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With an age gap of 23 years they said it would never last. But today artist Sam Taylor-Wood, 42, announced she is to marry her 19-year-old toyboy Aaron Johnson. The couple met when she cast the relatively unknown teenager as John Lennon in her debut feature film Nowhere Boy, which premiered in London last night. A spokesman for the couple confirmed their wedding plans this afternoon and said they were 'very happy'.

Forbes magazine's ninth annual list of top-earning dead celebrities was unveiled Wednesday, and surprise, surprise: Neither Michael Jackson nor Elvis Presley held court at the top. Late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent debuted in the No. 1 spot with an estate that earned $350 million in the year after his death from brain cancer in June 2008. To place on this year's list, "delebs" -- industry speak for dead celebrities -- had to earn at least $6 million between October 1, 2008, and October 1, 2009. Saint Laurent earned well past that. A February Christie's auction sold most of...

From today's New York Times... John Lennon The Beatles united a generation of young people with their songs, their attitudes and their sense of style, and John Lennon was the thinking man's Beatle. Of the four, he was the Beatle who wrote books, the Beatle who embroiled the group in a potentially disastrous controversy by suggesting in an interview that they were more popular than Jesus, the Beatle who embraced the poetic innovations of Bob Dylan in the mid-1960's and shocked Beatles fans by jumping into performance art, happenings and political protests in the late 60's and early 70's. ..."...

[/caption] The wisest thing Lennon (John, not Vladimir) said about revolutionaries was a line in the song which declared (sort of) his parting of the ways with them: "You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we'd all like to see your plan." Lennon went on to say that radicals could count him out if they were preaching hate. (But then, the Beatles caved and changed the lyric so that it said both "you can count me out -- in." Well, who in in his right mind over the age of 30 looks for wisdom about reconstructing society to...

The young British schoolgirl who was the inspiration for John Lennon's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is facing a stormy future as she battles an incurable disease. Now the slain Beatle's oldest son, Julian Lennon, has come to the aid of Lucy O'Donnell Vodden, a girl he had played with at nursery school and whom he had drawn a picture with stars around her head. Julian showed the picture to his dad, saying, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds." It prompted Lennon to pen the hit song. O'Donnell, 46, is suffering from lupus, a painful autoimmune disease. When...

For the i-Pod-less, there are many playlists that are created by users, but the "Essentials" lists are made by Apple. It says it was posted April 28, but sounds like it was posted January 20. See the goopy Obama-loving text that came with the songs: Welcome to the beginning of a new era in the U.S. – Barack Obama's history-making win is really a victory for all those who keep the faith and firmly believe that people have the power to make a change. John Lennon was one of rock ‘n' roll's most determined dreamers, and the better world he...

A cassette tape of a "drunk" John Lennon recording a cover version of a rock 'n' roll song has sold at auction in Los Angeles for $30,000 (£20,200). The six-minute recording, made in autumn 1973, is of Lennon performing Lloyd Price's Just Because. "Debauched lyrics" improvised by "a drunk Lennon" include "just a little cocaine will set me right", auction house Bonhams and Butterfields said... Lennon's "slurred warbling" included, "I wanna take all them new singers, Carol and the other one with the nipples, I wanna take 'em and hold 'em tight," Bonhams and Butterfields said. "The background band speeds...

December 8th was the anniversary of the death of Beatle John Lenon. Most of the world mourned the death of this man for his music but most of all for his views or I should say imagination. Well if we understood more about who he was and what he imagined, we would be celebrating rather mourning. Why? John's views were hostile towards the American ideals of individualism freedom and liberty and supportive of worldwide despotic communism at the hands of the New World order. His song Imagine was nothing more than a call for the destruction of America and religion...

Twenty-eight years ago today, John Lennon was murdered here in New York City. I remember that evening as vividly as anything in my life. I was a thirteen year old Beatle freak (a generation removed, but no less fervent) sitting in front of my TV (when I probably should have been in bed asleep) watching Monday Night football when Howard Cosell made the announcement on the air, somewhere around 11PM, that Lennon was dead.As a young teenager who had only recently become a bona-fide Beatlemaniac, his death was a tremendous blow. To the tens of millions of people he touched...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican's newspaper has finally forgiven John Lennon for declaring that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, calling the remark a "boast" by a young man grappling with sudden fame. The comment by Lennon to a London newspaper in 1966 infuriated Christians, particularly in the United States, some of whom burned Beatles' albums in huge pyres. But time apparently heals all wounds. "The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after...

