"Yes, I'm a Witch" Yoko Ono (Audio CD)

CLICK ABOVE LINK TO ORDER!!!

At first glance, this looks like it might be yet another one of those records where an older cult artist is paired with a bunch of younger/ supposedly hipper musicians in efforts to add legitimacy to the younguns and street cred to said cult figure. Such is not the case with Ono's version of a collaborative hipster album, Yes, I'm A Witch. Yoko chose all the artists herself, and her choices range from predictable (Cat Power, Antony, Flaming Lips) to not (Le Tigre, Porcupine Tree, Hank Shocklee). The musicians were asked to pick elements of songs from Ono's back catalog and rework them. Most chose her distinctive vocals and created new songs using them (surprisingly, no one chose to work with "Mind Train" off her daring 1971 LP Fly). Unsurprisingly, Peaches chose to rework "Kiss Kiss Kiss," the infamous Double Fantasy song wherein Ono appears to achieve orgasm. Jason Pierce from Spiritualized turns the dance-y 1981 number "Walking on Thin Ice" into a powerful drone/ guitar workout percolating with a drum machine's pulse. The awesomest song is the Flaming Lips' take on Lennon/ Ono's "Cambridge 1969," carving a marvelous krautrock-ish groove that cradles Ono's unique vocal talents and Lennon's feedback and makes it something new, and better. The results overall are surprisingly great, though it's a bit disorienting given the eclectic array of artists. Ono fans, of course, will not likely be bothered by that. --Mike McGonigal

Yoko Ono colloborats from Cat Power, The Flaming Lips, Anotno (of Antony & The Johnsons, The Apples in Stereo, Jason Pierce of Spiritualized, Peaches and many more.

---

The film includes appearances by Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, Geraldo Rivera, counter culture revolutionaries Angela Davis and Bobby Seale, 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator George McGovern, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, and Walter Cronkite. Also appearing are Nixon administration and Watergate veterans G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Dean.

The film's soundtrack, includes such Lennon solo classics such as "Give Peace A Chance," "Imagine," "Power To The People," "Instant Karma (We All Shine On)," "Nobody Told Me," "God," "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," and others.

"Friendly Fire" by Sean Lennon (CD with DVD)

CLICK ABOVE LINK TO ORDER!!!

Watch trailer for album CLICK

TRACK LISTING

1. Dead Meat
2. Wait for Me
3. Parachute
4. Friendly Fire
5. Spectacle
6. Tomorrow
7. On Again, Off Again
8. Headlights
9. Would I Be the One
10. Falling out of Love

Hear album tracks CLICK

MUSIC + FILM ... Sean Lennon has produced a short film for each of the album 's tracks, directed by Michele Civetta. The fantastical shorts, which together comprise a conceptual film about betrayal and the failure of love, feature appearances from Lennon and friends including Lindsay Lohan, Bijou Phillips, Asia Argento, Carrie Fisher, Devon Aoki, Jordana Brewster and others.

"Memories of John Lennon" by Yoko Ono (Book)

CLICK ABOVE LINK TO ORDER!!!

Twenty-five years after his death is still too soon for Yoko Ono to write about life with her famous husband. "I could not open that part of my heart while it's still shaking," she writes in her introduction to Memories of John Lennon, and so the long-awaited inside story of one of the last century's great romances remains untold. Instead, Ono solicited material from over 70 of Lennon's friends, contemporaries, and admirers, and is marking that terrible anniversary with a collection of their reminiscences. (Notably absent are Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, who just wrote her own book on their decade together.)

As might be expected, there is a fair amount of hero-worship in these pages--Paul Reiser and Nils Lofgren both call the Beatle a "friend I never met," and B-52s singer Kate Pierson admits to considering him "practically a mythological figure." Some, too, choose to memorialize him in poem, art, or song, none of which particularly resonate. But the book is not without its share of engaging moments, most of which come from those who actually spent time with Lennon. Family confidant Elliot Mintz writes of the devoted husband, "how he used to brush [Yoko's] hair...or when we'd be going out to a restaurant and she would put her coat on and he would adjust her collar so that it would look pretty and frame her face." Double Fantasy drummer Andy Newmark remembers the spirited musician, exhorting him to simplify his fills and just "play like Ringo." Donovan recalls days with the Maharishi in Rishikesh, teaching Lennon to finger-pick his guitar and hearing "Julia" and "Dear Prudence" as they were composed. Others cover the political activist, compassionate friend, and loving father.

"John" by Cynthia Lennon (hardcover Book)

CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE US VERSION!!!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE UK VERSION!!!

When she was eighteen years old, a girl named Cynthia Powell met a boy named John Lennon and they fell in love. Their ten-year relationship coincided with the start of the Beatles phenomenon-from Liverpool's dockside clubs to the dizzying worldwide fame that followed. And Cynthia Lennon, John's first wife, was an integral part of the swirl of events that are now an indelible part of the history of rock and roll.

In John, Cynthia recalls those times with the loving honesty of an insider, offering new and fascinating insights into the life of John Lennon and the early days of the Beatles. And with the perspective only years can provide she also tells the compelling story of her marriage to a man who was to become a music legend, a cultural hero and a defining figure of the twentieth century.

Cynthia has seldom talked in any detail about her marriage and the painful events that followed John's tragic assassination in 1980. Now she candidly reveals the good and the bad, the loving and the cruel sides of John. She tells of the breakdown of their marriage and the beginning of his relationship with Yoko Ono in more detail than has ever been disclosed before and documents the difficulties estrangement from John-and his subsequent death-brought for herself and their son, Julian.

In John, Cynthia Lennon has created a vivid portrait of the 1960s, the Beatles and the man she never stopped loving.

The time has come when I feel ready to tell the truth about John and me, our years together and the years since his death. There is so much that I have never said, so many incidents I have never spoken of and so many feelings I have never expressed: great love on one hand; pain, torment and humiliation on the other. Only I know what really happened between us, why we stayed together, why we parted and the price I have paid for being John's wife.

I want to tell the real story of the real John-the infuriating, lovable, sometimes cruel, funny, talented and needy man who made such an impact on the world.

---

"John Lennon: The New York Years" by Bob Gruen (Book)

CLICK ABOVE LINK TO ORDER!!!

Published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death and the 65th anniversary of his birth, this is an intimate album of photographs, most never published before, of Lennon in his last decade.

A musical genius, an innovator, a peace activist-John Lennon was all these and more, and he continues to be revered a quarter century after his shocking murder in New York elevated him to mythic stature. Published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Lennon's death, this intimate album of 150 photographs-most of which have never been published before-offers a very personal view of the rock legend in his last decade by someone who had astounding access to his private life.

Bob Gruen first photographed Lennon in 1971 and became his personal photographer and close friend shortly thereafter. Over the course of the next nine years, right up until Lennon was killed, Gruen would photograph him extensively. This book assembles the most revealing of those images, taken during Lennon's years in New York, together with Gruen's reflections on the circumstances surrounding the photos, including John's relationship with Yoko, how he dealt with fame, and his experiences with fatherhood. The result is a remarkable behind-the-scenes look at John Lennon as a performer, a legend, and a person.

