john lennon

Beatles Tragedy:Inspiration Behind Famous Song Dies in London

Published September 28th, 2009 by Karen
IMAGINE
Creative Commons License photo credit: LifeHouseDesign

St. Thomas’s Hospital in London has announced the death of Lucy Vodden following a long battle with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that often causes damage to the liver, kidneys and other organs . Vodden was 46.

A childhood schoolmate of John Lennon’s son Julian, Vodden reportedly served as the inspiration for the “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Although many people believed it was a reference to LSD, Lennon claimed that the seemingly psychedelic song title was actually borrowed from a drawing Julian made of Lucy.

News of the severity of Vodden’s illness was widely reported in June of this year, resulting in numerous Beatles fans, and even Julian himself, offering outpourings of support to this unlikely pop culture icon.

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BELOW: The super psychedelic ’60s music video for the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” Continue reading »

"[...] and now this, Yoko Ono judging a Twitter haiku poetry contest. For more info, follow these links: [...]"
  Magnetic Poetry Twitter? Yoko Ono Judges Twitter Poetry contest? « art predator

Yoko Ono Hosts Twitter Poetry Contest

Published May 19th, 2009 by Karen

Above: Yoko Ono performs “Memphis, Tennessee” with John Lennon and Chuck Berry. If that’s not poetry, nothing is.

As if news of her recent campaign to spread world peace by sending acorns to world leaders wasn’t strange enough, Yoko Ono is making headlines once again.

This time, the eccentric artist is hosting (and judging) a poetry competition on the social network, Twitter.

Twitter’s small scale format limits users to 140 characters per message, which makes it a natural choice for Ono’s poem style of choice, the Haiku, and its strict 5, 7, 5 syllable format.

Twitterers interested in competing should Tweet their poem to #haiku to @kingsplace
The competition ends May 22, 2009.

So what’s the prize? Continue reading »

"@Donlizard - This week I've been holding preliminary talks with North Korea about the possibility of a missile treaty that would end their nuclear program..."
  Daniel Earwicker

Yoko Ono to Send Acorns for Peace to World Leaders

Published May 2nd, 2009 by Wendy
081027 IMAGINE PEACE NJCU-36
Creative Commons License photo credit: duziem

Yoko Ono intends to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of John Lennon’s “Acorn Peace”-in which she and the ex-Beatle planted acorns for peace in 1969-by calling 123 world leaders and urging them to reflect on world peace, according to an NME.com report.

According to the report, Ono will send the leaders two acorns each, in a transparent box with the inscription “Acorn Peace by John and Yoko, Spring 2009.” The original stunt, carried out in 1969, resulted in Lennon and Ono receiving letters of thanks from several world leaders in response.

Lennon later referred to the stunt in The Beatles’ song “The Ballad Of John and Yoko,” when he sang: “Caught the early plane back to London/Fifty acorns tied in a sack/The men from the press said, ‘We wish you success, it’s good to have the both of you back.’

Ono plans to put the original letters from world leaders on display at Imageinepeace.com to mark the continued struggle for world peace.

Top 10 Phil Spector Hits: Beatles, Ramones and More!

Published April 17th, 2009 by Karen

Ok, so by now everyone has probably read that record producer Phil Spector has been found guilty of killing Lana Clarkson by shooting her in the face.

Obviously, we can’t defend that action.

But, we can take a look back at Spector’s pre-murder career-and an impressive career it was. Spector hit the big time producing everyone from the Ronettes and Righteous Brothers to the Beatles and the Ramones.

Do you know what the last song Phil produced was? Or which song was covered by a ’90s indie rock icon? Keep reading for the answers!

The following songs and videos are just a few highlights from Spector’s back pages, mostly songs he produced, but some he actually played on-maybe you have some Spector in your record collection right now :)

Check out our Top Phil Spector tunes and tell us which is your favorite.

Kicking things off is a video from Spector’s own band, the Teddy Bears.

1950s:
Teddy Bears-To Know Him is to Love Him

 

Continue reading »

"i believe that john lennon would not aprove . this kind of money making idea just makes me sick. remember john for what he stood for , not for what someone..."
  Ron Froehlich

Dead John Lennon Makes TV ad–is a New Lennon Album Next? Legal Beatles Downloads

Published January 9th, 2009 by Karen

John Lennon has been dead and buried for over 20 years, but the poor man still isn’t getting any peace.

As if having John Lennon quotes plastered on bumper stickers and his songs butchered by every frat boy with an acoustic guitar isn’t humiliating enough, the late-Beatle is now being paraded around in television ads for laptop computers.

Thanks, Yoko.

On the plus side, the ads are for a charitable organization that provides laptop computers to some of the world’s neediest kids, so some of this atrocity is almost forgivable. Still, there’s something very creepy about seeing and hearing a digitally manipulated film of Lennon talking about laptops, especially since computers were still rather uncommon at the time of his death in 1980.

If Yoko Ono stops here with the selling of Lennon, fans might forgive her. Let’s just hope this series of faux-Lennon commercials doesn’t expand to include commercials for electric cars and vegan food, or special performances during half-time at the superbowl.

Then again, this type of post-mortem digital resurrection could hold interesting, or horrifying, possibilities for Lennon’s music. What if this process were used to record his un-released songs with a digital Lennon clone/ voice impersonator? Same thing for Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Elvis and all of the other dead singers who fans still want to hear more from.

Actually, that’s a really horrifying idea and we hope it never ever happens.

Do you think the Lennon laptop commercial is cool or creepy?
Leave a comment and tell us what you think!