The Power of Pop

      

When they first appeared onto the Beat music scene in 1962 with their hit single 'Love Me Do'', the public had no idea of what was to come nor how much was to change throughout the rest of the decade. Contrary to their previous misadventures in Hamburg, not to mention the sweatty leathers, fixes of drugs to keep them rocking through long sets, long days and even longer weeks of live performances at venues like The Top Ten Club, Reeperbahn and Kaiserkeller, the four lads from Liverpool had now been streamlined, smartened and deemed to be made more appropriate for the eyes and ears of the British public, both in live performance and, for the first time, on live television. In the words of The Beatles themselves, they were made fun of as they had been buttoned up into matching suits reminiscent of the Edwardian fashion, but that was a necessary decision made my their manager Brian Epstein if they were to succeed in the highly competitive pop music scene at the time.

Our first issue is to define exactly what pop music is and when it first emerged. Popular music in 1560s Italy would have widely been folk dances and liturgical music performed in churches for most commoners, whereas in 1760s Prussia, it would have been found in the operas and ballets, as well as courts but only if you were wealthy enough to attend them, of course. Later, the genres of Ragtime, Jazz, Swing, Country and Western, Rock and Roll and eventually Pop had evolved into a highly inclusive means of reaching the general public and on a massive scale, with more than just live performances as the only means of appreciating the music, such as LP sales, regular radio programmes, TV apperances, musicals, films, and now memorabilia of The Beatles themselves in various forms. This was to continue throughout the career of The Beatles as a band and into the 1970s and until the present day, and merchandising of music, artists, cultural image and societal change has remained a key part of pop music for many decades since.

Pop music, therefore, is more than just 'popular', but so widespread in terms of who it belongs to and who appreciates it, that it becomes increasingly harder to define it as one particular 'sound', so to speak. The advent of the internet and social media has been a revelation in how all pop music hits the charts in the first place, and also acts as a fantastic and instant platform for fans to connect all over the world and retain conversations, opinions, ratings, critiques and biographical texts of the artists presumably forever on the vast unknown which is the internet.

Although The Beatles as a band moved so fast in the short few years in which they gained fame in Britain, then the US and eventually the entire world up until 1970, it's difficult to see how they could even begin to even imagine such an inter-connected world where their music is streamed, enjoyed and shared on such a scale over 50 years on. Even with their wild imaginations and creative brains which created some of humankind's greatest masterpieces, I doubt they would have realised that their work will be remembered just as Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Dickens and Picasso.

Lennon’s Home Videos

John Lennon was not only a singer and song writer, he was also into making home movies and art films. There are possibly hundreds of hours of footage laying around just waiting to be cleaned up and put out for future projects that Yoko might come up with. Some of the home movies have been made public and were actually made into films, such as the home movies that were filmed during the bed in for peace and the massive home movie of ‘imagine.’ Everything was filmed at one point, from recording sessions, to eating breakfast, he was filmed buying a summer house to put on his own man made Island (he had created a man made island in the middle of a lake at his ascot home) and he was even filmed using the bathroom! Some of the filming that was done all around the world was put into the films I mentioned earlier, but a lot of it has never been seen. 

(photo from google images)

Filming would continue in his life right up until the end, recording promotional videos for the album ‘double fantasy’ the videos included John Lip syncing to ‘im losing you’ in the studio. Another of the videos shows him and Yoko walking in Central Park, where he is wearing a very thick padded silver, fur collared jacket. And another video showed John and Yoko making love in white bed, in a white room, with John putting one of his iconic beatle boots on a plinth while undressing. In 1969 John and Yoko made a film, lasting just over an hour titled ‘Rape.’ The movie was from the point of view of the main female character, while she is followed by the camera man. 

(photo from google images)

On 10th Sep 1969 the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted the premières of two films by John and Yoko, the two films were ‘Self-Portrait’ and ‘Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon.’ Three other (earlier filmed) films were also shown at the event, including Rape, Smile and Two Virgins. Yoko and John made a film called ‘erection’ what was a speeded up stop animation style film or a building being built. However the title of this movie might be mistaken for the film ‘self portrait’ film. The movie was not one of John drawing one of his cartoon faces of himself, oh no, it was much more fitting to the name ‘erection.’ During the 42 minute long film a camera in close view to a naked John Lennon captures the Beatle, slowly achieving an erection. A film that most female Beatles fans from a few years ago would have killed to see, was however probably one of the longest 45 minutes that most film critics ever have had to endure. 

