Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Genius of John Lennon

Simply because no matter what I do, music is my first love, I got into a debate about it today at work (I know. This new job has nothing to do with it.). One of my colleagues and I were talking about The Beatles. This brought up a conversation about John Lennon's solo career. He stated that he thought John Lennon was a problem for the group from the very start. To this I said, "No. John was a genius. He was pretty much the brain. Paul might have been the heart but John was the soul." He proceeded to tell me I was being irrational and that Paul had been the meat and potatoes all along. He goes on to call John "an insensitive idiot" for writing and recording "Woman Is the Nigger Of The World" and said that he wouldn't even listen to it because there was "nigger" in the title. Now this made me smile. First I questioned how he could comment on a song he had never even heard or read all the lyrics to. I told him I was disappointed in him for being a so-called brain and not understanding what the song was about just from hearing the title. Before I even heard or saw the lyrics, I knew what Lennon meant. All I could do was agree. Instantly, anyone who hears the title should know that at the time he wrote it, "nigger" was one of the worst things (and to some degree, still is) that a Black person could be called. John, in every other commentary he had given, let it be known that he was a man of the people and that there wasn't a racist bone in his body. Since he had already established that, I suppose he figured there was no need to do so again. Instead he made a new statement. He said with this song that while it was bad for the Black race to be oppressed in certain places, at least they could travel outside of that area to a place where so much oppression might not exist. But if you think about it, there are very few cultures that treat women as equals, let alone respect them as superiors. So while a Black person is a nigger in their current location, a woman is a sub par entity no matter where she goes. The man was attempting to make the world realize something. Whether or not you agree with or respect his feminism is another story. You have to admit that this was a clever way to express that fact. After the conversation with my colleague, I said, "Now who better to comment on that that a BLACK WOMAN?" All he could do was shake my hand and agree.

John did a few more cool things too. In "God", he addressed the different facades and notion of simply looking for something or anything to believe in. In "How Can You Sleep?" he addressed his issues with Paul McCartney. In "Working Class Hero", he again became the voice of a people. In several recordings, he expressed his love for Yoko Ono. If you have never realized the magic of Lennon, please check the man out. He is not to be slept on.

~JUSTICE

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