-"John Lennon: The Life," by Philip Norman (822 pages, $34.95) Everybody from Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro loves to remember John Lennon as the dippy Utopian of "Imagine":" Imagine there's no countries/It isn't hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion, too." Less remembered is the Lennon of "Run For Your Life": "Well I'd rather see you dead little girl/Than to be with another man." In Philip Norman's merciless biography, Lennon No. 2 is on full display, and the picture isn't pretty. Spiteful and selfish, miserly and misogynistic, Lennon abused his friends, cheated on his women and quarreled...

"Power to the People"The Lost John Lennon Interview By TARIQ ALI and ROBIN BLACKBURN Editors’ Note: It was twenty-five years ago today that John Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota building on Central Park West in New York City. We doubt many CounterPunchers have read the following 1971 interview with Lennon done by CounterPunchers Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn. It’s a lot more interesting that the interminable Q and A with Lennon done by Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner. Tariq and Robin allowed Lennon to talk and spurred him on when he showed signs of flagging. Lennon recounts about how he...

Contemporary Orthodox Christian singer/songwriter, Jim Giatas, has written and recorded “If You Imagine” as an answer to former Beatle, John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” “If You Imagine” has generated significant criticism. One writer called it blasphemy. On MySpace, Vangellis responded that it was: “A terrible denigration of Lennon's ode to reason. And the fireworks are just beginning. “John’s song has gone virtually unchallenged for all these years and I felt compelled to write an answer to it from my own conservative Orthodox Christian faith.” It can be heard for free on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMM3WZ7AErA “I ‘ve always been a Beatles and...

The "Musicians Who Turn 50", "Musicians Who Turn 60", "Favorite Drummer" and "Favorite Guitarist" were such hit threads on FR, I've decided to do this one. Who is your favorite SONGWRITING DUO? We all know that Lennon-McCartney were amazing together and possibly the best songwriting duo ever. They might be mentioned several times on this thread. If you choose John & Paul, be specific about which song and lyric(s).

Copyright feud over 'awesome' Lennon footage Footage of John Lennon smoking pot, writing songs and discussing putting the hallucinogenic drug LSD in Richard Nixon's tea is the focus of a court case starting in Boston next week. The case pits Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, against the Massachusetts-based company World Wide Video which claims ownership of nine hours of raw footage of the former Beatle and Ono. It was filmed just weeks before the "Fab Four" broke up in 1970. World Wide Video wants to release the black-and-white footage as a two-hour film titled Three Days In The Life. Rolling Stone...

‘Imagine Piano’ Celebrates John Lennon’s Absurd Magnum Opus By Matt Carrothers August 6, 2007 Forget ground surges, new military leaders, tapping terrorist’s phone calls, free elections, training Iraqi soldiers to defend their own country and any other tactic that is helping the U.S. defeat Islamic fascists. British pop music singer George Michael and his boyfriend Kenny Goss have a better idea to bring peace to the world – John Lennon’s piano. Michael owns the piano on which Lennon composed the song “Imagine”. Accompanied by white-gloved attendants and a music choreographer, the piano is touring the U.S. as the centerpiece of...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- When it comes to Hollywood, abortion isn't just a topic that comes up frequently in movies or music, it's something celebrities routinely confront. News reports on Monday indicate abortion was a topic of conversation between famous Beatles musician John Lennon and his infamous wife Yoko Ono. In an interview with the BBC, Ono recounts a story about how she considered having an abortion when pregnant with the couple's son Sean. Lennon apparently talked her out of having an abortion. The conversation came after Ono became pregnant when the couple reunited in the early 70s after an...

LONDON -- John Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment after deciding he wanted to return home to see his son rather than go out for dinner, Yoko Ono said in an interview broadcast Sunday. "We were returning from the studio, and I said: 'Should we go and have dinner before we go home?' and John was saying, 'No, lets go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep.' And it was like he wasn't sure if we would get home before he (Sean) went to sleep and he was concerned about...

If there was a danger to the dark side that welled in music in the 1960s, it was perhaps best represented by what happened to one of its icons, Beatle John Lennon.  His was a life that symbolized, and took to an extreme, the spiritual struggles -- and confusion -- of a generation.  As previously reported [click here for story], after years of casting about -- swerving as a youth from Christianity to agnosticism to atheism and then all the way to Eastern meditation -- the famed songwriter settled, in the end, on the occult, as sort of a harbinger...

In his 1971 song “Imagine,” John Lennon asks us to envision a secular utopia. There’s no heaven, no hell. Peace and harmony reign, and a global “brotherhood of man” flourishes. Amid this blissful state of affairs, of course, we find “no religion.” Lennon was a talented songwriter, but when it came to theology, he was 180 degrees off. A world free of religion would certainly have no heaven. But there would be plenty of hell -- and right here on earth. This isn’t simply the opinion of a lady who takes her faith seriously. A large and growing body of...

