John Lennon is 70, what's he doing now?????

Cafe Society
1

Let’s say that mutant Chapman gets hit by a bus and killed and never gets to John Lennon. John Lennon lives and is still alive at 70 years of age. The rest of history stays the same except for the fact that John Lennon is alive and well…

If this is so…

1.) Would the Beatles have ever returned in some form or fashion? I wished that Julian Lennon would have taken over a rejoined Beatles, to me, he sounds a lot like his father. But not to be.

The gossip I heard all my life is that John was tired of Paul for whatever reason and wanted and did have a successful recording career. Paul wanted to make up with John, but he wouldn’t have it. Sorry, but it has always seemed to me that John was the problem with their relationship.

2.) Would John Lennon be alive today, or would he have died of something else before reaching 70? (Strange and unanswerable question perhaps, but John did a lot of drugs, and he lived in NYC in the 70’s. If I was rich as him, I would do cocaine everyday. He did for awhile in that decade. From what I have read, of the Beatles, John was the biggest drug abuser. Paul smoked a lot of marijuana (as evident by him getting arrested in Japan smuggling several pounds of pot by post.)

3.) What would John done in the thirty years between 1980 and 2010? Again, it is a broad question, but I think he would of been a liberal, feed the World, no more war, Dufar type of people like Bono. Obama would have given John some goofy medal for being such a great guy and all that…

4.) I don’t know, but I think I would of liked Paul more than John. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but John seemed the type who was above it all in many ways, a liberal superiority, while Paul comes across as a regular guy who is just a musician. I think if John were still alive, the public would like Paul more. Yoko is loved now because she is the continuation of Lennon’s legacy. If John was still alive, I think people outside the NYC Park Ave. crowd would still dislike her and blame her for breaking up the band. Was she a factor?

I love Asian women. I am married to a beautiful Chinese woman. Saying that, why did John marry one of the homliest Japanese women around. I mean, dude had to look hard to find a Japanese woman uglier. But she did have cool artwork, and I am sure that they loved each other very much, which is a good thing. But it makes you wonder if John never died, would they still be married? I tend to think so.

5.) Who were George and Ringo more ftwo guy friendly with? What were their opinion on the breakup of the band? I have heard from drummers that Ringo was a decent, but not an outstanding drummer. But it seems the Beatles did not need an outstanding drummer, just a capable one.

6.) In my opinion, the Beatles music was so much better towards the end, and to me it is a shame that Paul and John couldn’t hold it together.

7.) If you took a random sample of four men from a First World country from 1940, how many of them would be alive today? Someone did a drawing of the Beatles when they turned 64 years old after a song of that title. Only Paul and Ringo made it to 64.

Beatles experts, discuss.

2

This topic is going to work better as a Cafe Society discussion than as a Great Debate.

Off to the CS forum.

3

After releasing a few mediocre albums (called “self indulgent” by the critics - the songs were either incomprehensible or pathetically out of touch with current musical taste), John found his niche as an outspoken talk show host. His off-the-cuff style made him popular with a generation who felt his music was dated, and his brilliant interview with Mike Dukakis (on one of his early shows) is credited with his winning the White House in 1988.

By the late Nineties he had established himself as a media mogul and self-described “Secular Pope,” with his main office in the World Trade Center. He is currently remembered for being the most prominent survivior of 9/11, although the burns he suffered have made him a bit of a recluse over the past decade.

4

I think he’d be the cranky old guy the media always goes to for a sound bite, because he can always be relied on to say something angry and insulting.

5

Hopefully he’d be phoning up Paul McCartney and telling him: ‘Pack it in you wanker, you’re just making a tit out of yourself.’

Also he’d telling everyone what a crazy bitch his ex-wife Yoko is.

6

Wasn’t he somewhat less angry around the time of his death? Hadn’t he come to be more at peace?

John was not the most predictable and stable of guys, so it’s hard to say what he’d be like or what he’d be doing today. I’d like to think he’d be aging gracefully, that he’d be at peace with himself and the world without being complacent or losing his edge, and that he’d have continued making music (likely more “Double Fantasy”-style John-and-Yoko albums). He might write books, or at least have a popular blog.

I can imagine him getting together occasionally with one or more of the Beatles (even Paul), not as Beatles but as musicians and guys who used to play together, and play on each other’s albums or maybe play the occasional live gig together. But I don’t see John being a Beatle as such, and I have my doubts whether he’d have participated in something like the Anthology project, let alone a Beatles reunion tour.

7

History of bands indicate that there would have been some sort of Beatles reunion, even if it was some sort of one-off thing like Pink Floyd. I think the group may have liked doing a tour in modern arenas, and if Paul and Yoko have managed to make up, Paul and John would have managed to try putting together an album.

Lennon’s career would have paralleled McCartney’s – solo work of both good and bad quality. His name would continue to sell records.

As for the questions that can be answered:

  1. Yes, Yoko was a factor in the breakup. So was Linda Eastman, Alan Klein, the lack of touring, and the band moving in different directions. Without Yoko, there might have been an extra album or two, but ultimately it would have ended.

  2. George and Ringo didn’t like the way McCartney handled the breakup – it was pretty much a unilateral announcement by Paul, who had been keeping things together since Brian Epstein died. George was more than ready to move on – he wanted to have more than two songs an album. Ringo would have gone either way. And most drummers have nothing but praise for Ringo’s drumming. It’s not flashy, but it’s steady and quite clever in ways that aren’t obvious. (Listen to “The Ballad of John and Yoko” to hear dull drumming for the Beatles).

8

A few years back (I think it was the 25th anniversary of Lennon’s death), an interviewer asked Yoko this and she said that Lennon would be addicted to the Internet, constantly posting on message boards, interacting with his fans and having a blog. She also said he wanted to paint and draw a lot more, so she think he would have done that too.

9

I could easily imagine him putting out an album like Santana’s Supernatural- wherein he collaborates with hit makers of the day, becomes a critical darling (again), and goes platinum fifteen times over. Imagine (heh) Lennon paired, musically and politically, with Rage Against the Machine.

He could very well have thrown his hat into the talking head arena too. He could easily be a regular guest on RealTime with Bill Maher, and how hard is it to imagine his regularly posted blog entry on HuffPo?

10

People would go to his concerts, complain that his voice is shot, his setlist is static, and wonder why he didn’t retire 10 years ago.

11

He would be Dancing With The Stars!

12

Better than that, he could be a judge on American Idol!

13

Wait, what? Not around here she’s not. I’ve never met anyone that had anything good to say about her. I recently heard an interview with Julien and the interviewers clearly hated Yoko and did everything they could to try to get Julien to say something bad about her, and he wouldn’t, to his great credit.

14

He’d working be on his third divorce, and Yoko’d have a lot less nice things to say about him than she does in our world.

15

I didn’t see that interview, but I can totally believe it. I think he’d make a helluva Doper. (I wonder how he’d vote in those “What’s the best song off of…” polls.

That’s so crazy, it just might work!

16

The OP said now, not in 1979.

17

He definitely would have rallied for NYC after 9/11. He loved the City way too much not to help out.

18

I can’t believe he ever would have made it to 70. He lived hard and fast. And waking up next to Yoko every morning can’t give you much will to hang on, either.

19

Campaigning for Palin after a massive head injury.

20

Assuming nothing else is different and that George Harrison has still passed on, I’d like to believe he’d have taken part in the Concert For George.