"Lennon Revealed" by Larry Kane (hardcover book)

CLICK ABOVE LINK TO ORDER!!!

In this breezy collection of remembrances, journalist Kane (Ticket to Ride) fondly-if a bit too reverentially-remembers his times with enigmatic Beatle John Lennon. In 1964, Kane, then a Canadian radio reporter, was assigned to follow the Beatles in America, beginning a relationship with Lennon that lasted throughout the musician's short life, and one that obviously engendered some real affection. In brisk, entertaining prose, Kane, with a supporting cast of many Beatles associates, assesses the many faces of Lennon from a journalistic yet intensely personal perch. "Was John Lennon a mean bastard? A foolish prankster? An aggressive sex fiend? A musical tyrant? A gay man?" The answers, Kane says, are as complex as Lennon himself. Kane shares his take on the man and the pivotal moments in his life, including Lennon's relationships with his bandmates and Yoko Ono, his involvement in the peace movement, and the infamous "lost weekend" and the Yoko-ordained affair with secretary May Pang. A final chapter of letters written by Lennon fans, however, feels tacked on. There are certainly better books on Lennon, but readers should enjoy Kane's personal, honest recollections. "My reporting of Lennon and his adult life will no doubt vary from others," Kane aptly notes, "but it is mine."

Lennon Revealed is filled with revelations about John Lennon's path from public glory to personal destruction, and ultimately to the inspiring rebirth that defines a triumph of the spirit. Drawing on extensive personal accounts and extraordinary new interviews with more than 50 confidants and experts-most notably, with Yoko Ono-Kane brings the reader closer than ever to the man who, in life and in death, has had a singular impact on humanity. Kane also provides stunning new information about Lennon's relationships with Ono, his childhood soulmate Stuart Sutcliffe, his lover May Pang, and Beatles manager Brian Epstein. The book includes an exclusive DVD featuring the final filmed interview with Lennon and Paul McCartney, conducted by Larry Kane in 1968. Brief clips from this famous interview have appeared in just a few places, including the official documentary Imagine.

---

Limited Edition Book about John Lennon recordings

"John Lennon: Listen To This Book" by John Blaney companions his Paul McCartney discography "Paul McCartney: The Songs He Was Singing" published in 2003.

"Listen To This Book" follows the same format and traces Lennon's solo releases from 1968 to the present. With over 300 pages packed with 500 plus photos and information about every British and American Lennon solo release; including release dates, chart positions, recording studios and personnel.

It also includes a section on Japanese releases and chsart positions plus lots more.

"John Lennon: Listen To This Book" is limited to 1,000 individually numbered copies and is available at this website

RARE JOHN LENNON INTERVIEWS ON YOUTUBE - INTERVIEW 1, INTERVIEW 2, INTERVIEW 3

An outraged Yoko Ono can't imagine the intimate details of her life with John Lennon - from bedroom scenes to harsh words and pot smoking - aired for Beatle-maniacs worldwide.

That's why she's taking her case before a Boston judge next week.

Opposing the all-powerful Ono is a Lawrence-based video company claiming that 24 raw tapes showing three days in Lennon's life in February 1970 - weeks prior to the Beatles' historic breakup - do not belong to her.

The tape tussle heads to Judge Rya W. Zobel's courtroom in U.S. District Court in Boston April 30.

Ono's Boston lawyer, Jonathan Albano, told the Herald yesterday the hearing is a conference to set the case in motion. He declined further comment.

In court papers obtained by the Herald, Ono's lawyers argue that "the world (is) on notice" of her ownership of the never-seen-before footage.

World Wide Video of Lawrence has filed a counterclaim arguing they own the copyright to the priceless film, stolen from the company's Ashland office eight years ago, court papers state.

The company wants to air the footage in a film they've cut titled "3 days in the Life."

"It's the Holy Grail for Beatles fans," said Michael Hill of Winthrop, music director for the film. "It's stuff you never see. It's priceless."

The suits and countersuits center on the revealing tapes, portions of which have been viewed by the Herald, showing Lennon playfully insulting Ono, smoking pot and working on songs that turned out to be the timeless hits "Mind Games" and "Remember."

Lennon blow-dries Ono's hair as Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman" plays in the background inside their Tittenhurst Park estate in England.

His radical politics, struggles with the Beatles and life with his wife and son are all shown in choppy black-and-white reality.

The footage was shot by Ono's ex-husband Tony Cox, who sold it to World Wide Video, court papers state.

Rolling Stone last year called these tapes "the most awesome John Lennon footage you'll never see."

Next week's court date could alter that ending, bringing instant karma to hungry Beatles fans.

In touch me, Yoko Ono will present an interactive painting, film, conceptual photography and sculptures that comment on different facets of the female experience, calling upon the viewers to make direct and deeply personal connections. Ono's first New York exhibition since Odyssey of a Cockroach at Deitch Projects in 2003, touch me affords the audience an opportunity to experience her work in a new way.

For over 40 years, Yoko Ono's works have defied categorization, existing in the interstices between performance, music, objects and film. As one of the first conceptual artists, and one of the founders of Fluxus-an association of experimental, interdisciplinary artists and writers in the '60s and '70s-Ono is cited as a major influence on contemporary artists. She has redefined the boundaries between various movements: conceptual art, performance art, feminist art, and more. Many of her actions have bridged the distance between art and audience participation-which has always been a hallmark of Ono's work.

A participatory element is central in touch me, in which Ono urges the audience to revitalize and rethink a personal connection to the most current situation women are facing. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be a large canvas covering the entire width of the gallery. Openings will be cut into the canvas, and viewers are invited to insert body parts through. Encompassed in this simple act are opposing elements of isolation, exposure, vulnerability, and defiance. The viewer will have the option to photograph themselves with supplied cameras; these photos will be displayed together on another canvas with the participant's own comments and thoughts written underneath the photos, furthering the inclusive nature of this new work. A 4-screen installation version of Yoko Ono's 1964 performance Cut Piece, filmed at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965, will act as a counterpart for the metaphoric 2008 work.

Complementing this contemporary work will be Vertical Memory, in which a composite of a male face-combining Ono's father, husband and son-is contrasted with the artist's succinct and moving texts describing her passage from birth to death. Also on view will be Memory Paintings, intimate 19th-century portraits of women; and a sculpture from the series "Family Album (Blood Objects)," representing her mother. Sky TV will serve as an anchor of hopefulness to the entire exhibition touch me.

In addition to having received the College Art Association's 2008 Distinguished Body of Work Award, she is also the recipient of the 2002 Skowhegan Medal for Assorted Mediums. Solo exhibitions have recently been presented at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (Sao Paulo), Kunsthalle Bremen, Berkeley Art Museum, Museo di Santa Caterina (Treviso, Italy), and Portikus im Leinwandhaus (Frankfurt), among other venues. She is featured in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and currently on view at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. This August, the Kunsthalle Bielefeld will present a solo exhibition of Ono's work, entitled Last Supper.

Yoko Ono in legal feud over rare Lennon footage

Footage of John Lennon smoking pot, writing songs and discussing putting the hallucinogenic drug LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea is the focus of a court case starting in Boston next week over whether the video should be made public.

