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nHenwas part of one of the most famous, most critically acclaimed, andnmost popular music acts in all of history…
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n…onenof the most successful songwriting partnerships in musical history.
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n…andnone of the most famous marriages in modern times. He was anstay-at-home dad to his son Sean, and tragically, he was murdered byna delusional fan.
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nJohnnLennon had a truly “bigger-than-life” life. n
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nAtnage 15, in 1956, British lad John Lennon started his first band, ThenQuarrymen. He soon met Paul McCartney, who asked to join the band; byn1959, George Harrison (who was just 14 years old at the time) joinednthe band as well. Along with bassist Stuart Sutcliffe, the fournchanged the band’s name to The Beatles. The guys were on their waynwhen they were offered a residency to play music in Hamburg, Germany.nPete Best went along to play drums. Eventually the group returned tonEngland, without Sutcliffe, and replaced Best with drummer RingonStarr. Now the stage was set for The Beatles to hit it big – withnnumber-one hit after hit. After hit!
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nLennonnand McCartney wrote approximately 180 songs together. Most, ofncourse, were recorded by The Beatles.
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nManynsongwriting duos have one person who writes the words and another whoncreates the music for those words—or, sometimes, one person whonthinks up the music and another who writes words that fit the tune.nLennon-McCartney were a little different: they both creatednmusic and lyrics. Sometimes they worked closely together on ansong, “eyeball-to-eyeball,” but other times they wrote songs onntheir own but had a bit of input from the other. In the latter case,nthey shared equal writing credit because they had agreed to do justnthat before they got famous.
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nAfternThe Beatles broke up, in 1969, John Lennon continued to write andnrecord songs, either solo or with his second wife, Yoko Ono. Henretired from “the biz” to raise their son, but just before hisnmurder John Lennon made a comeback with the 1980 album DoublenFantasy.
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nDidnyou know…?
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nJohnnLennon loved to draw and write, and while in high school he used toncollect his satirical, nonsensical writings and bizarre drawings innan exercise book he called The Daily Howl. He later publishednseveral books of his short stories, poetry, plays, and drawings. n
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nLennonnmay owe his musical career to a bus driver who heard him playing anmouth organ and was impressed. The driver gave Lennon a professionalnharmonic that someone had left on a bus. Lennon later learned to playnthe banjo, acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, piano, andnelectronic keyboard.
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nLastnyear, on what would have been his 70th birthday, the JohnnLennon Peace Monument was unveiled in his hometown of Liverpool,nEngland. Lennon’s first wife and son Julian performed the unveiling.
