Today I found that...John Lennon has an Instagram !
John Lennon said “ I got a message on acid, that you should destroy your
ego, so I did […] I’ve read Leary’s stupid book and all that crap […] (He was
referring to Leary’s book “A psychedelic experience”, where professor Timothy
Leary affirmed that the LSD user could “break his ego” and thus achieve
cosmic conclusions, almost religious, if unable to deliver a sense of unity
between the consumer and the universe); We’ve played a game which
everybody was playing, and I destroyed myself […] I destroyed my ego and
couldn’t believe I had capacity for anything, so I let people do and say what
they wanted, and I was nothing but a pile of sh*t” .
What Lennon was trying to say could be interpreted in many forms. First of
all it’s his opinion - he’s the kind of icon who wouldn’t like to be followed or
have his words taken by the masses. According to his experience, and similar to
other acid users, a nice trip could bring solid conclusions and also help to get
the feet on the ground afterwards. If someone is aware of what’s happening
both individually and in a common context, psycho-actives can potentially
“give” wisdom if taken under an appropriate dosage, or say rituals. Breaking the
ego is part of the phenomena, yet opens a possibility to reconstruct yourself,
with better understanding of the other and maybe even the whole mankind.
One of Lennon’s statements is that with proper knowledge (the term is not
restricted to the knowledge of the substance, but academic, cultural, and
lifelong experiences are included) unknown “doors” of the brain can be
accessed… But beware: Anything in excess will do harm, despite how sensitive
one might be, as “bad trips” might occur.
Like an airplane, taking off implies on landing. As an expressionist, and still
in the Beatles, John wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever”. It’s about delusion and a
bad trip. The “Salvation Army” open-air parties at the correction house
“Strawberry Fields” were high points in John’s childhood; but the memories in
turn of it reveal fears and insecurities of a lonely, hyper-sensitive child. These
are the memories from a toxic-dependent, bitter man: “No one I think is in my
tree/ I mean it must be high or low / That is I think is not too bad […] / Always,
no sometimes think it’s me / But you know, I know when it’s a dream/ I think a
“no”, I mean a “yes” / But it’s all wrong / That is, I think I disagree / Let me take
you down / ‘Cause I’m going to / Strawberry fields… / Nothing is Real…”
In the verses, Lennon satirize the uncompromised, informal language of his
generation using pleonasm. The redundancy of “I mean”, “That is”, “You know”,
“It’s all right” and “I think” express the disorientation of the young pretty people
wearing flowers in the hair. Combined with the instrumentals (although no one
understood at first glance) - the threatening strings, the vertiginous glissando
and the trumpets sound similar to a cavalry assault - the intention is to transmit
the sensation of a bad trip.
But everything is real, and consistent: Lennon’s realism only helped him to
do better music. Since the end of the Beatles, into his solo career, new
recording techniques was pioneered. It was the principle for future generations
realize that audio (sound transduced into electrical mean) is art. Since reality
(Lennon’s realism) is beautiful, what was learned could be fragmented into
small pieces, reunified and applied into schools… Without the need of taking
substances.
Living in New York and (almost) absent of drugs,John Lennon throws out
the political activism that was boiling inside since early days. It looked like it
just needed some time and circumstance to emerge, like a volcano that woke.
“Some Time in New York City” is a proof of that, although the album it didn’t
had acceptance of the public, and critics.
Reinventing himself, he got the same “ups and downs” that the whole rock
n’ roll scene was passing through in the seventies. Learning with what was
useful from the past and attempting to forget the useless experiences, all
excess of the sixties generally lead to excess of information, with tragic endings
(like Hendrix’ death). Surviving musicians had to learn to walk again
(reinventing their music) to achieve public acceptance. The one’s who
succeeded coped with society trends and consequently, their career.
In a sense, similar to religion, what takes masses to agree in only one
single chant is dangerous. If it wasn’t by a loonie, John Lennon would have
survived. Nothing can prevent a sudden death, regardless of broken “egos”
divine revelations. In shock, some artists realized the consequences of past
decade excesses and was trying to demystify their images in time. The division
of rock music into many sub-genres was a natural consequence, therefore an
uncontrolled side of the denoted happenings.
By the other hand, the media demanded new tendencies for people to rely
on; The spinning record needed to change, since the same song’s already been
playing many times.
Times of peace, fortune (and social alienation) was present - for Lennon’s
frustration - ‘cause people only wanted to amuse themselves. If knowledge
could be valued and incentivized by the mass media (and western culture),
things wouldn’t turned so bad when ’73 crisis came, followed by the 1979
OAPEC crisis - the world would become scarce again and desperation would
knock in the middle class doors. Similar to Lennon’s infancy, but with a twist,
rock stars became punks - and heroine caused greater losses.