The case pits Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, against Lawrence, Massachusetts-based World Wide Video, which claims ownership of nine hours of raw footage of the former Beatle and Ono that was filmed just weeks before the "Fab Four" broke up in 1970.

World Wide, a New England consortium of Beatles collectors, wants to release the black-and-white footage as a two-hour film titled "3 days in the life" about Lennon during a pivotal and turbulent time for the most celebrated band of the 1960s.

Rolling Stone magazine dubs it "awesome John Lennon footage you might never see."

The company, which paid more than $1 million for the footage after legal costs and other expenses, nearly premiered it last year at the private Berwick Academy in Maine but abruptly scrapped the screening after the school received a stop order from Ono's lawyers, who assert copyright ownership of the videotapes.

World Wide has filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Boston against Ono for copyright infringement. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 30.

According to court documents, World Wide said it bought 24 original videotapes and their copyrights in 2000 from Anthony Cox, Ono's husband before her marriage to Lennon in 1969.

Cox shot the footage at Lennon's estate in England for a documentary he planned titled "Portrait."

The footage, recorded from February 8 to 11, 1970, shows Lennon composing two hits, "Remember" and "Mind Games," along with a candid discussion of his drug use and scenes that World Wide describes as "intimate and no-holds-barred."

World Wide asserts that shortly after purchasing the videotapes, along with 10 copies, they were stolen in 2000. The company filed a separate civil suit a year later against a New Hampshire man who agreed to return the copies and locate the originals, court documents show.

The original videotapes are now held by Ono, whose lawyers claim in a countersuit that she purchased them legally from World Wide through a Florida man, who has been named as a defendant in the Massachusetts company's suit.

"The decision that should be made in the case is who in fact does have the copyright," Joseph Doyle, World Wide's lawyer, said in a telephone interview. "We're saying that we legitimately own the copyright to this film."

Jonathan Albano, Ono's lawyer in Boston, declined to comment on the case.

Yoko Ono has said that she "felt sorry" for Sir Paul McCartney over his recent divorce.

John Lennon's widow spoke about his former bandmate while visiting her late husband's childhood home in Liverpool.

She said: "I'm very sorry for him to have had to go through all that. I haven't spoken to him about that but it's a subject which he probably doesn't want to discuss with other people."

Ono, 75, also told Sky News, alluding to Heather Mills, that it was "not easy" to be associated with a Beatle.

She said: "All I can say is it's not very easy for a woman to be associated with The Beatles. I think all the wives did suffer, and I think quietly suffer. Suffer but endured, I would actually say."

She told Sky News that Heather Mills needed to "do her very best and try to survive".

She added: "I'd not just say to her but to Paul too, it's a very difficult situation for any couple to go through, especially for people who are really out in the world and their every movement is being observed."

Ono visited Mendips, on Menlove Avenue in Woolton, Liverpool, to mark the fifth anniversary of her buying and immediately donating it to the National Trust.

Lennon was gunned down outside his New York apartment by MDC on December 8, 1980.

MDC will be considered for parole later this year. Ono said: "I think that it's a very hard subject for me to deal with. All things considered it's very dangerous for him to come out because there's so many people who feel badly about what happened.

Yoko Ono has described the former chief executive of Apple Corps, Neil Aspinall, who died last weekend, as "an important member of the Beatles' family".

In a statement, Ono said: "John (Lennon) loved him. I continued to treasure his wisdom and support in the years after John's passing."

Aspinall, who was widely regarded by fans as the fifth member of the group, passed away in hospital in New York at the age of 66.

Ono's statement added: "My love and deepest sympathy go to Neil's wife Suzy, and to his children. With love, Yoko Ono Lennon".

After meeting Sir Paul McCartney and George Harrison at Grammar school in Liverpool, Aspinall formed a close relationship with the entire group.

As well as driving them to early gigs, he built a considerable reputation during his time at Apple Corps, where he protected the their copyright and music.

In a joint Apple Corps statement, Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of Harrison and Lennon said that they "will always retain the fondest memories of a great man."

The Beatles' back catalogue is gradually being licensed out to the highest bidder, as previously reported, and now it seems John Lennon's name is being touted too! Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream have launched a new flavour inspired by John Lennon. Long known for their love of '60s groups (well, they have got a flavour called Cherry Garcia), they're putting out a Lennon inspired 'Imagine Whirled Peace' tub, which to you and me is a toffee and fudge flavour. The pud also has peace signs throughout.

The packaging features Lennon's signature and comes complete with a warning that the Peace signs were made on a manufacturing line that also processes nuts. Nuts? Peace? I could crowbar a pun outta that, I'm certain.

The press release reads: "When Ben & Jerry's wanted to talk about peace, we couldn't think of a better person to exemplify the message than John Lennon. Through his art and lyrics he imagined a world without war and asked us all to 'Give Peace a Chance'. We hope this whirly mixture of toffee cookies and fudge peace signs enlightens your bellies and souls and makes you ask what you can do to promote peace in your lives.

John Lennon was a TV addict who spent hours each day lying in bed and flicking channels, his ex-girlfriend May Pang reveals. Pang, who was Lennon's assistant and then dated him from 1973 to 1975 - while he was separated from wife Yoko Ono - claims her favourite image of the former Beatle is of him glued to the box with his two cats crawling over him at their home on New York's East 52nd Street.

She says, "The man really liked to stay in bed and just lay there and watch television. Cable was new then. We had a box with buttons and his fingers were constantly moving on it. We had cats called Major and Minor. They would just sit all over him. It was just cute."

A mosaic designed by John Lennon for his swimming pool goes on show at the Beatles Story early next month.

The Magic Eye artwork, a feature at the Beatles legend's Kenwood estate he shared with first wife Cynthia in Surrey, will move to the visitor attraction at the Albert Dock.

Weighing more than two tons and made up of 17,000 ceramic pieces, the 16ft by 6ft mosaic dates from the mid-1960s.

Liverpool John Moore's University lab technician and Beatles fan Tom Lorimer spent more than six years restoring Lennon's work in his spare time.

He removed each of the one-inch-square pieces, known as tesserae, and reset them on to wooden boards in exactly the same design.

Mr Lorimer was contacted by Merseyside businessman Wladek "Butch" Reszczynski who was asked to clear items from the derelict site of the 1984 International Garden Festival.

He found The Magic Eye and stored it in a field in the Wirral, later discovering the Beatles connection.

The mosaic is thought to have been inspired by John's wide-ranging interests in spiritual matters.

In 1967 the Beatles spent months in India studying the teachings of Maharishi Yogi.

Mr Lorimer said: "John Lennon was fascinated by Indian mysticism.

"He designed The Magic Eye based on the Maharishi's teachings about the Eye of Knowledge or the Middle Eye.

"It was in very poor condition. Moss was covering it in parts but I offered to restore it, and Butch agreed."

Beatles Story director Jerry Goldman said: "The Magic Eye will be a wonderful visual feature of our new expansion in the Albert Dock."

A musician named Lennon Murphy is claiming that Yoko Ono has sued her and that Yoko is seeking to stop Lennon Murphy from performing under her name, Lennon Murphy. Both of these claims are untrue.

