THE DARK SIDE OF JOHN LENNON

Who doesn’t know John Lennon? He’s the famous former leader of The Beatles who is mostly known for his song against war, Imagine. This song is a hymn of hope, in which he imagines a world of peace inviting people to stop war and to be kind to each other since we’re all living on the same planet.

However, Lennon admitted that the content of the text of Imagine was more similar to Marx Communist Manifesto: in fact, he imagined a non-materialistic world with no political or economic differences or discrimination.

Despite his ideals of peace and equality, not everybody knows that John Lennon had a dark side which led him to committing violence against other people.

We remember him as a loving, insecure and vulnerable Beatle. He was a true icon. Everybody loved him and wanted to be like him.

Well, apparently, when he was young he was a bully, violent towards men and women. It’s also known that he wasn’t a good father to his son nor a good, caring husband to his wife Cynthia.

He had suffered all his life and had a very difficult childhood. He himself said: “the first thing I remember is a nightmare”. And many think that his behavior can be explained by the traumas that he had to cope with in his early years.

Moreover, he never really took responsibility for his actions. For example, instead of responding to his leading role in the Beatles breakup, he always blamed the other members, mainly Paul.

Instead of admitting his mistakes, he always pointed out other people’s flaws.

Something started changing in the 1980s. Perhaps, growing up, he realized that he’d had bad and wrong behaviors and started living his life spreading messages of love and peace.

Probably, he wasn’t a bad person, but he was one who had been troubled. So, his evil actions don’t exclude the fact that there was some goodness in him.

 Though John always appeared happy and joyful, he was suffering deep inside, that made him become reserved and self-critical.

He was an honest person and I believe that he genuinely wanted to be a good man, especially in the last years of his life.

He tried to redeem himself from his cruel past actions and became the advocate of peace, caring about people, but, unfortunately, he had issues that prevented that from always being his priority.

Everyone happens to have bad behaviors or commit wrong actions, but that doesn’t make us bad people. We are good but we also happen to be bad. After all, those without sin,  cast the first stone.

Maria D., 5scB