John Lennon - the first modern man

43rd anniversary of death - John Lennon - the first modern man

He was one of the most successful musicians of the 20th century and one of the most influential personalities: Born in Liverpool on October 9, 1940, John Lennon, together with the Beatles, shaped Western music culture after the Second World War like only Elvis Presley or Bob Dylan before him. And so millions of people around the world were in shock when John Lennon was brutally torn from life on December 8, 1980. His single "(Just like) Starting Over", released shortly beforehand, shot to the top of the charts in many countries.

But as great as the mourning for the man was at the time, his death seemed to have little effect on the development of pop music. After all, Lennon's best years were a long time ago in 1980. Musical development had long since moved on to punk and new wave. Lennon no longer had anything to say to the younger generation. The unanimous opinion at the time was that his influence was limited to the great era of the 60s. With the Beatles, he had revolutionized the music world and created the blueprint for the music that is called pop today.

John Lennon was full of fears and doubts

However, the Beatles also ensured that the music initially only heard by teenagers grew up. As the teenage fans grew older, so did their music. While the lyrics in rock'n'roll and the early Beatles were almost exclusively about innocent youthful love ("She loves you", "I want to hold your hand"), their songs from the mid-60s onwards dealt with more sophisticated themes. John Lennon in particular played a part in this. Bob Dylan is credited with opening up pop music to serious, political subjects. But it was John Lennon who, in songs such as "I'm a Loser" or "You've got to Hide your love away", introduced the artist with all his feelings, fears and doubts.

In his solo works, Lennon went much further and relentlessly exposed his private abysses: In "Cold Turkey" from 1969, he sings about his agony during cold heroin withdrawal. In the song "Mother" (1970), he deals with the trauma of losing his mother at an early age: "Mother, you had me, but I never had you/I wanted you, but you didn't want me" - never before had an artist been seen to suffer so openly. John Lennon lay down on the psychiatrist's couch - and shared it with the whole world.

This was unusual for the time - but decades later, it shaped the music scene: John Lennon can be seen as one of the pioneers of so-called crybaby pop, which has been celebrating great chart success since the late 90s. Mostly British bands such as Coldplay, Starsailor and Muse dispensed with macho gestures and instead openly flaunted their suffering in the world. The ideal of these artists is not the tough, brutal Stone Age type, but the sensitive man - and John Lennon is the father of this school. The second important music movement that came out of England in the 90s also goes back to Lennon and the Beatles: the Fab Four are the forefathers of Britpop bands such as Oasis and Blur.

With John Lennon, the private sphere was political

However, the way he publicly celebrated his private life was also modern. After his wedding to Yoko Ono in 1969, the couple welcomed the world's press - in bed. Here, two people combined their most private happiness with a political mission and called the action a bed-in for world peace. "The private is political" was a slogan of those turbulent years - and Lennon/Ono were one of the first celebrity couples to put it into practice.

Less glorious - but no less modern - was the way in which Lennon lived out his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono between 1973 and 1975 in front of the interested eyes of the American public. Together with his friend, the singer Harry Nilsson, Lennon went on infamous drinking sprees through Los Angeles at night - to the delight of the gossip magazines, which documented all his outbursts. For example, the night in March 1974 when Lennon was thrown out of the legendary "Troubadour" club after a brawl. Here, too, the ex-Beatle was unfortunately a role model: for embarrassing celebrities from Mel Gibson to Lothar Matthäus, whose misery was also enjoyed by an entire society.

Lennon finally gave up the tough rocker poses of those wild years and presented himself as a fragile, vulnerable man. Just how modern he was only became apparent in the last years of his life: Lennon hung up his music career for a while in 1975 to devote himself entirely to his son Sean. During this time, his wife Yoko Ono took care of the business. This made Lennon socially avant-garde again: while German men today are supposed to be persuaded with financial injections to look after their offspring for at least two months, Lennon spent five years as a family man. They were - if you believe his statements - his best years.

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