Forum Topic

John Lennon would have  been 80 today

I was more a Stones fan at the time but there is no doubt he and groups of the era have a very special place in my heart.Do you have any good memories/stories about him?

Adrian Irving ● 2213d18 Comments

"Nothing affected me until I heard Elvis. Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles", John Lennon famously said about the King of Rock 'n' Roll."Unfortunately Elvis was not as effusive about the Beatles...

Loraine Pemberton ● 2213d

The Beatles - sound of my youth, I still have all their L.Ps - remember them? And I can still remember the words to nearly all of the tracks. We were such a lucky generation to grow up with all those groups providing the sound track - but The Beatles were the best, Lennon was always my favourite.

Vanessa Smith ● 2213d

I was just at the right age when they started having hits - I don't recall "Love Me Do" first time round but I was on board for "Please Please Me" and everything that came after. Our schoolteachers, who had mostly served in WW2 or at least done their National Service, found themselves with a losing battle against teenagers wanting to grow their hair. I was thinking of how many others they influenced and who acknowledged the debt in their lyrics - Barclay James Harvest's "John Lennon's Guitar" and Stackridge's "Something About the Beatles" come to mind.

Richard Greenhough ● 2213d

I remember Love Me Do very clearly.  I know exactly where I was, in December ‘62, when I heard it for the second time and was smitten.  In Spring that same year Bruce Channel had had a hit with Hey Baby which also featured a glorious harmonica riff and I think that song had sort of ‘primed’ me for the Beatles’ early sound.I went to the original Liverpool Cavern on several occasions but it was just after the Beatles had got too big to play there - saw the Escorts, Swinging Blue Jeans, the Big Three etc.  The first time I was nearly turned away at the door for wearing jeans ffs, but the doorman took pity on me and let me in.  Happy days.

Alastair Banton ● 2213d

'Now the workers have struck for fame'coz Lennon's on sale again'I have a vague and distant memory of sitting next to my sisters at Southport Odeon in 1963 watching the fab 4,Gerry and the Pacemakers and others in one of those revue shows that they used to stage,each band doing about half an hour.Lennon raised the bar when it came to meaningful rock music in the UK as did Dylan in the US.We will see neither of their like again.

Keith Iddon ● 2213d

Interesting you quote a Bowie lyric. Here's another:"And my brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones We never got it off on that revolution stuff"I felt bit this way. I was only 6 when the Beatles came to fame. But I grew to love them. The White Album is still my favourite.

Will Watson ● 2213d

Lennon's 'Starting Over' was my Mums favourite, it was on in Morrisons one day, awful as it always makes me cry.

Janice Evans ● 2213d

How right,we will never see their like again. It was a soundtrack to a generations life. The LP covers as well, With the Beatles, the iconic photo, it does not look dated today.

Nicholas Beard ● 2212d

BBC 4's showing Hard Day's Night in twenty minutes..tempting - nostalgiawise..x

Stuart Kerr ● 2212d

Watching now.

Janice Evans ● 2212d

Not good but music o.k

Janice Evans ● 2212d

The film is dated now but was unique in style at the time.The music and seeing the boys playing is its saving grace.

Keith Iddon ● 2212d

I was a student in Liverpool when 'Love me do' came out, and I saw them shortly afterwards at the Cavern at an all-nighter. They were just back from Hamburg at the time, so they all had sort of teddy-boy hairstyles and wore leather jackets, and Pete Best was their drummer. One thing I remember is that among all the bands playing that night, they were hugely popular.

Colin Jordan ● 2212d

But Colin, surely by the time Love Me Do came out Ringo was their drummer and Astrid, in Berlin, had reshaped their hair into that ‘mop-top’ style?

Alastair Banton ● 2212d

Keith's “the film is dated” got me thinking.(An hour later)..  Yes, I think Keith's right.  And I didn't much enjoy watching “Hard Days Night” either. That said, I found it interesting in the sense it gave a glimpse of a very gentle England in the early 60's, when the massive social revolution of that decade had hardly begun.The Beatles in this film are portrayed as nice clean boys having fun.  They didn't threaten mums and dads. No drugs in view.  No sense of danger.  And the screaming girls were safe.  Sure the Beatles were cheeky here – the prelude to the breaking down of establishment attitudes.  But the tectonic plates hadn't yet begun to move.  It was another two years before John Lennon declared the Beatles more popular than Jesus.I think that's about right.  To me there was lots of 1950's overlap in Hard Day's Night.  Lots of chasing about.  And lovely, jovial Norman Rossington had absolutely none of Brian Epstein's darkness about him.  Along with Wilfred Brambell,  it was all a bit more like “Carry On The Beatles”.After the film finished there was a few hours worth of John Lennon Special clips from the 1970's to his end.  Post 1960's revolution.  I found that far more  interesting.  Far richer.  Far darker.  Far more beautiful.  And very sad.  I still think Lennon was a great loss to this world.. 

Stuart Kerr ● 2212d

We used to visit the Hare Krishna Temple at Radlett regularly and have a drink in the Three Horseshoes pub after.

Janice Evans ● 2212d

Qn. What is John Lennon doing these days?Ans. Decomposing.P.S. Don't bother with the "bad taste" comments - he'd have laughed too.

Richard Cathcart ● 2212d

He would have laugh, he had good sense of humour, wonder what his son Julian is doing, his singing was similar to Johns and wish he had made more songs.

Janice Evans ● 2212d