See for example this thread first. The liberal folks are all smiles To see Lennon's FBI files They're worthless I say nought in them, anyway So much for all "Big Brother's" wiles

Secret John Lennon Files Released By FBI Documents Conclude Former Beatle Wasn't Serious ThreatPOSTED: 7:35 am EST December 20, 2006 LOS ANGELES -- The FBI has released its final surveillance documents on John Lennon to a university historian who has waged a 25-year legal battle to obtain the secret files. The 10 pages contain new details about Lennon's ties to leftist and anti-war groups in London in the early 1970s, but nothing indicating government officials considered the former Beatle a serious threat, historian Jon Wiener told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's editions. The FBI had unsuccessfully argued that an...

New York -- Yoko Ono is calling for the anniversary of the death of her husband, John Lennon, to become a day of worldwide healing. In a full-page advertisement appearing in Sunday editions of The New York Times, Ono urges readers to mark the anniversary by apologizing to those who have suffered because of violence and war. "Every year, let's make December 8th the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable," writes the former Beatle's widow, who signs the letter Yoko Ono Lennon. Ono urges readers to take responsibility for failing to intervene on behalf of...

Elton John - make that Sir Elton John - recently declared in a magazine interview that "religion should be banned completely." At least he didn't say it should be banned selectively; that might smack of favoritism and discrimination. It seems his animus toward religion is driven largely by his status as a homosexual. He resents religiously based disapproval of his lifestyle and says that religion directs "hatred towards gay people." His ironic remedy is that religious intolerance, as he sees it, shouldn't be tolerated. He's also critical of religious leaders for not coming together to end war. Now, Elton John...

ATTICA, New York (AP) -- John Lennon's killer was denied parole for a fourth time Tuesday because of the "bizarre nature" of his crime. Mark David Chapman, 51, must remain at Attica Correctional Facility for at least two more years for gunning down the former Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980. "The panel remains concerned about the bizarre nature of this premeditated and violent crime," the board wrote in a one-page decision issued shortly after Chapman's appearance before the three-member panel at Attica.

We live, as the pundits say, in the United States of Amnesia. Even so, did the makers of "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," an inquiry into our government's bizarre attempt to neutralize the perceived political juice of that famed English singer-songwriter, really need to spend half the movie explaining the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement to viewers? If things are really that bad, then perhaps the filmmakers should explain who John Lennon is. After all, the Beatles date back over 40 years. For those who do remember or are aware of the zeitgeist of the counterculture, this lengthy regurgitation...

JOHN LENNON DOCUMENTARY ABOUT TO SHAKE UP THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE"Pffft. In their dreams."From the studio that brought you Fahrenheit 9-11".Here we go again. When are these people gonna get their heads out of the @ss of the '60s? Nothing is working for them, so they commence to dig up the bones of their number one anti-war hero John Lennon. Problem is, none of that is relevent today. But they just can't let it go. How sad.I wonder if Drudge can sue them for ripping off his site?

Thanks (I think) to Ace of Spades for pointing out a 1973 video of William Shatner singing Harry Chapin's "Taxi" on the Dinah Shore show.  If that's not enough for you, have a gander at multiple William Shatners singing Elton John's "Rocketman."If you're really brave, watch Shatner rap something about Julius Caesar.For an encore, see this music video set to a excerpt of Shatner singing "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds."Don't ever say that I don't bring you guys true entertainment.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A controversial television seance airing on Monday will claim it has reached the spirit of John Lennon, but viewers will have to pay $9.95 to find out what the peace-loving Beatle has to say. The special, being carried on pay-TV service In Demand, was organized by the producers of a 2003 attempt to channel the late Princess Diana. That show failed to find Diana and received reviews that could have sunk the Titanic but it is estimated to have grossed close to $8 million. Sight unseen, the Lennon effort has been attacked by the late Beatle's...

