Word: lennon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fact, there was already a fair amount of dissension among the members of the band: McCartney wanted to get out more and play for the folks, Lennon wanted to work in the recording studio, like an artist with a canvas. The ideological pressures and upheavals of the decade made the four Beatles stand out in even sharper contrast to each other. John became much more political, George more spiritual, Paul seemingly more larky, and Ringo more social. In the more than two years between Sergeant Pepper and Abbey Road, Lennon and McCartney wrote, separately and still (but more tenuously) together...
...common heritage, a shared gift. No matter how many times they were played in elevators or gas stations, Beatles songs were too vibrant ever to qualify as "standards." That these were Beatles songs, not the single expression of an individual, needs to be remembered amid all the Lennon eulogies, which call him the strong creative force of the group...
...process of riding out all the massive changes of the 60s and bringing about a few on their own, the Beatles also trashed an elementary law of geometry: this was one whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Lennon was unfairly used as a means to put McCartney in his place, although Lennon had taken pains lately to redefine details of his collaboration with Paul, and to make sure credit was distributed accurately. The melodic range of the music ran from marching band to rhythm and blues, from tonal stunt flying to atonal acrobatics, once...
...with all the Beatles, it was harder still for them to keep their friendly equilibrium. McCartney, married to Linda Eastman and staying close to the hearthside, released a series of albums that were roundly drubbed as corny, until he broke through splendidly in 1973 with Band on the Run. Lennon, married to Ono and living in New York, released a great solo record, Plastic Ono Band, then threw himself headlong into uncertainty. He and Ono lived in a series of elaborate post-hippie crash pads, became obsessed not only with artistic experimentation but with radical political flamboyance. Lennon...
When he and Ono separated for a time in the early '70s, Lennon went on an 18-month bender of drink, drugs and general looniness. "We were all drinking too much and tearing up houses," recalls one of his cronies at the time, Drummer Jim Keltner. "No one drank like he did. He had broken up with Ono and was with another woman at the time. Suddenly, he just started screaming out Ono's name. That separation from her almost killed him." Being treated as some sort of witchy parasite was no treat for the estranged Mrs. Lennon...