John Lennon "resented having to be a Beatle," says his son Sean Ono Lennon
John Lennon's son, Sean Ono Lennon, revealed his father "resented having to be a Beatle" in the end.
The late frontman of the legendary Liverpool group was done with being a part of the "pop machine" in the years that followed the "Yesterday" band's split in 1970. He wanted to focus on being a "radical artist and activist", as inspired by his wife, Yoko Ono.
However, Sean, 49, insists his father, who was shot dead outside his residence at The Dakota in New York City aged 40 in 1980, never lost his love for music.
His son was asked about the period, including the pair of One to One benefit concerts in 1972 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, which marked Lennon's only full-length solo concerts in front of a paying audience after leaving The Beatles, and he dispelled the notion that his father had lost his passion for music.
Speaking to Chris Hawkins on BBC Radio 6 Music, he said, "I think there's a bit of a myth about that. I don't feel that he'd fallen out of love with music. I think he'd fallen out of love with a certain kind of fame. I think he'd fallen out of love with having to be a part of a machinery, of a pop machine, you know. I think that was - even though he was always rebellious within that framework, I think that he still resented, you know, having to be a Beatle in a way. I think he really wanted to move on from that, you know?"
The "Imagine" singer's son continued, "I think his relationship with my mum was the catalyst for it and the symbol of it in his mind. And he wanted to move on and be a radical artist and activist with, you know, this girl, Yoko, who he had fallen in love with. So, I think he was trying to find a new way to do things and looking for a new way to do things."
Sean believes his father struggled when John Lennon and Yoko Ono as Plastic Ono Band's 1972 double album, "Some Time in New York City," which flopped and was annihilated by critics.
Source: Kevin Zelman/komonews.com