John Lennon's Imagine has beaten two Beatles numbers to top a radio poll for the UK's favourite song. Voters placed Imagine higher than The Beatles' Hey Jude and Let it Be, which were in second and third place in the Virgin Radio poll of 7,000 listeners. Fourth on the list were U2 with One and Robbie Williams' Angels was next. The Beatles had 33 entries in the top 500 songs, followed by the Rolling Stones with 17 and U2 with 15. David Bowie and Queen had 14 entries each. James Blunt was the highest-placed debut act, with his chart-topping single...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Imagine this: a talking John Lennon doll. The Web site for the National Entertainment Collectibles Association (http://www.necaonline.com) has unveiled pictures of a new John Lennon action figure that is expected to arrive in stores in the spring. The 18-inch doll, dubbed "The New York Years" John Lennon, will utter "authentic" phrases used by Lennon, according to the Web site. A spokesman for Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, could not be reached for comment, nor could officials for National Entertainment Collectibles. As a solo artist, Lennon wrote songs like "Imagine," which asked listeners to consider a world with...

All right, this is for hard even for yours truly to believe, but here goes. It looks as if Yoko Ono has licensed a John Lennon action figure that will be sold, I don't know, in stores of some kind. Parts of it may be referred to as the Plastic Lennon Hand (get it, Plastic Ono Band?) Ono is clearly out to prove that there's nothing you can sell that can't be sold. Yes, it's been only a week since the 25th anniversary of Lennon's murder. I did in fact write a hopeful piece about Ono last week. All I...

The Cuban President, Fidel Castro, has paid homage to John Lennon at the unveiling of a statue of the late pop singer in Havana. The ceremony in the Cuban capital's El Vedado Park coincided with the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's murder in New York. President Castro praised Lennon as a revolutionary, whose thinking and ideas made him great. In the 1960s, when Lennon's band The Beatles topped the charts throughout the world, the Cuban authorities denounced their music as decadent. But an official statement said recently declassified US documents showed how Lennon had suffered for his opposition to the...

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Beatle John Lennon was the master of the peacenik anthem, exhorting listeners to live in harmony and give peace a chance. He also asked us to imagine a world without possessions. Yet the bickering among family and fans over his legacy is as loud as ever, as record releases, autobiographies and commentaries jostle for attention ahead of the 25th anniversary of his murder on Thursday. In recent months the musical "Lennon", endorsed by his widow Yoko Ono, flopped on Broadway and an autobiography by his first wife Cynthia described how he once hit her out...

JOHN Lennon was almost as famous for his biting wit as he was for his music. The star who was shot dead in New York 25 years ago this week - on December 8, 1980 - pulled no punches in interviews. Here DAVID EDWARDS looks at some of his acerbic comments on everything from religion to the Rolling Stones. ON PAUL McCARTNEY WE got fed up of being sidemen for Paul. Paul took over and supposedly led us. What's leading us when you wander around in circles?INthe studio, every time he sang the line 'Get back to where you once...

A Korean brothel on 23rd Street in New York proudly displays John Lennon’s signed photograph. Mr. Lennon was a patron in the early 70’s, during the time Yoko Ono was pregnant. At the time he had just dumped his “mistress” May Pang, another Oriental like Yoko, who was one of his “toys” often at the arrangement of Yoko herself. Drugs, sex and rock and roll were certainly his forte as with so many “rock stars” of the decade, that is when he wasn’t totally impotent, often due to use of heroin. Everyone who lived the times knows the factual details...

Last Friday on MSNBC’s “The Abrams Report,” Hoda Kotb made an appearance to plug that evening’s NBC “Dateline” program centering on John Lennon’s murderer, Mark Chapman. Ms. Kotb said that in listening to 100 hours of audiotape she was struck by Chapman’s being “so meticulous. He’s so calm. He’s so measured; all the while he is plotting out one of the most heinous crimes of the century.” Lennon’s killing was tragic, as most killings are, but categorizing it as “one of the most heinous crimes of the century” is a gross overstatement. This is, after all, the century in which...

John Lennon was dismissed as a Communist threat to the US only because he was always stoned, secret FBI papers revealed yesterday. The ex-Beatles singer was thought to be a ringleader of revolutionaries plotting to hijack a Republican conference, the documents show. But his drug-taking - which in the early 1970s included heroin, cocaine and marijuana - ultimately ruled him out of FBI inquiries. Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball and Albert Einstein were also investigated as suspected Communists, according to the files, published for the first time. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the FBI kept many celebrities under close watch...

Edited By Barry A. Jeckell. September 16, 2005, 10:25 AM ET 'Lennon' Musical To Close On Broadway "Lennon," the musical about the life and music of John Lennon that earned dismal reviews, will close just six weeks after it opened on Broadway. Created with the help of the former Beatle's widow, Yoko Ono, the show had a troubled road to Broadway that involved major rewrites after it was first produced in San Francisco. Critics slammed it for what The New York Times called its "Ono-centric" view of Lennon's life, and audiences have dwindled since its Aug. 15 opening night, falling...

