Former Beatle John Lennon arrives at the Times Square recording studio 'The Hit Factory' before a recording session of his final album 'Double Fanasy' in August 1980 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
John Lennon was assassinated on 8 December 1980. Did the conscience of rock n roll die on that day?
Many believe Lennon was the greatest songwriter of all time. Lennon, more than any artist, had the ability to deeply touch the heart and mind simultaneously. Paul McCartney, many would say, had a melodic edge over Lennon, and Bob Dylan, others would say, had the lyrical edge over him. Lennon had a lyrical and musical genius combined that is perhaps not found to such a potent degree in any other artist.
From his early Beatle hits like Help, Strawberry Fields and All You Need is Love, Lennon could create magical music with poetic lyrics. As a solo artist, he wrote eternal classics dealing with issues of social justice — Working Class Hero, Power to the People, The Luck of the Irish, Woman is the Nigger of the World, Give peace a Chance and Imagine. He took a stand. He was a versatile artist who wrote beautiful ballads like Love to rollicking rockers like Come Together. He enchanted listeners the world over with psychedelic gems such as Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and I Am the Walrus. His art was always cutting edge. He was the first male artist to sing about his emotional vulnerability, fear and insecurity in songs like Help, Jealous Guy and Isolation.
He was the first artist to speak about the raw emotions of a child coming out of a broken home in Mother: “Mother you had me but I never had you, Father you left me but I never left you, I wanted you, you didn’t want me”, that would later inspire other great artists such as Eddie Vedder to deal artistically with the same subject in Pearl Jams Alive. Lennon exuded authenticity and integrity.
A most gifted artist with a beautiful heart and a stimulating mind. He is no doubt the most popular anti-establishment artist. At the time in the 1960s when misogyny and patriarchy was systemic, Lennon resisted sexism both lyrically and in his lived experience. He was the first famous househusband who stayed at home, baked bread and took care of the kid while his wife went to work. He sincerely lived with his wife as an equal partner. He radically changed behavioural patterns in gender relations. He made it cool for men to live with their female partners as intellectual equals who respected each other. He challenged the sexualisation of women by capitalism and forced his audience, particularly men, to liberate their minds, dignify their female partners and respect the intellect and creativity of women.
Lennon despised racism. He worked with social justice leaders such as Abbie Hoffman and Tariq Ali. Even in this most personal and intimate relationship, he politically challenged racial stereotypes and mainstream constructs of physical beauty. Instead of having the stereotyped blue-eyed blond as a trophy partner, he would publicly appear with Yoko Ono in public places where she was given the space to articulate her thoughts and ideas. Often, he was told by media houses that they wanted to interview him alone without Yoko but Lennon would decline such requests.
Lennon was ideologically anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. At the time in the 1960s when artists were forbidden from speaking out politically, he insisted on speaking out against the Vietnam War. Give Peace a Chance was an anthem against the American war in Vietnam.
Today, we have the Gaza genocide — but most popular artists and celebrities are silent. Silent in the midst of genocide amounts to complicity. The Gaza genocide has exposed their racism and hypocrisy. After 7 October, Bono referred to Israelies as “our kind of people” but well a year into the Gaza genocide and 45 000 dead Palestinians, mainly women and children, he does not see the Palestinians as “our kind of people” or “people”.
The silence of rock ‘n roll’s aristocracy Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen has embarrassed conscientious rockers the world over. Dylan sang in Blowin’ in the Wind: “How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free.” Palestinians are singing this song back to Dylan and the world. They have been Occupied for more than 75 years and been struggling for self-determination. Dylan sang: “How many deaths will it take till he knows too many people have died?”
Is about 50 000 deaths of Palestinians not enough for Dylan and others to speak out against the genocide? Dylan is being called out for his silence on genocide and his apparent support for the Zionist regime. Dylan wrote Neighbourhood Bully, a pro-Israeli song that Israeli newspaper Haaretz described as “rare declaration of full throated support by a mainstream American rocker”. Journalist Gabe Friedman said: “Some of the lyrics sound like they could have been taken from a speech by Benjamin Netanyahu.”
And the Boss, Bruce Springsteen, who is presented as the modern day working class hero, has also been silent about the genocide and the systematic starvation of the poor and working class people in Gaza. Neil Young’s silence has been bewildering considering that he made an entire album, Living With War, against the Iraq war. The Palestine solidarity protests on the encampments throughout American universities have been consistently singing Neil Young’s Ohio: “Soldiers are cutting us down, should have been gone long ago.”
Lennon had the intuitive inclination to side with the underdog and the freedom fighters whom the establishment labelled as “terrorists”. Consider these lyrics from the Luck of the Irish that are so poignant when we think of Gaza today. “Why the hell are the English there anyway? As they kill with God on their side, blame it all on the kids and the IRA as the bastards commit genocide.”
There are a few artists who have followed suit like the great singer-songwriter Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and the guitar maestro Eric “slow hand” Clapton who wrote a song for the children of Palestine, Voice of a Child,” with haunting lyrics: “Tell me where might find you underneath the stone.” Clapton had a Palestinian flag painted on his fender guitar and played a medical aid benefit concert for Gaza. Clapton knows personally the trauma of losing a child; he lost his son Connor and wrote the song Tears in Heaven.
In these dark days when all of the world’s powers, political and financial, military and diplomatic, celebrities and stars are complicit in the genocide in Gaza, Lennon’s words give us hope against all odds: “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, All you need is love, Love is all you need.”
Love is the force that inspires solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
Iqbal Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria and a research associate at Media Review Network.