Press: "Does all the adulation from teenage girls affect you?"
John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool on October 9, 1940, and grew up in
the Liverpool suburb of Woolton. Julia(his mother) died in 1958, in an automobile
accident practically in front of Mendips(his childhood home), when John was
seventeen.
JOHN'S VEIW ON HIS LIFE
"My whole school life was a case of 'I couldn't care less'. It was just
a joke as far as I was concerned. Art was the only thing I could do,
and my headmaster told me that if I didn't go to art school I might
as well give up life. I wasn't really keen. I thought it would be a
crowd of old men, but I should make the effort and make something
of myself. I stayed for five years doing commercial art. Frankly, I
found it all as bad as maths and science. And I loathed those. The
funny thing was I didn't even pass art in the GCE. I spent the exam
time doing daft cartoons. I got into art school by doing some
decent stuff and taking it along to show them."
On musical differences:
"From our earliest days in Liverpool, George and I on the one hand
and Paul on the other had different musical tastes. Paul preferred
'pop type' music and we preferred what is now called
'underground'. This may have led to arguments, particularly
between Paul and George, but the contrast in tastes, I'm sure, did
more good than harm, musically speaking, and contributed to our success."
John: "When I feel my head start to swell, I look at Ringo and know perfectly well we're not supermen."
Rebellious at an early age, he had a very rough school history, slaking off from
school, skiping classes, and petty stealing. His future looked bleak until
Mimi got the headmaster of the Quarrybank school to write a letter of recommendation
for John to the Liverpool Art College, because of his drawings, and love of art.
It was at Liverpool Art College, in 1956, a friend played him Elvis' Heartbreak
Hotel, and John's interest in music was unstopable. He begged for a guitar till
his Aunt Mimi until she broke down and bought him one, although she never let him
forget he would never get anywhere with it.
In 1955 he started his own band, the Quarrymen,
with his long time friend and fellow troublemaker Pete Shotton, they started singing all the
popular songs. Also in the Quarrymen were Nigel Walley and Ivan Vaughan, and the
rest of John's gang. In 1957, Ivan Vaughan who introduced John to his friend,
Paul McCartney, and the band who would be the Beatles was born. John married his
girlfriend of four years, Cynthia Powell, in 1962. She was pregnant with their
son Julian at the time, who was born in April, 1963.
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