It doesn't look so good for the beleaguered Broadway musical about John Lennon. The eponymous titled show, which got scathing reviews after finally opening on Aug. 14, is limping along with few patrons. Last week, Lennon took in a measly $303,959 and played to less than a half full theater on most days. The box office was down about 14 percent from the previous week, and those numbers hadn’t been very encouraging either. Of course, “Lennon: The Musical” is a god-awful piece of work that portrays the late ex-Beatle with five actors. The show completely skips using any Beatles’ songs,...

Lennon on Live 8 A timely excerpt from David Sheff's September 1980 Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Sheff: Just to finish your favorite subject [the Beatles], what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit? Lennon: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death. Sheff: Why? Lennon: Because they're always rip-offs. I haven't performed for personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every concert since then, Yoko and...

Beatle John Lennon's Childhood Stamp Album Acquired by Postal Museum The Associated Press Jun 24, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - Beatles star John Lennon collected stamps as a schoolboy - and the public will soon have a chance to see them. The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum announced Friday it has acquired Lennon's stamp album and plans to display it in October. The museum purchased the album from a British stamp dealer but declined to disclose the purchase price. The museum said the album contains more than 550 stamps from around the world, including many from former British colonies such as India...

The Liverpool children's home that inspired the Beatles' hit song is to close, officials said Wednesday. The psychedelic single "Strawberry Fields Forever" was released in February 1967 with "Penny Lane" on the reverse side and quickly made it to No. 2 in the British charts, but it was kept out of the top slot by Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me." John Lennon wrote the song's dreamy lyrics about a time in his childhood when he lived near the Strawberry Fields orphanage. It has been suggested that Lennon felt a kinship with the orphans after he was abandoned by his father and...

The Hollywood film star Richard Gere appeared in an ad–vertisement on Palestinian television, urging his viewers to vote in today's presidential election. In it, he declared: "Hi, I'm Richard Gere and I'm speaking for the entire world." His letter to me asking if he could represent me in his address to the Palestinians must have got lost in the Christmas post. Equally, none of my neighbours on our wet hillside in Kildare got their letters telling them what Richard was doing on their behalf. My many friends in Peru, Rwanda, Siberia, Borneo and the Pitcairn Islands report similar problems with...

Lennon, the new musical about John Lennon's life set to open next August, will have two unpublished songs that Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, has given to Don Scardino, writer and director of the production. The songs, India, India and I Don't Want to Lose You, exist only on private recordings that Lennon made in his last years. I Don't Want to Lose You, a slow, introspective ballad, was one of three songs Ono gave to the surviving Beatles when they reunited in the early 1990s to complete a few Lennon songs for The Beatles Anthology. An electronic hum in the...

Lennon fans threaten his killer as release looms Paul Harris in New York Sunday September 26, 2004 The Observer Mark Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon, could be released from jail next month in a move that has sparked fears of retribution from Beatles fans. Chapman will have a parole hearing in the week beginning 4 October, officials at the New York State Parole Division said. It will be held behind closed doors. However, one official said they had 'no idea' what the outcome of the hearing would be. But if Chapman is released after 24 years in prison,...

Murdered at 10:55pm eastern on 12/8/80. At 11:15pm Howard Cosell interrupted the Monday Night Football game between Miami and New England, as it was going into overtime, to announce: "One of the great figures of the entire world, one of the great artists, was shot to death horribly at the Dakota Apartments, 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. John Lennon is dead. He was the most important member of the Beatles, and the Beatles, lead by John Lennon, created music that touched the whole of civilization. Not just people in Liverpool, where the group was born,...

The record album signed by John Lennon for Mark David Chapman just hours before Chapman fatally shot him is being sold online.

Back when listening to Beatles music could get you placed in a state work camp in Cuba, Silvio Rodriguez lost his state job because of his Beatles penchant. Now Rodriguez is one of Cuba’s top folk singers. He was recently one of the participants in a peace concert that took place in a Havana park named after, not Vladimir Lenin, but can you believe it? John Lennon. Lennon’s songs were a featured part of the commie concert. John's sister-in-law, Setsuko Ono, announced that she was donating several of her sculptures to Cuba. A local artist named Kcho covered a Sherman...

QUESTION: There are several claims that the Bible Code points to the Son of God as Yeshua. But what does the Word of God say? In Nehemiah 8:17 according to the original Hebrew Text and the Old King James of 1611, it is made certain that Yeshua (Jeshua), is the son of Nun. Obviusly, the son of Nun can never be the son of God. Therefore, isn't the Bible Code fake, and couldn't it be used for total blasphemy?