his flirtation with the left only as a means to whack war to peace.
He couldn't have done it all without the music. That gave him standing. But he didn't have to do it. He could have lost it all, and been as poor as Frank Zappa. Peace and Yoko were what he lived for. And today, October Ninth, 2010 I want to wish John Lennon A Happy Birthday. You will be alive in my heart as long as my heart continues to rock to the beat of the music and the beat of the peace.
I love you.
Joe
posted by Mr. Liberty at 9:09 AM
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