… if he hadn’t been shot at 40 and on the cusp of the 80s?
Any thoughts? Could he have survived the synth-pop and Barry Manilow and Lionel Richie and Devo days? Being a hippie wasn’t exactly marketable in the Reagan era.
I think we often romanticize the idea of what would have happened to Natalie Wood or James Dean if they hadn’t been cut down young… but we forget they probably would have ended up as Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando did?
Scientology, probably
Eh, he was a Beatle. That’s a special class of its own. He’d have done okay. If he’d’ve left the drugs alone, anyway.
I read an interview with Yoko once where she thinks he would have spent all day updating his blog and chatting with fans on message boards.
Somehow, I doubt it.
I can see that.
He definitely would have helped raise money after 9/11. He loved NYC so much.
Give another listen to Double Fantasy, the last album he put together. Yoko also put out a posthumous album of stuff done in the same time frame. Both are good. Except for the Yoko stuff.
The main limitation was Yoko. She let him do anything with anybody as long as it didn’t involve the ex-Beatles (or other famous rockers). When any sort of reunionish thing seemed to be possible she’d reel him back in. She basically didn’t even really want to be his wife, she just wanted the control.
If he dumped her then he would have been a top notch figure for at least another 10 years with a “comeback” every once in a great while.
I can’t find the cite, but I recall the same interview. It doesn’t sound so implausible to me. I doubt he would have spent all day in front of a computer, but I can see him fully embracing the power of the internet and digital technology in getting his message across.
I think she also said he would have liked hip-hop/rap music, and might have been interested in collaborating with someone from that genre. Don’t know about that one…
I betcha Lennon would have done the first Saturday Night Live after 9/11.
We’d have entirely different memories of Shining Time Station.
Brian Wilson is probably his closest living non-Beatle contemporary. Both musical geniuses of psychedelic pop, both heavily into drugs, both fought with their bandmates on creative and other issues. He kind of disappeared for the '80s and '90s and then put out a really good album in 2004.
Hopefully a divorce from Yoko would be in there somewhere. Probably a lot of charity work. Possibly a jail term courtesy of John Ashcroft, like Tommy Chong got. Probably not a one laptop per child endorsement, in my opinion.
It’s just too bad we’ll never know :(.
It was one of the British music magazines. I remember reading it a year, maybe a year and a half ago. But damned if I can remember which one it was.
John would have bought into Apple Computer at a very early stage, I think. Electronica and John… and Apple Computer.
The Superhero’s Controversial Secret Upside of the Murder of John Lennon Hypothesis:
Lennon’s death, while tragic, did one good thing. It prevented what would have been the otherwise inevitable and and almost certainly disappointing Beatles reunion, circa 1995, which would have happened when they all four realized that there was simply too much money to be made by reuniting for it not to happen. They would have toured, which would likely have been decent, and then they would have made a new album, which would likely have been shitty - thus negating the fact that an actual reunion would have spared us the unbearable crappiness of the faux-reunion songs that actually did come out in 1995.
That said, I’d much rather have Lennon alive and doing whatever he felt like doing than murdered by a lunatic.
But since he’d be only ONE Beatle, he wouldn’t get the full $1,000.
I get the reference but wasn’t it something like $2,300 for all four Beatles to appear? Or $3,200?
As I recall, it was an even $3000, to divide among themselves. If they wanted to pay Ringo less, that was cool.
You are correct, sir. From the transcript: SNL Transcripts: Raquel Welch: 04/24/76: Beatles Offer - SNL Transcripts Tonight
Lorne Michaels: “The National Broadcasting Company
has authorized me to offer you this check to be on our show… [ holds up check ] …a certified check for $3,000. Here it is right here. A check made out to you, the Beatles
, for $3,000. All you have to do is sing three Beatles songs. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” That’s $1,000 right there. You know the words - it’ll be easy.”
The best part of the whole thing is that John and Paul were actually watching SNL together at John’s NYC apartment when that episode aired - it was the last time they saw each other. They briefly considered going down to the studio, but were too tired to bother. Can you imagine the reaction if they had actually gone?