John Lennon: Wife Beater – Women’s Best Friend

People think they are so clever these days when they are so truly ignorant. No one forgives. Love is forgiveness.

You’d think the internet would make us smarter. That is the point of getting older. You are supposed to get smarter. You can’t get smarter without hard work and people use the internet to not work hard.

John Lennon was a violent, angry guy with the biggest ego in the world. His parents made him choose between them as a young child, a horrible thing. He basically chose his mother and lost his father forever. Then the mother he chose flaked on him, reappeared, and then was killed randomly. He was damaged. He fucked up often, but he always tried to reevaluate it and fix it. It’s about evolution. We aren’t perfect, but we are supposed to learn from mistakes often only he did.

So many people want to tear down icons and legacies. Lazy, cynical people do. If you love and love something, they will take ten seconds to Google the first thing they can find to tear it and you down and stop you from loving. Don’t let them. Don’t be lazy. Be cynical, but do so to be a better romantic.

So that’s what they do with John Lennon. Do you idolize John Lennon (Yes, Yes, I do!)? Well, he was a wife beating scum.

Well, yeah that is true. Do you know how you know? Because he was the one who fucking told you!

Me used to be angry young man
Me hiding me head in the sand
You gave me the word, I finally heard
I’m doing the best that I can

I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved
Man, I was mean but I’m changing my scene
And I’m doing the best that I can

He was the angriest young man. He had the biggest ego in the world. That song is called “Getting Better” and he always tried to do that. He didn’t just always try to do that he tried to make everyone do that. Life is hard. He wrote, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.” Whenever I try to tell people to appreciate life, they say they are too busy to do so. They don’t live. They just die.

They all love the movie Shawshank Redemption.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

They all love that quote and they don’t do it.

Those people don’t for a second want to give John Lennon redemption.

Mistakes can be damaging, but the best way to learn is from making mistakes. John made a ton of them, but he always tried to learn and get better and do the best he could, depite his pain and damage.

He spent his whole life looking for a mother and true love. He married for the wrong reasons a woman who was nice, but not for him. He spent his whole early career singing about his desire to find not an equal but a love better than him to protect his fragility and heal his damage. The real reasons he acted out badly.

Listen to the passion of the bridge of this song. You can hear how palpable it is. How much he needed to be loved.

One of the greatest songwriters ever, but that was not his song. It is his yearning and pain and begging for salvation.

Why can’t she see?
How blind can she
Someday, she’ll see
That she was meant just for me, oh, oh

To know, know, know her
Is to love, love, love her
Just to see her smile
Makes my life worthwhile

His love is perfect just the way she is, but he’s not. He isn’t selfish. All he wants is to see her smile. He doesn’t have it now, he just wants it someday, and he will do anything to make himself worthy of it. Everyone else wants things now, their own way.

Another song not by him, but again he wants love so badly. He wants it for everyone.

All of my life,
I’ve been searchin’ for a girl
To love me like I love you.
Oh, now, but every girl I’ve ever had,
Breaks my heart and leaves me sad.
What am I, what am I supposed to do.

Anna,
Just one more thing, girl.
You give back your ring to me, and I will set you free,
Go with him.

Listen! Listen to how in love he is. How much he is dying to be loved. But! She’ll be happier with someone else so he sends her to someone else!

Then when he truly found not just an equal, but someone he thought was better and stronger, Yoko Ono. He listened to her, he let her guide him, he called her mother. He stopped writing songs searching for love and celebrated his love and congratulated himself on getting it. He wanted that for everyone. He still worried about being crushed again like he had been so many times.

This is a thank you and a celebration of getting love. It is also a scared prayer not to be hurt again.

Nobody ever loved me like she does
Oh, she does, yes, she does
And if somebody loved me like she do me
Oh, she do me, yes, she does

Don’t let me down, don’t let me down
Don’t let me down, don’t let me down

I’m in love for the first time
Don’t you know it’s gonna last
It’s a love that lasts forever
It’s a love that had no past (Seeking past)

Don’t let me down, don’t let me down
Don’t let me down, don’t let me down

And from the first time that she really done me
Oh, she done me, she done me good
I guess nobody ever really done me
Oh, she done me, she done me good

Don’t let me down, hey don’t let me down
Heeeee, don’t let me down

He fucked up. He fucked up often. He told you about it. He tried to get better. He tried for redemption. He tried to listen and learn.

Here is another case where he got burned.

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She’s the kind of girl
You want so much it make you sorry
Still you don’t regret a single day
Ah, girl, girl, girl

When I think of all the times
I tried so hard to leave her
She will turn to me and start to cry
And she promises the earth to me
And I believe her
After all this time I don’t know why
Ah, girl, girl, girl

She’s the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there
You feel a fool
When you say she’s looking good

She acts as if it’s understood
She’s cool, ooh, oo, oo, oo
Girl, girl, girl
Was she told when she was young
That pain would lead to pleasure

Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back
To earn his day of leisure?
Will she still believe it when he’s dead?
Ah, girl, girl, girl

Girl

Did you LISTEN to his story?

It’s an insult. No one could insult someone better, not Bob Dylan, not Eminem. He doesn’t want a girl, who only cares about the money he has. He wants a woman, an equal, who will challenge him, take him with his flaws, and make him better. If he gets it he will die for her.