(photo from google images) 

The other movie shown (Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon) was what now is shown as the bed in for peace film that does the rounds every year around Johns birthday (usually on The sky satellite channel SkyArts) During the film event two people sat in a white bag beneath the screen at the ICA throughout the evening, leading many to believe the couple was actually present. John videoed a lot of his life with Yoko, and he even filmed himself playing guitar, a practice that many youtubers still do today! This one video where John is playing for the camera became one of the best known home videos to resurface mainly because of the conspiracy theory that was built up around it. It was said that the video was proof they Lennon was alive and never died in 1980, with some people even saying that it was filmed on a webcam. Of course this is false but it drew a lot of attention to Lennon’s home videos.

The Day Lennon Saw a UFO

Many celebrities have claimed to have had experiences with ufos, from the rocker Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, to the king of rock and roll Elvis Presley. Actor Russell Crowe, Ace Frehley of KISS, British pop singer Robbie Williams are just a few more who have also claimed to have seen ufos in their time! And never to be out done, in August 1974 while John was enjoying his ‘lost weekend’  he too claimed to spot a low flying ufo! On the 23rd of August John was in bed when he was visited by what he believed to be life from another planet! 

“I was lying naked on my bed, when I had this urge, so I went to the window, just dreaming around in my usual poetic frame of mind. There, as I turned my head, hovering over the next building, no more than 100 feet away was this thing with ordinary electric light bulbs flashing on and off round the bottom, one non-blinking red light on top." He described. His story was questionable, even with the details he gave. What made it even more questionable in the eyes of many was the fact that it happened during his ‘lost weekend’ where alcohol and drug abuse was at a high, and his anti social behavior was in the news papers. He did however do two things to quickly try and reassure people he wasn’t on a trip imagining the event. He firstly insisted at the time he saw the ufo he was completely sober from substances, and he also had another witness to back up his story. His girlfriend at the time was May Pang (who he dated during his separation from wife Yoko Ono) was called by Lennon to confirm what he was seeing in front of him. Speaking of the sighting May said “As I walked out onto the terrace my eye caught this large, circular object coming towards us. It was shaped like a flattened cone, and on top was a large, brilliant red light, not pulsating as on any of the aircraft we'd see heading for a landing at Newark Airport. ... When it came a little closer, we could make out a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft, these were also flashing on and off. There were so many of these lights that it was dazzling to the mind” May, a keen amateur photographer, rushed to take photos of the sight. 

The couple took photos with a regular camera and a Polaroid. The photos however, strangely enough did not show up anything of the sight they saw. It might well have gone down in history as a work of fiction, a vision from a stoned rockstar ‘off the rails’ or a publicity stunt to boost record sales, had it not been for the police department. When John and May phoned the police to tell them what they had seen they were told there had been many other sightings that night that had been phoned in to them! John wouldn’t back down in what he believed he has seen, he even went as far as to have typed on his new album ‘Walls And Bridges’ “On the 23rd Aug. 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a U.F.O." May Pang and Lennon’s story is slightly different though. His story was that he was in bed, her story was that they had just ordered dinner. “We had just ordered up some pizzas and since it was such a warm evening, we decided to step out on the terrace.” 

May described "There were no windows directly facing us from across the street, so John just stepped outside with nothing on, in order to catch a cool breeze that was coming in right off the East River. I remember I was just inside the bedroom getting dressed when John started shouting for me to come out on the terrace.” When she didn’t come right away he screamed her for again to join him right away. She added “We often had helicopters flying above us but this was as silent as the night and about seventeen storeys above street level.” As the evening went on he couldn’t calm down, so exited the what had seen. "During what was left of the evening, John kept saying, 'I can't believe it... I can't believe it... I've seen a flying saucer!'" In a filmed TV interview Lennon said “Over here, up there, I saw a ufo!” He said pointing to the spot he has seen it. “It went down the river, turned right at the United Nations, turned left, then down the river. It wasn’t a helicopter, and it wasn’t a balloon!” 

“I could have hit it with a brick, if I’d have thrown one at it” 

In the song “nobody told me” he sings the following.....

“There's UFO's over New York / And I ain't too surprised."