--- title: Lennon Lives description: The former Beatle's 70th birthday is marked by films, albums, concerts and more. Why we still can't let John go canonical: https://time.com/archive/6597740/lennon-lives/ author: Claire Suddath article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-10-18T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-25T03:08:57.201Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Lennon Lives og:description: The former Beatle's 70th birthday is marked by films, albums, concerts and more. Why we still can't let John go og:url: https://time.com/archive/6597740/lennon-lives/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lennon Lives twitter:description: The former Beatle's 70th birthday is marked by films, albums, concerts and more. Why we still can't let John go twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # Lennon Lives > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with Ally. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Claire Suddath](https://time.com/author/claire-suddath/) Oct 18, 2010 4:00 AM UTC by [Claire Suddath](https://time.com/author/claire-suddath/) Oct 18, 2010 4:00 AM UTC We still miss John Lennon. The late Beatle would have turned 70 on Oct. 9, and while it’s been 30 years since that cold December evening when he was gunned down by a deranged fan outside his New York City apartment, the music world is still throwing him a party. Several parties, in fact. Not to mention two movies, a Grammy Museum exhibit, a limited-edition Gibson guitar, reunions by both the Quarrymen (his band before the Beatles) and the Plastic Ono Band (the one that came after), a performance by Yoko Ono and Lady Gaga on Oct. 2 and a $200 box set of all of his solo albums, remastered and packaged with a collection of his personal photos and home recordings. John Lennon may no longer be with us, but try as we might, we just can’t let him go. [(See pictures from the Beatles final years.)](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1978942,00.html) In the 30 years since his death, Lennon has gone from star to icon to legend. Fans have spent decades poring over every detail of his life, fueling a rich trade in bootlegs, ticket stubs and autographs. Even his toilet sold for $14,700 at auction this year. The Beatles’ 1 — a 2000 compilation album featuring all 27 of the group’s No. 1 hits — has sold 11.7 million copies, making it the best-selling album of the decade. Not bad for a band that hasn’t existed since 1970. **The Man** Here is what we know about John Lennon: He lived for 40 years and two months. He had three bands, two wives and two sons. Per the 2009 British biopic _Nowhere Boy_, out in the U.S. Oct. 8, Lennon (played by Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson) had an unhappy childhood — his father was absent, and his mother left his upbringing largely up to his aunt — and joined his first band at 15\. He released 13 albums with the Beatles and between seven and 11 on his own, depending on whether you count his live recordings and projects such as 1969’s Wedding Album, for which he and Ono collected tapes of random noises and their own voices. He acted in films, wrote poetry and drew a number of crude yet evocative pen-and-ink scribbles that sell for thousands of dollars. Today he has more than 600,000 fans on Facebook. (The Beatles have 8 million.) [(See behind the camera with the Beatles.)](http://www.time.com/time/audioslide/0,32187,2024447,00.html) Lennon responded to fame with an appreciative but often apprehensive attitude, and his dry sense of humor sometimes got him into trouble. On good days, he was funny. When asked in 1964 what it was about the Beatles that made kids go wild, he replied, “If we knew, we’d form another group and be managers.” On bad days, he made provocative remarks like the one in 1966 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” which caused U.S. radio stations to ban the group from the airwaves. Lennon apologized and was forgiven. Also overlooked were his brief heroin addiction, his inconsistent relationship with his first son, his 18-month-long break from Ono and that one night in the 1970s when he ran around Los Angeles with a Kotex tampon stuck to his head. **The Myth** Lennon was the unpredictable beatle, the one it felt a little dangerous to like. Paul McCartney retained the same doe-eyed, approachable demeanor throughout the Beatles’ incandescent career and beyond. But Lennon kept changing. He became artsy, political, bohemian, an ardent supporter of peace. When he and Ono hosted their 1969 honeymoon bed-ins, declared “War Is Over! (If You Want It)” on billboards or sang “Imagine,” it didn’t matter that the hopeful messages would never really come true. What mattered was the way he made people feel connected — and that many still yearn to feel that way today. [See the 100 best albums of all time.](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1955625,00.html) [See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.](http://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek) “I used to think the Beatles were just a ’60s thing, something for my age group,” says Beatles historian Martin Lewis. “But every year I go to these Beatle fan festivals, and a new crop of kids, ages 13, 14, 15, are there. The music just passes from generation to generation.” Even Lennon’s high school bandmates the Quarrymen have been able to base a healthy music career on Beatles nostalgia. “I was absolutely flabbergasted to learn how many people wanted to see us play,” says drummer Colin Hanton, 71, who last performed with Lennon in 1959, when they were still teenagers. “I’m not even a musician,” admits guitarist and singer Len Garry, 68, “but people want to hear us because, you know, we ‘knew him when.'” Since re-forming in 1997, the Quarrymen have toured 13 countries and put out two CDs. They do not regret leaving the band that later became the Beatles. **The Music** Lennon’s musical gifts didn’t come in the form of nimble fingers or pitch-perfect performances. Rather, he wrote some of the most achingly personal songs popular music has ever seen. “Mother,” from 1970’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, in which he screams—literally—about his deceased mother and estranged father, can depress a listener in just two lines. Even early songs such as “I’m a Loser” and “Help!” carried hints of desperation beneath the boisterous rhythms of the early Beatles sound. [(See TIME’s review for _Nowhere Boy_.)](http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2024434,00.html) In one of the last interviews he granted, Lennon told Playboy’s David Sheff in the fall of 1980 that he didn’t understand, or agree with, the continued adoration of the Beatles and their music. “I don’t have any romanticism about any part of my past,” he said. “I don’t believe in yesterday.” It’s been 30 years since his death, but John Lennon’s music still sounds new. There he is, mashed up with Jay-Z on Danger Mouse’s Grey Album and on movie sound tracks from Love, Actually to The Social Network. Sally Draper screams for the Beatles in this season of Mad Men. His music has been remixed, remastered and, on the recent Double Fantasy reissue, stripped of all overdubs and layered tracks. Capitol Records’ new John Lennon Signature Box sleekly presents his entire solo career from start to finish: when listened to in order, it’s a comprehensive view of his evolution as an artist. Lennon has his own airport in Liverpool, a memorial in Central Park and the Imagine Peace Tower — a beam of light in Reykjavík, Iceland, that on a clear night is said to shoot 13,000 ft. (4,000 m) into the sky. Yoko Ono has asked fans to send 1 million Twitter messages of peace and love to the tower’s website on Oct. 9. **The Legacy** Perhaps that’s why we still celebrate John Lennon: we want to believe that he’s listening. Despite his cynicism, he was honest and hopeful at heart. “We’re all relatively young people,” Lennon told Playboy. “The game isn’t over yet.” Sadly, he was wrong. Lennon has not aged since 1980, but the rest of the world has. To hear his voice now is to remember who we were when we first heard him— when we too were young and the future seemed exciting and uncertain. When we listen to John Lennon, we remember how that used to feel. 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