Several years ago, Lennon Murphy sought Yoko's permission to do her performances under her name, Lennon Murphy. Yoko, of course, did not object to her request. Subsequently, without Yoko's knowledge, Lennon Murphy filed an application in the United States trademark Office requesting the exclusive right to utilize the name "Lennon" for musical performances. Yoko's attorneys asked Lennon Murphy's attorneys and manager to withdraw her registration of exclusivity to the name LENNON for the trademark. Yoko also offered to cover all costs Lennon Murphy had incurred in filing for the trademark. But Lennon Murphy went ahead to register.

Yoko did not sue Lennon Murphy, but sought to stop her from getting the exclusive right to the name Lennon for performance purposes. For that, Yoko's attorneys, simply notified the Trademark office that Yoko did not believe it was fair that Ms. Murphy be granted the exclusive right to the "Lennon" trademark in relation to musical and entertainment services. As you can see, this is a very important issue for Yoko and the Lennon family.

Yoko says: I am really hurt if people thought that I told a young artist to not use her own name in her performances and had sought to sue her. I did no such thing. I hope this allegation will be cleared.

Thank you for your kind attention,

Yoko

Late Beatle John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono is suing a singer/songwriter for naming her band Lennon.

Ono has filed court papers accusing rocker Lennon Murphy of fraudulently registering Lennon as a trademark and for the "tarnishment" and exploitation of her late husband's name. The 74-year-old wants the trademark cancelled, reports TMZ.com. However, Murphy insists Ono and her lawyer approved the use of the name Lennon for her debut album in 2000.

Murphy writes on her page on website MySpace: "If Yoko prevails, Lennon might never be able to tour or release records using the name Lennon."

She will return with a new work to the revamped Bluecoat Arts Centre where she first performed in 1967.

The Bluecoat, one of the UK's oldest arts spaces, reopens in March after a £12.5m refit.

Artistic Director Bryan Biggs said Yoko's exhibition will be "challenging, surprising and interesting".

Wish tree

Mr Biggs said Yoko Ono was thrilled when they approached her to perform at the centre.

He said: "We said we'd like to invite you back to perform, not as Yoko Ono but as an artist - she is a very significant figure.

"We don't know exactly what she'll be doing yet, we know it will last an hour and it will be challenging, surprising and interesting as things always are with Yoko."

The centrepiece of her gallery exhibition will be a wish tree.

A tree is put in a space and visitors are invited to write their wishes on little labels and tie them onto the tree and then at the end of the exhibition they will all go to Yoko's peace centre in Iceland.

"It's like you're part of a global network of people hoping for a better future," Mr Biggs said.

The Bluecoat Arts Centre, a Grade II listed building and former school, was closed to make it more accessible.

This is a column I originally wrote for TIME.com in 2000 - on the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death. I republished it on HuffPo in December 2005. I offer it here again as my homage to Lennon on this painful anniversary. Click here for details of an event saluting Lennon in Los Angeles on Sunday evening.

Paul McCartney's instantly-notorious first public comment on John Lennon's murder in December 1980 - "it's a drag" - was at the time held up as an example of gross insensitivity by an estranged friend. In reality it was the understatement of devastation. There's a telling line in Sidney Lumet's 1983 film "Daniel" - a fictionalized account of the struggles of the two children of executed "spies" Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. "Why don't you console her?" asks someone about the suicidally-distraught daughter at one point. The answer is chilling in its intensity. "Did it ever occur to you that she might be inconsolable?"

The world has had to come to terms with the senseless murder of John Lennon nearly three decades ago. But for the millions around the world who were deeply enthralled and touched by Lennon's gifts - the ache remains.

Early and tragic death of a hero, a leader or a cultural icon always produces reactions of greater intensity than the sad passing-on of a revered figure at a grand old age. Our loss is not just the pang of regret that a much cherished person has finally shuffled off the mortal coil. It is also the burning pain of what might have been.

It is certainly true that when John Lennon was shot he was immediately eulogized, mythologized and indeed canonized. And if you weren't a follower - or were too young to experience the Lennon impact in 'real time' - you could be forgiven for reacting suspiciously to all the hoopla on every anniversary of his death. "I mean he was just a pop singer right? Married to that kooky Japanese woman. I'm sorry he died - but why the fuss?"

Did we over-react to Lennon's death in 1980? Are we pining for a mythological cipher now?

Those are healthy questions. I don't begrudge them. The weight of 27 years of soliloquies hangs heavy on the uninitiated. So let the answers be given.

John Lennon was not God. But he earned the love and admiration of his generation by creating a huge body of work that inspired and led rather than simply following. The appreciation for him deepened because he then instinctively decided to use his celebrity as a bully pulpit for causes greater than his own enrichment or self-aggrandizement.

For several key years in the late 60s and early 70s - he and Yoko Ono consciously turned turned their lives into a virtual "Truman Show" to promote the issues they believed in.

One of Lennon's many gifts was his humor. He knew - but accepted that many people were laughing at them. He didn't care. He cared that the message was being heard. If disbelievers were going to ridicule his peace protests that was at least preferable to them being engaged in violence. One of the secrets of Lennon (and indeed all four Beatles) was that he took his work seriously. But he never took HIMSELF too seriously.

What is the Lennon legacy? There is the astonishing body of music. The jaunty anthems he wrote in the early Beatle years (1962-1965) may have been teen love songs - but they displayed an exuberant joy that is surprisingly undiminished by the passage of time. Then, once Bob Dylan showed him that lyrics could be personal - Lennon tapped into his feelings and revealed a gift for sensitivity and self-awareness that completely belied his oft-proclaimed status as "just a rocker."

From mid-1965 onwards in both his Beatles canon and his solo oeuvre - he learned how to direct-inject his feelings into his songwriting.

One thinks of the reflections in "In My Life" - "Though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before..." And the lines in "Help!" - "When I was younger, so much younger than today...." He was still only 24 when he wrote those words. An old soul indeed...

Poets and playwrights wrote of insecurity. Pop singers may have (justifiably) felt it. But they certainly didn't sing about it to their fans. Lennon did. "Every now and then I feel so insecure..." he sang in "Help!" He also admitted to jealousy, suicidal depression and (in "Cold Turkey") heroin addiction.

When he undertook primal scream therapy under Dr. Arthur Janov in 1970, he instinctively took painful revelations and turned them into cathartic art for a world raised on denial of emotion.

Lennon had been abandoned by his father before birth - and then again when he was 5. And his mother gave him up to be raised by her sister. Lennon lost his mother again when he was 18, when she was run over by a drunken off-duty policeman. (The fact that the driver was a policeman was an incidental detail - his profession was not the reason for the fatality - but it probably colored his attitude towards authority figures.)

Twelve years later, Lennon philosophized the loss in simply and heart-breakingly stark terms: "Mother... you had me - but I never had you. I needed you - but you didn't need me."

And in the song's stunning coda, Lennon set to music a repeated plea that was primal and universal. "Mama don't go... Daddy come home..." His howls of anguish - quite unheard of before in popular music - were truth at 33 revolutions per minute.

