I haven't really read much literature on the man John Lennon was, but from his songs I have been listening to more in depth I think I've come to understand his artistic message. He has a lot of discontempt for the general mass of humanity which wasn't changing and creating revolution, only continuing to lag behind. I was listening to the song Nowhereman and the lyrics stand out to me as John expressing his alienation between those people who are content being nobody's and the somebody's that Lennon considered himself to be, becuase of how he was trying to change things through his personal persuasion. I'm not saying he was a hedenist, only somebody who lived life to a really full and far out boundary and couldn't understand why not everyone else wanted to do that. Now that I'm listening to it I think the song Working Class Hero is also an expression of Lennon's disagreement with the way things and people are... I don't know if any of this is significant as I've been pretty stoned all throughout this, but I would enjoy any commments that can give me further knowledge into what Lennon's message was and how he might have expressed it through his songs.
I think the only person who could really give you the lowdown was John himself. I think what made him the writer he was, was his will to be honest with himself. I heard him say once he could write a song about having a "good shit" today. I think whatever mood he was in directed his muse. We all get into modes where humanity brings us down. I have met people who met him, and said he was a nice guy. I think it was his faith in humanity that killed him. He was known to just walk down the streets of New York City...
" I was sitting, trying to think of a song, and I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and getting nowhere. Once I had thought of that, it was easy. It all came out. I had actually stopped trying to think of something. Nothing would come. I was cheesed off and went to lie down, I had given up. Then I thought of myself as ' Nowhere Man, sitting in his nowhere land....'" John Lennon
John was a very amazing sweet kind man. He had ALOT to say and was doing so good at promoting peace and what not and died in the process....
Lennon was brutally honest. But I think you are right he was an idealist at the core, not really practical, and not at all the hard-headed business-man Paul could be. I mean the guy really went to bed for a week for peace, in Paris I think, and made more headlines and had more press than you can imagine just by going to bed. Jeez ... That is fame! The song "imagine" sums it up his thiking for me, but I read in an interview that he said the best song he felt he had ever written was "Accross the Universe". Just listen to that song and you don't need any weed ...