Woman

I can hardly express
My mixed emotions at my thoughtlessness
After all, I´m forever in your debt

And woman
I will try to express
My inner feeling and thankfulness
For showing me the meaning of success

Ooh, well, well
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Ooh, well, well
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo

Woman
I know you understand
The little child inside the man
Please remember my life is in your hands

And woman
Hold me close to your heart
However distant, don’t keep us apart
After all it is written in the stars

Ooh, well, well
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Ooh, well, well
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo

Well, woman
Please let me explain
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain
So let me tell you again and again and again

I love you, yeah, yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah, yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah, yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah, yeah

He’s still not perfect. He still fucks up. He can’t even explain why he is so damaged, but he tries his best to do so anyway.

He’s not a man. He’s a child. He needs a “woman” to listen to him and forgive him and help him to be better. He’s worried, but he owes her everything just for being there and listening.

He  “never meant to cause you sorrow or pain,” but he’s a damaged child. He can’t help it, but if you help him do the best he can he pledges his eternal love “now and forever.”

Everyone knows that he called Paul McCartney’s solo work “silly love songs.” He wrote nothing but love songs that he tried to make as seriously as possible.

He often wrote jokes, but no one was more serious about the love between a man and a woman than John Lennon. No one was as serious about everyone loving everyone as John Lennon.

Paul McCartney was right though.

Too many people going underground
Too many reaching for a piece of cake
Too many people pulled and pushed around
Too many waiting for that lucky break

That was your first mistake
You took your lucky break and broke it in two
Now what can be done for you?
You broke it in two

Too many people sharing party lines
Too many people never sleeping late
Too many people paying parking fines
Too many hungry people losing weight

That was your first mistake
You took your lucky break and broke it in two
Now what can be done for you?
You broke it in two

Too many people preaching practices
Don’t let them tell you what you wanna be
Too many people holding back
This is crazy and baby, it’s not like me

That was your last mistake
I find my love awake and waiting to be
Now what can be done for you?
She’s waiting for me

Who is Paul insulting the most? John Lennon. They tried to make each other better. They didn’t mince words. They were honest, and they listened to each other. They did the best they could.

When John Lennon first met Ray Davies, he insulted him arrogantly and told him that he was nothing not even close to as good as him.

When John Lennon heard Ray Davies’ song “Wonderboy,” he thought it was wonderful and sat in a bar and listened to it over and over again. All day, trying to get better. Trying to heal; trying to improve.

When John Lennon’s dreams failed, he got angry. His first solo album starts off with angry bells. It ends with the song “God.” He declares that “The dream is over.” He lists everything he once believed in.  All the things he searched and loved to try to get better. He doesn’t believe in any religious figures. He no longer believes in Elvis and culminates not believing in Beatles.

He’s back to square one. Almost alone.

I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that’s reality

I was the dream weaver
But now I’m reborn

I was the Walrus
But now I’m John

And so dear friends
You just have to carry on
The dream is over

Sounds like he’s giving up and abandoning the world. He wasn’t, he just needed time to reframe his goals and he came back with “Imagine” and had an even better message. He still kept trying to save the world. He was an angry, violent guy, who did his best to funnel it all into his music and use it to help people be better than him.

He kept fucking up. Kept disappearing and reformulating to find ways to say the same thing better.

He disappeared for five years to not mess up his second son like his first one.

He came back not with angry bells, but gentle chimes. He came back believing in Elvis again and doing his best Elvis impersonation. He came back not defeated, but to start over. The man did not quit!

Then some untalented idiot who never worked hard himself shot him to be as famous as him after John clearly said he didn’t want fame, he just wanted everyone to be happy. He didn’t want to be on a fun merry go round that went in circles. He wanted to move forward, be happy, and get better doing the best he could as honestly as he could.

That was his big comeback, but it wasn’t under his name it was under both his and Yoko’s. He shared the spotlight. He showed them on the cover as equals, and if you asked him she was far better than he was. He changed his middle name to her last name. He called her mother and followed her muse to help his dream be better and more effective. He celebrated and defended her time and again. Especially when everyone said that he could be with a more beautiful girl. He wanted a woman with inner beauty.

He’s mentions people watching “shadows on the wall.” He means television.

I didn’t even mention that he listened to Yoko and wrote the best feminist anthem of all time. A million times better and more honest than “I Am Woman.”  Almost every song he sang and wrote was a celebration of women and love.

But no one listens. Too many people who just want to be clever and do no hard work.

Yes, he beat his first wife. He told you that. He was flawed. He told you that. He did the best he could.

So just ignorantly write him off as you fall in love with guys looking cool wearing “wife beater” undershirts.

Guys who will stand up and protect their woman, but won’t do what is necessary to protect all of the other women.

Don’t act out like John Lennon did. Don’t worship him. Don’t try to be clever and not productive. Don’t look for credit. Listen to try to get better. Listen to him ask us all to try to get better. It’s not what you did yesterday. Yesterday is gone. Done. Over. Can’t be changed. Be better today. Try for a better tomorrow. That is all you can do if you want to be honest. That is all you can do if you want tomorrow be better than today.