His gut decision to turn his life into art set Lennon apart from McCartney in terms of style. (Lennon was a diarist - and McCartney - no less artistically - was a dramatist.) Indeed it set Lennon high above the others in his own tree. There were many who joined Lennon or who followed Lennon into the new world of singer/songwriter-dom. But few matched his poetry or honesty. For Lennon, confessional songwriting was much more than just the prominent use of the first-person pronoun - which seemed to be the norm in the self-obsessed 70s.

It is interesting to read the original (pre-murder) reviews of Lennon's 'comeback' album after his five years dedicated to the raising of his second son Sean. The 1980 album "Double Fantasy" included several paeans to the joys that maturity was bringing John Lennon. His love of Yoko, "Woman please understand - the little child inside the man..." And his prescient warning to his five-year old son that "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." A lot of reviewers were bemoaning the album - complaining of its gentler lyrical themes. As usual Lennon had grown up before his critics. The tragedy of December 1980 overtook those foolish reviews and the sentiments were forgotten. Indeed the poignancy of the lyrics assumed unbearable weight. But the lyrics were beautiful BEFORE the loss. It just took the "other plans" of a deranged human for some people to get the message.

Lennon was certainly no saint. His personal life did not always match his philosophy and aspirations. When he fell in love with Yoko One - who was truly his soul mate and muse - he treated his first wife rather shabbily. Her financial settlement - while broadly in line with the conventions of the day for a working class man from Northern England - was not the act of a generous or gracious man. His laudable devotion to his second son Sean was partly in reaction to the guilt of his neglect of his first son Julian. Though he was just starting to make amends to Julian - his murder took place before the reparations were that far along. Julian to this day bears the scars of the shortfall between intention and action that affects many parents. But for the son of a suddenly canonized dead father - there was nowhere to go to get that love. And castigating a murdered hero wins no friends. Hence some of Julian's displaced anger towards the "wicked step-mother who stole away my dad." The anger Julian feels is towards his dad - and that is an anger that dare not speak or sing its name...

But Lennon's admirers accept those faults just as Martin Luther King's personal failings are put in perspective by the greatness of his achievements. We know that heroes are flawed. And we are sad for those they hurt. However, those weaknesses don't diminish the overall achievements. They are simply a reminder of human limitations.

Of all Lennon's legacies - one of the most enduring and - perhaps the most impressive is who his enemies were.

I'm not referring to jealous friendly rivals such as Mick Jagger - who has never entirely recovered from Lennon writing the Stones' first hit "I Wanna Be Your Man" (after begging John and Paul for a song) only to discover that John had given him a throwaway so weak that Lennon then threw it into the Beatles roster as a Ringo vocal!

Nor to the inexplicable bleatings of detractors such as REM's Michael Stipe who implausibly claims never to have been influenced by Lennon or the Beatles and to regard them as "elevator Muzak." (Actually close analysis of Stipe's lyrics reveals that he is telling the truth. He is much more influenced by the Monkees!)

No - the true measure of John Lennon's greatness was that in the 1970s he terrified the most powerful man in the world. He literally petrified the then President of the United States into a succession of illegal acts of persecution - out of fear that Lennon's popularity would prevent his re-election.

The story - in condensed form - is this. In 1971, Lennon recorded his follow-up to the ground-breaking "Plastic Ono Band" album - the powerful "Imagine" album. Shortly before the album's release in October 1971 - Lennon and Yoko Ono decamped England and moved to New York. The album and the "Imagine" single immediately topped the charts and solidified Lennon's position as the world's most influential rock star - particularly in America.

Lennon was at the height of his political involvement at this time - railing against the war in Vietnam and many other injustices. Within weeks of arriving in the US he was meeting with Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and other members of the New Left. America had just lowered the voting age to 18 - and the upcoming 1972 presidential election would be the first opportunity for America's under-21s to vote.

Lennon expressed interest in partaking in fund-raising, voter-registration anti-war rallies and concerts - which would take place in many of the 1972 primary states. With the full protection of the First Amendment (which protects citizens and non-citizens alike) - Lennon's intended actions were completely legal.

But Congressional Republicans who cherished their beloved President - Richard Nixon - were worried. The popularity of John Lennon could help galvanize the anti-war movement and result in a massive vote against Nixon. After all, Lennon's anthem "Give Peace A Chance" had been sung by over half a million demonstrators at the famous November 1969 anti-war rally in Washington.

On February 4, 1972, a secret memo (now revealed under the Freedom Of information Act) was sent to Richard Nixon by none other than the late Senator Strom Thurmond (then a youngster of merely 70.) In the memo he railed about Lennon and the danger he could cause the President's 1972 re-election campaign. Fortunately, Thurmond (writing as a member of the Senate Judiciary committee) had a solution in mind. "If Lennon's visa is terminated it would be a strategy (sic) counter-measure." Though he noted that "caution must be taken with regard to the possible alienation of the so-called 18-year old vote if Lennon is expelled from the country."

This memo arrived in the Nixon White House shortly after the notorious 1971 John Dean memo in which he proposed "We can use the available political machinery to screw our political enemies."

As we all know - Nixon followed Dean's advice to the letter. And John Lennon was on the receiving end of a vicious 4-year campaign of FBI surveillance and INS harassment.

(In 1975 the INS chief counsel on the case resigned his position - telling Rolling Stone magazine that the US government was being more vigorous in its attempts to deport John Lennon than it was in its attempts to expel Nazi war criminals dwelling in the US.)

Threatened with imminent deportation at a time when he and Yoko needed to be in the US (they were trying to trace Yoko's daughter who had been abducted and taken to America by Yoko's previous husband) - Lennon was forced to tone down his quite legal political activities. Nixon was safely re-elected, and J. Edgar Hoover, who personally supervised the campaign against Lennon, was allowed to pursue the ex-Beatle aggressively.

(Time revealed the true nature of both Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover.)

One cannot think of a single artist or entertainer prior to - or since John Lennon - who had that kind of impact. No other creative artist has ever induced that level of fear in a man who was ostensibly the most powerful man in the world.

Ideas, honesty, passion, humor and brilliant empathetic songs it seems were more powerful. Just imagine that....

And that is why today my eyes are red. My heart is heavy. I will play John Lennon music today. I will watch the video of Lennon insouciantly chewing gum as he sang "All You Need Is Love" live to 400 million people worldwide by satellite in June 1967. I will laugh as I watch him tweak stuffy pomposity again and again: "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you just rattle your jewelry..." And I will weep still more tears at the loss of a man who inspired me in my childhood - and who inspires me to this day.

Paul got it right. It was a drag. It's still a drag. And I'm still inconsolable...

This December 8th is the 27th anniversary of John Lennon's passing.

You are welcome to visit www.IMAGINEPEACE.com at any time on Dec 8th for a special message & video.

WAR IS OVER! artwork is now available for download at:

http://www.imaginepeace.com/downloads/WarIsOver.jpg
Print & display in your window, workplace, school, street, car, computer & elsewhere over the holiday season.

On December 8th, 11.15pm (your local time) remember John by taking a moment of quiet reflection. If you would like to play or sing the song "Imagine" and imagine a world of peace, just know that we are all together at that moment in every time zone, as IMAGINE PEACE makes its way around the world - every hour for 24 hours.

Send in stories & photos of what you did on December 8th to stories@imaginepeace.com for us, the family of Peace and Love, to tell us and tell us of your experiences. That would be lovely!

