John Lennon

    John Lennon was born in Liverpool on October 9th 1940. His parents, Julia and Freddy Lennon, separated before he was born and John was brought up by his Auntie Mimi. However, his mother, Julia, kept in close touch and visited him nearly every afternoon. When he was about 15 years old, John became very interested in rock and roll music and started his own group. His first group was called the Quarry Men. This evolved into another group called Johnny and the Moondogs. Later it became the Silver Beatles and, eventually, the Beatles. In 1962, the Beatles had their first hit record with Love Me Do, which reached number 17 in the British pop charts. Later, they released another single, Please Please Me, which reached number one. After that the Beatles had many more hit singles and went on to become the greatest rock group of all time. After the band split up in 1970, John continued to perform his music and write songs. One of the most famous of these songs was Imagine.

    Despite his success, John's life wasn't always happy. One evening in July 1958, his mother had been to visit him and Mimi. She had a cup of tea with them and, as she was crossing the road to go to her bus stop, a car came round the corner and knocked her down. She died instantly. In 1962, John married his girlfriend, Cynthia Powell. They were married for 6 years and had a son called Julian. However, in 1966 John met a Japanese artist called Yoko Ono and started an affair with her. Cynthia found out about John's affair with Yoko and divorced him. John and Yoko got married in March 1969. She was with him on December 8th 1980, the night that he died outside the Dakota Building in New York. He was shot by a young man called Mark Chapman, to whom he'd given an autograph only 6 hours earlier.

    Although, he has now been dead for more than 20 years, the music of John Lennon and the Beatles lives on and is listened to by people all over the world.

    We hope you enjoyed this week's lesson. Please click here if you want to try some of my other one-point lessons.

    © Robert E. Jones, 2003