Something called Listverse posted an article yesterday by
Edward Benjamin titled, Top Ten
Unpleasant Facts About John Lennon.
The list of John’s sins is dark, and includes, “wife
beater,” “pathological liar,” “hypocrite” and other equally nasty attributes. Benjamin’s
disdain for the late Beatle drips out of his prose like acid from a wounded
Alien.
This type of article, the
“So-and-so-was-not-the-great-person-you-think-he-was,” is truly the product of
an unpleasant, unfulfilled writer. Whether the author is trashing Gandhi or
Elvis or Martin Luther King, it’s a petty and childish form of gotcha that says
much more about the author than the person about whom he is writing.
After all the categorizing and contempt, this hit piece
boils down to the simplest of points: John Lennon was a flawed human being.
Okay. Is it time for cocktails yet? The startling revelation that Lennon had
many faults — was in fact like every other human being on our planet — is not
news, and no one should get paid money to make such a mundane and pointless
announcement.
Benjamin offers numerous examples of Lennon’s bad behavior
throughout his life, and I don’t doubt that many of them are true. However, let’s
take a moment to think about what your life would be like if you were
instantaneously thrust into the public eye and regarded with almost god-like
reverence by millions of people around the world. Everywhere you turn there are
drugs to be had, beautiful women to sleep with, and sycophants granting your
every wish. If you are honest, you know that your personal and private flaws
would be magnified a million times and you might not look like the stellar
individual you wish to think of yourself as in the eyes of your inevitable
critics. And who would Benjamin put on the list of “healthy, well-adjusted
superstars?” Michael Jackson? Elvis? Whitney Houston? Judy Garland? Kurt
Cobain? Lennon is only one among many for whom stardom was a curse rather than
a blessing.
I don’t even know to what audience Benjamin’s piece is
directed. Lennon was a “Rock Star,” a phrase synonymous with drugs, sex and
generally bad behavior. As far as I remember, Lennon never ran for Pope. Is
there some subset of Lennon fans out there who think he was a flawless deity
sent from Mt. Olympus? His fans don’t care that he used drugs or lied about his
past. They care about the legacy of his music.
Then there is number five on Benjamin’s list: Talentless.
“He wrote a handful of inspired songs,” the author concedes, but basically he
was a hack as a musician. Average guitar player, poor lyricist, and in another
section, Benjamin excoriates Lennon for being influenced by other musicians
like Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison. Can you imagine that?
The absurdity of this assertion is mindboggling and I’m not
even a huge Lennon fan. The man’s cannon of work speaks for itself. He was
among the most influential musician/songwriters of the past 50 years, and to
dispute that is to take a flat-earth position about modern music. Again, I
would like a list of R&R stars past and present who were not influenced by
others. I have no idea who would be on that list.
So to sum up, John Lennon was a flawed individual whose
music was only sometimes brilliant. Careful Benjamin, with insights like that
you could someday hit the big time, win a Pulitzer, and then, after you’re
dead, some hack will write about what a horrible human being you were.