With deepest love
Yoko Ono Lennon

by Ritchie Yorke

John Lennon, over here in Canada with his wife Yoko, revealed for the first time that there had been considerable disagreement between him and Paul McCartney over the couple's nude Two Virgins album cover and that up until recently John had wanted to do concert tours again but had failed to talk round the other Beatles.

These disclosures were made to me when I went with John and Yoko from their Toronto hotel to the airport where they were to fly to Montreal for a seven day bed-in.

Beatlemania is still just as big here and on more than one occasion we'd been engulfed by swarms of half-crazy teenagers who descended on John like starving Asians at a Rome banquet.

Sitting in the back of the taxi John looked tired. Yoko was nonchalant.

Don't Agree

Lennon, all in white, sighed again and said: "I think Ringo was right about not touring." And later..."The Beatles are just a democratic group of middle-aged teenagers. We just don't happen to agree on doing concert tours.. I've wanted to do some for a while, but I'm not sure anymore."

It was an uneventful trip to the airport, a welcome respite from the maddening crowds that had besieged the hotel earlier.

We had arrived unannounced, but in less than 60 seconds a crowd had gathered and we were rushed into a small, vacant room.

We sat there for over an hour; John, Yoko, daughter Kyoko who's five, a Beatles' cameraman, and myself.

Controversy

The Lennons are now accustomed to the fanatical behaviour of teenagers, but John wasn't quite prepared for the storm of controversy over the recent Two Virgins album, which had John and Yoko pictured naked on the front cover.

"I expected some noise about it," John said, "but not as much as we got. I'd planned to produce an album with Yoko before we became lovers. Paul had had Mary Hopkin. George had Jackie Lomax, so I wanted to do something with Yoko.

"I was in India meditating about the album, when it suddenly hit me. I wrote Yoko telling her that I planned to have her in the nude on the cover. She was quite surprised, but nowhere near as much as George and Paul.

"Paul gave me long lectures about it, and said 'Is there really any need for this?' It took me five months to persuade them.

"It was a natural turn of events that I got in the picture, too. When we got the pictures back, I admit I was a bit shocked. I thought 'Hello, we're on.' I figured that if I was mildly shocked, what would others think?

"But it was worth it for the howl that went up. It really blew their minds. It cleared the air a bit. People always try to kill anything that's honest. The album wasn't ugly; it was just a point of view."

The Two Virgins cover, despite police confiscations here, did not create as big a stir as Jim Morrison (of the Doors) with his alleged indecent exposure in Florida. Lennon wasn't particularly impressed by what happened.

"I suppose the show wasn't going too well, so Jim decided to liven things up a bit. If he likes doing that sort of thing that's okay. If he did do it, I would have liked to see him do it properly and have intercourse on stage."

Lennon still thinks that the Beatles have more influence on young people than Jesus Christ, an opinion which brought a heavy load of wrath upon him when first he mentioned it two years ago.

"Some ministers even stood up in their churches and agreed with it then," said Lennon. "Kids are still more influenced by us than by Jesus Christ. As it happens, I'm very big on Jesus Christ.

"I've always fancied him because he was honest. He said in his book that anyone who followed his ways would be knocked. He was so right about that."

Lennon said that he liked Jesus Christ-"I'm always saying his name and talking about him" (the word Christ is featured several times in the Beatles latest hit, "Ballad of John and Yoko", which shoots into the Top 10 this week).

Lennon is an anti-nationalist, which is not surprising when one considers his peace efforts. "Yes, I don't like borders. But I do fancy myself as a bit of an Irishman, and I'm always telling Yoko about battles that Britain won. Anti-nationalism will have to come through if we want peace."

The Beatles have now finished their next album, which Lennon says will surprise many people. "It was all done like a rehearsal. Only one track almost got finished and that was 'Get Back.' The others are in various stages of completion. One day we just decided to stop right away, or we'd be doing another of those four-month numbers."

Wedding Album

It would seem that Beatles fans are going to have to dig deep into their pockets in the near future to keep up their disc collections. John and Yoko have another album on the way-"a wedding album"-which, John says, has some heavy stuff, "half beats recorded with terrific machinery." There will also be excerpts from the couple's bed-in in Amsterdam.

Most of the time as we were talking, a cameraman was filming our conversation and John's reactions. "We're making seven films," said John. "We've also got two books finished that will be coming out soon; one was done by me and the other with Yoko and myself."

Far Too Hot

The Lennons arrived in Toronto after a short stay in the Bahamas. "It was too hot down there, too far from the US, and the hotels were terrible," said publicist Derek Taylor, who traveled with them.

After a day's stay in Toronto, and receiving permission from the Department of Immigration to stay in Canada for 10 days, the Lennon entourage flew to Montreal for their bed-in to promote peace.

"Really, there's no difference between what we're doing now and what we've always done. The idea of peace has always been with us. You could smell it in the early Beatles songs."

And what did John regard as the most satisfying thing that has happened to him since the Beatles were formed. "Meeting Yoko," he grinned, putting his arm around her diminutive shoulders. Yoko smiled sweetly.

December 8, 2007 -- Oxfam.org.uk

John Lennon's Fat Budgie card is an Oxfam hit

In 1965 John Lennon allowed Oxfam to use a drawing of his, called the Fat Budgie, for a Christmas card. Despite the fact that it looks like it was drawn by a toddler, it raised a fortune because this was the height of Beatlemania. To mark the 50th anniversary of Oxfam printing Christmas cards, it was re-printed by this year, with the permission of Yoko Ono.

The limited edition card has turned out to be just as popular second time round, with 14,000 packs flying off the shelves in a matter of days. "They went straight away. It was just madness -- the card was selling and people were coming in droves," says Gerard O'Flanagan, manager of the Bold Street Oxfam shop in Liverpool.

Thankfully, Oxfam has re-re-printed the cards, and another 5,800 packs will be sent to shops this week, with some reserved for the Oxfam website.

"The demand for The Fat Budgie has been fantastic and Oxfam did not want to ruffle any feathers with people being left disappointed," says head of retail operations, Sarah Farquhar.

In the whole history of Oxfam cards, £56 million ($112 million) has been raised for charity -- enough to build 33,000 classrooms according to the charity.

The image was originally taken from Lennon's book, A Spaniard in the Works. In 1965, a pack of the cards cost 6d, however pesky inflation means that they'll now set you back £2.99, ($6)which is still a good deal for a pack of ten.

The cards were made in the UK from at least 50 per cent recycled paper, and 100 per cent of the profits will go towards helping Oxfam fight world poverty. You can buy them online or at your nearest Oxfam shop -- subject to availability (and Beatlemania).

American Idol judge Simon Cowell is to team up with Jullian Lennon on a new musical project. The unlikely partnership will see Lennon, 44, come out of musical exile to release his first album since 1998's "Photograph Smile."

Last week the son of former Beatle John Lennon told of Cowell's desire to meet up with him. The music mogul later confirmed the meeting. Speaking to British newspaper the Daily Express, Cowell says, "Julian's a lovely bloke, very down to earth and talented. "I could see something happening, there is potential. I couldn't say whether it would be in the U.S. or in Britain."

