The Lives of John Lennon
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The Lives of John Lennon was a 1988 biography of musician John Lennon by American author Albert Goldman. It is best known for its criticism and generally negative representation of Lennon's personal life.
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[edit] Lennon in the work
The Lives of John Lennon was extremely controversial upon its release because of its portrayal of Lennon in a less-than-admiring light. Lennon was presented in the book as a largely untalented, extremely needy, duplicitous and deeply flawed man, who manipulated people and relationships throughout his life, flinging them aside when they were no longer useful to him. Goldman also suggested that Lennon was an anti-Semite, and that he was dyslexic and a schizophrenic; such claims had never been made before. The book contained much unsubstantiated conjecture by the author, and tended to present worst-case scenarios when doing so.
Goldman went into detail about the alleged homosexual affair between Lennon and The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, as well as a number of Lennon's liaisons with other men, including a claim that he solicited underage male prostitutes in Thailand. This greatly angered Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney, despite much of the material appearing in previous Lennon biographies and Lennon's hint in a Rolling Stone interview that he was bisexual[citation needed].
Among Goldman's most serious charges are that Lennon was not only instrumental in the murder of a sailor whom he and Pete Best "rolled" in Hamburg, but also in the death of bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe. Goldman states that Sutcliffe's death was the long-term result of severe kicks to the head administered by Lennon in a fit of drunken rage. He also alleges that Lennon caused the death of an unborn baby he'd conceived with Yoko Ono during 1968, when he kicked the pregnant Ono in the belly during an argument.
Goldman does show genuine respect for Lennon's musical achievements with the Beatles and some of his early solo work (although he largely dismisses most of it, even the widely acclaimed "Imagine"). All the same, Lennon's best writings are presented as more the products of mental illness or drug abuse, than the creations of a talented person, while his melodies are charged with being mostly "stolen" from other musicians' songs, changed just enough to avoid legal action.
[edit] Others in the work
Despite the damning from Goldman in the book, Lennon comes across much better than Yoko Ono, for whom Goldman shows unbridled contempt. Goldman alleges that Ono had been a teen prostitute while attending Sarah Lawrence College, and depicts her as a willing participant in various alleged crimes of her previous husband, Tony Cox. Goldman also goes into great detail about Ono's treatment of Lennon's first wife Cynthia, and her rather bizarre antics which successfully lured in Lennon (in material largely taken from The Love You Make, an earlier Beatles biography [citation needed]). Such behavior as described would today result in the perpetrator's arrest for stalking. The book also depicts Ono as pushing Lennon into heroin use, being greedy and money-obsessed, and openly cheating on Lennon with gigolos.
Goldman depicts Paul McCartney in an extremely positive light, as being the only true talent among the Beatles, and the man who made the band able to function. Much more controversially, Goldman depicts manager Allen Klein as being somewhat of a saint, as someone who had the Beatles' best interests in mind, and who was railroaded by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission when he was tried, convicted, and served prison time for insider trading and securities fraud.
Goldman implies that Mark David Chapman's murder of John Lennon may have been part of a conspiracy by Fundamentalist Christians. Chapman was a fundamentalist who viewed Lennon as a corrupter of youth. Goldman does not offer any conclusions, but mentions that the NYPD files on Lennon's murder are sealed and any conclusive answer would have to wait until the files are released to the public.
[edit] Criticism
Lennon's widow Yoko Ono threatened to sue for libel, claiming the book drove her to attempt suicide [citation needed], but never pursued any legal action. First wife Cynthia Lennon denounced the book, stating "Every single person was annihilated. My mother was called a bulldog and a domineering woman, which was nothing—nothing—like my mother. And he called me a spaniel. I thought, I'd rather be a spaniel than a Rottweiler, which is what he was." [1]
Despite Goldman's praise of him in the book, Paul McCartney didn't return the favour, and condemned Goldman's account of his old bandmate, telling fans and the press "Look, don't buy it." Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, whose friendship with Lennon peaked during his 1974 separation from Ono, told Rolling Stone that Goldman "got me drunk" while interviewing him, probing Nilsson for 'dirt' about Lennon, and Nilsson wouldn't cooperate. (Nilsson gets a chapter in the book, "Harry the Hustler", which credits him with having better confidence-man skills than singing talent.)
In Ray Coleman's biography, Lennon: The Definitive Biography, there appears the following quote from Beatles' record producer George Martin about Goldman's book: "I think it is iniquitous that people can libel the dead. If John was [sic] alive, that book would not have come out. It is largely untrue, but, sadly, if mud is thrown it tends to stick." Martin also labelled the book as "codswallop" (Coleman page 32).
Other celebrities who'd known Lennon personally, including Geraldo Rivera and Tom Snyder, largely expressed an attitude of "Interesting story—who's it about? That's not the man I knew."
The book was lambasted by Rolling Stone in what Goldman described as an attempt to "discredit [his] biography." The New York Review of Books said: "Goldman's background research was either slovenly or nonexistent." As a result of his bad press, Goldman later claimed that over 1,000 words of praise about Lennon had been deleted by editors seeking only salacious Kitty Kelley-type stories.
On their 1988 album Rattle and Hum, U2 attacked Goldman's allegations about Lennon in the song "God Part 2", a "sequel" of sorts to Lennon's song "God", with the lyrics "Don't believe in Goldman/his type is like a curse/Instant karma's gonna get him if I don't get him first."
