JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

It’s John Lennon’s birthday. 

I’m from the generation of Filipinos that emerged from the womb knowing the entire Beatles discography. We were all automatically Beatles fans, we had very little choice in the matter: the music was in the air and you breathed it in.

I don’t know if anyone has properly assessed the impact the Beatles had on the 20th century, but it was huge. What would John say about the world today?

The Guardian reviews the new, definitive biography of John Lennon.

 

“Weighing in at around 500,000 words, John Lennon: The Life – note the definite article – tells a familiar tale in exhaustive but often illuminating detail. The book was written with the blessing of Yoko Ono and the tentative co-operation – by email – of Paul McCartney, though both are reported to be unhappy with the end result, which Ono claims is ‘too mean’ to Lennon’s memory. . .

“Norman is the first Lennon biographer to be granted access to the private papers of Lennon’s celebrated Aunt Mimi, who took the troubled youngster in when his parents’ ill-fated marriage finally imploded. He has also made good use of the notebooks the singer filled with his often scabrous musings and the cassettes on to which Lennon fitfully recorded his random thoughts, opinions and memories. The tabloids have already provided some invaluable pre-publicity for Norman’s book by homing in on the ‘revelation’ that John may have harboured secret homosexual longings for Paul. Imagine! Macca, though, is having none of it. ‘John never tried anything on,’ he said recently. ‘I slept with him a million times.’ Lest there be any doubt about their laddishness, he added that had Lennon had ‘a little gay tendency’, he would ‘have caught him out’.”

I think that if John Lennon were gay, he would’ve been open about it. And if he had been gay, it doesn’t un-write Sergeant Pepper.

There have been speculations of homosexuality attached to just about every great artist from Homer (who some say didn’t exist) to Leonardo to Shakespeare and after. Big Bird says: “We have to set minimum aesthetic and artistic standards for people to qualify as gay. Hindi puedeng kung sinu-sino na lang ang mag-claim na bakla sila! (We can’t have just anyone claiming to be gay!)”