John Lennon has visited his son Julian Lennon from beyond the grave. Julian was left shocked by the haunting moment which occurred more than 25 years after the Beatles legend's death while he was shooting a new film in Australia recently.

Julian, who agreed to take part in an ancient ceremony with an Aboriginal tribe, was left speechless when he was handed a white feather by a tribe elder, a symbol of great significance to him.

A source told Britain's Daily Express newspaper: It may sound strange but that was a very weird and emotional moment for Julian. He was left speechless. Not long before he died, John had told him, 'If anything ever happens to me, look for a white feather and you will know I am there for you, always looking out for you.'"

Julian, 44, was in Australia to produce the film 'Whaledreamers' to raise awareness about the plight of whales and the Earth's oceans. He isn't the only person to have been visited by John since his death.

Fellow Beatle Sir Paul McCartney believes John appeared to the band in the form of a white peacock during the recording of the 1995 Beatles single 'Free as a Bird'.

As Paul, Ringo Starr and the now deceased George Harrison posed for a photograph outside the recording studio, the bird wandered into the shot.

Paul said: "That was John. Spooky, eh? It was like John was hanging around."

"We felt that all through the recording. We put one of those spoof backwards recordings on the end of the single for a laugh, to give all those Beatles nuts something to do."

"Then we were listening to the finished single in the studio one night, and it gets to the end, and it goes, 'zzzwrk nggggwaaahhh jooohn lennnnnon qwwwrk.' I swear to God. We were like, 'It's John. He likes it!"

Oasis singer Liam Gallagher also claims he was left in awe when John's spirit visited him in the middle of the night. The rocker - a self-confessed Beatles fanatic - said: "I was in Manchester at a friend's house having a sleep. I remember getting up and feeling really weird. I turned round and there I was, lying on the bed, and I sort of fell back into my body. There was a presence there and it was him, John Lennon."

Yoko Ono unveils tower of light in Lennon's memory

Yoko Ono called on the world to imagine living life in peace as she unveiled a tower of light on Tuesday dedicated to the memory of her husband John Lennon on what would have been his 67th birthday.

Ono and Beatles drummer Ringo Starr lit up the chill night with the broad shaft of blue light as about 200 people sang along with Lennon's song "Imagine", playing in the background.

The "Imagine Peace Tower", a light sculpture created by Ono, will illuminate the sky of the Icelandic capital each year from Lennon's birthday until December 8, the anniversary of his murder in New York in 1980.

"I hope that when the light from the tower will shine, the world will pause for a time and imagine peace," Ono told Reuters in an interview before the unveiling.

Ono spent the day with family, friends and peace supporters before taking a boat across to the small island in Reykjavik harbour to where the tower is located. She was accompanied by Starr and her son with Lennon, Sean.

Ono, who told the crowd the light sculpture was a 40-year-old dream come true, chose Iceland for the memorial because of its beauty and its reliance on natural power.

The tower will be powered entirely by geothermal energy, which is plentiful on the volcanic island.

"There are many beautiful countries in the world but what makes Iceland unique is the fact that 80 percent of the energy use of Iceland is provided by sustainable energy sources like geothermal energy," Ono told Reuters.

"Because of these clean natural energy sources, the water and the air in Iceland are clean, so clean that you can actually feel it," she said.

Ono hopes the sculpture will help preserve the memory of her husband and deliver a message of peace to all people.

"I cannot promise that I will be here every year for the lighting of the tower but I feel like I am part of Iceland now and I will try to come as often as I can," Ono said.

Yoko Ono will today urge fans to "come together" as she unveils the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavik, Iceland on what would have been his 67th birthday.

John Lennon's widow hopes that the tower, dedicated to the memory of the music legend, will shine as a beacon of hope for world peace.

The anti-war campaigner will be commemorated each year between October 9 and December 8 -- the date he was shot and killed in New York in 1981.

The words Imagine Peace have been etched in 24 different languages on an internal well wall with the lyrics of Imagine due to be engraved on the structure next year.

Its construction was a collaboration between Yoko Ono, the City of Reykjavik, Reykjavik art museum and Reykjavik Energy.

Yoko has continued to collect wishes through her interactive "wish tree" exhibits since she started in 1981.

Time capsules containing 495,000 peace messages will be buried around the tower and topped with trees.

Ono said: "This is the biggest birthday present I gave to John. He's very, very happy about it, I know."

Lennon's Memorial Wishing Well contains nine searchlights powered by geothermal energy, in remembrance of the legend's lucky number.

Ono added: "I hope Imagine Peace Tower will give light to the strong wishes of world peace from all corners of the planet and give encouragement, inspiration and a sense of solidarity in a world filled with fear and confusion.'

The stunning sky-high beam will radiate from Yoko's art installation each year in the hope to spread the late Beatles' message: "If you can imagine a world of peace. If you can imagine the possibility, then it can be true."

Peace messages can be submitted by mail to Imagine Peace Tower, PO Box 1009, 121 Reykjavik, Iceland or through the Imagine Peace Web site, www.imaginepeace.com

September 14, 2007 -- Press Release

Unreleased Mick Jagger song produced by John Lennon to be released

Rhino Entertainment will release The Very Best of Mick Jagger on October 2nd, 2007, featuring the previously unreleased track "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)", produced by John Lennon.

The sizzling "Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup)," was recorded by Jagger in 1973 in Los Angeles. The track features an all-star lineup that includes guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Jesse Ed Davis, keyboardist Al Kooper, bassist Jack Bruce, drummer Jim Keltner, and, on background vocals, singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. It has never previously been released.

The light tower, engraved with "imagine peace" in 24 languages, will go on display in Reykjavik on 9 October.

The musician predicted 40 years ago that the tower, which is designed by Ono, would eventually become a reality.

Some 100,000 wishes from people around the world will be placed in capsules and buried around the installation.

"I consider myself very fortunate to see the dream my husband and I dreamt together become reality," said Ono.

She added that she chose Iceland for the site of the tower because "it is a very unique, eco-friendly country".

"Like-minded friends from all over the world" have been invited to join the 73-year-old for the unveiling ceremony next month.

Many of the recordings had already been on sale from other digital stores, but they had not previously appeared on Apple's market-leading service.

The deal may pave the way for The Beatles catalogue to appear online.

It follows the end of a lengthy legal battle between the band's label Apple Corps and Apple Inc, which owns iTunes.

Among the albums added to iTunes are Lennon Legend and Acoustic, which had not been available to download legally anywhere before.

"John would have loved the fact that his music will now be available in a format suited to a new generation of listeners," Ono said.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said: "John Lennon is one of the greatest artists of our time. We're thrilled to have his solo catalogue available on the iTunes store for the first time."

The works will be among the EMI songs sold without copy protection restrictions.

The deal follows a similar move by Sir Paul McCartney in May. George Harrison is the only former Beatle whose solo work is not available for legal download.

But his widow Olivia recently said an agreement to put the band's recordings online was "imminent".

In February, technology giant Apple reached a deal with The Beatles to end the 25-year legal dispute over the use of the Apple name.

Under the deal, Apple Inc has taken full control of the Apple brand and will license certain trademarks back to the Beatles' Apple Corps for continued use.

The Beatles set up Apple Corps in 1968 to release their songs and manage their creative affairs.

July 15, 2007 -- Daily Snack.com

Battle over Lennon 'granny' glasses

A pair of John Lennon's trademark 'granny' glasses from one of the last Beatles concerts has sparked a fierce global bidding war after going on sale on an online auction site.

Anonymous rival bidders have driven the price of the glasses, described as the "rarest of the rare" by online auction house 991.com, to more than £750,000 (1.5 million US dollars) since bidding opened at midnight on Thursday.

The gold-rimmed spectacles, which he gave to his Japanese interpreter in Tokyo in 1966, are expected to reach up to £1 million in worldwide bidding when the auction closes at the end of July.

John Warner, sales and marketing director of the specialist musical memorabilia auctioneers 991.com, said: "The response has been phenomenal. Our phones have been in meltdown since the announcement of the auction with a ferocious bidding war breaking out around the globe.

"It's almost impossible to put a value on them. They're such a great thing, they have such a great story and provenance. They're the rarest of the rare."

Lennon wore the glasses on the Beatles' tour of Japan at the end of June 1966 when the band were at the height of their fame following Lennon's infamous "bigger than Jesus" comment weeks earlier.

Controversy followed them to the Far East, with threats on their lives from religious fanatics angry at the decision to let them play at the sacred site of Budokan. Amid heavy security, the band were forced to remain virtual prisoners in their Tokyo hotel.

Sean Lennon: Rock is 'played out'

The death of rock 'n roll has been greatly exaggerated before, but when John Lennon's son says it's in a perilous state, maybe it is time to worry.

Singer Sean Lennon told a news conference on Friday that there is little room for innovation in the genre that his father helped make famous as a member of The Beatles.

"I mean rock 'n roll is already kind of played out," he said at a news conference at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

"I wouldn't even be doing it if my mission was to be a pioneer."

The real appeal of rock 'n roll for Lennon lies more in the aesthetic challenges of songwriting than in the desire to forge new sounds.

"I'm only worried about creating beautiful songs," he said. "I'm not trying to reinvent songwriting."

The singer will play at the city's annual jazz festival while also promoting his new album "Friendly Fire" - his first since the 1998 release of Into the Sun.

In a cramped hotel room overlooking the festival's main outdoor stages, Lennon parried questions in both English and French, touching on subjects as diverse as his mother's parenting tactics, post-modern capitalist economies and the history of artistic individuality.

He even apologized at one point for the cerebral turn his news conference took.

"I'm sorry if what I'm saying is boring," he said, before returning to the current state of music.

"Pop music and rock 'n roll, it's not such a vital art form anymore in the way that it was in the '60s," Lennon said.

He points to the Internet as a medium where cutting-edge work is being done. And while admitting that his music has a niche appeal, Lennon hesitates about placing himself within contemporary musical currents.

"I'm trying to do something more classical," he says. "I'm trying to continue a tradition that I inherited from my family."

Lennon's new album is indeed more of a turn inward than socially engaged, expressing the emotional turmoil of a tragic love affair.

Given the introspective nature of the album, it comes as little surprise that Lennon reserves a healthy dose of skepticism for political songwriting, though it may come as a shock to those reared on music from the 1960s era.

"I generally find political art to be pretentious and stupid," he said. "I think it takes a really clever person to sing about politics and not be pedantic."

Bob Dylan and his father were able to pull it off, he admits.

But in today's era of Hollywood activism, beauty should be the artist's only concern.

"I think that art that doesn't have a purpose, that's just really beautiful, is a useful thing."

So maybe rock 'n roll isn't dying, but in the hands of its progeny it has adopted a different attitude since it defined a generation 40 years ago.

Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr clowned around and marveled at their band's amazing impact in an interview Tuesday on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"We were just kids from Liverpool," McCartney said. "And, yes, it is quite amazing, because as time goes on, it kind of becomes more and more of a phenomenon."

McCartney said the early Beatles knew they were a good band and were pretty sure of themselves, but Starr said, "We thought we'd be really big in Liverpool." (Watch former Beatles discuss their band's legacyVideo)

"I think the most exciting thing is that, you know, we expect people our age to know the music. But actually, a lot of kids know the music," Starr said. "And if anything is left, we have left really good music, and that's the important part, not the moptops or whatever."

The pair appeared relaxed in sneakers and almost matching black suits and joked frequently -- often at each other's expense.

"They were nothing," Starr said of his former bandmates. "And then I joined and then they got this record deal and look what happened."

"No, we were good," McCartney retorted. "You wanted to join us. You begged to join us."

"I didn't beg," Starr said.

McCartney and Starr were in Las Vegas with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, to celebrate the anniversary of Cirque du Soleil's "Love," which uses the band's music.

Harrison said her husband was friends with Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte and came up with the idea before he died of cancer in 2001.

"George was around just long enough to transmit that to all of us," Harrison said. (Watch Beatles widows describe dealing with their lossVideo)

Ono said she wasn't sure at first what her husband would have thought about the project. John Lennon was shot near the couple's New York apartment in 1980.

"Now I really know that John would be very happy with this," she said.

Neither woman has remarried and they both said it was still sometimes difficult to deal with their losses.

"We feel so strongly about our husbands that sometimes it's hard for us, isn't it?" Ono said.

"It's hard, you know," Harrison said. "I mean their presence is very powerful and very strong. But the incredible thing about them is that they -- everything they left the world and left us is uplifting and joyful."

The Beatles' music received a bit of a facelift for the show and has been remixed in 5.1 surround sound. (An album, "Love," came out last year.)

"Paul and I went to listen to the music in 5.1 and we go 'Whoa, listen to that,' " Starr said. "You know you can hear everything now. Things that we buried a lot. It's all very clear, so it's really great to hear it."

"Most historic stuff goes down with age, you know?" McCartney added. "Winston Churchill's old papers go brown and crinkly, while our music gets brighter and shinier."

"Next year, it will be 10.1," Starr joked.

McCartney's latest solo album, "Memory's Almost Full," is No. 3 on the album charts and Starr is scheduled to release a greatest hits album in August.

GO TO FAB JOHN BOOKS CDS AND DVDS!

GO TO Paul News

GO TO Beatles News

GO TO George News

GO TO Ringo News

---

---

Home Page | Wings Tour (photos) | 1989-90 Tour (photos) | 1993 Tour (photos) | 2005 "US" Tour | Back in the US 2002 (reviews) | 2002 USA Tour (photos) | Driving USA 2002 (reviews) | 2003 Tour (reviews) | 2004 Tour (reviews) | Meet Paul (photos) | Standing Stone (photos) | Macca Report (Paul News) | Archived News Index | Paul Photo Book| Back in the World CD/DVD Detailed info | McCartney Animation DVD | Fab Buys Shop | Beatles News | Ringo News | John News | George News | Bill Bernstein (interview) | Rusty Anderson (interview) | Brian Ray (interview) | Geoff Dunbar (interview)| Macca-Chat (Internet chat room) | Fan Close Encounter Page | Paul Shop | Message Board | Links | Blog |

---

---

Jorie Gracen

GET BACK TO THE TOP