50 Interesting Facts about John Lennon

John Lennon and Paul McCartney once wrote a song for The Rolling Stones, "I Wanna Be Your Man" because they were short on material for a single. It went on to be one of their first hits.

27. When John Lennon was recording the song "How Do You Sleep?" in which he ruthlessly slanders Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr visited the studio and became very upset, saying: "That's enough, John."

28. John Lennon hated many of Paul McCartney's later compositions for the Beatles, calling it 'Paul's granny music sh*t.'

29. John Lennon's inspiration for the title of the Beatles' song 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' originates from Charles M. Schulz's phrase that "happiness is a warm puppy", which began in the Peanuts comic strip.

30. John Lennon said the only way the Beatles would return to the Philippines after being ambushed by mobs of angry citizens would be "with an H-bomb."

John Lennon wrote, "Because" from hearing the chords of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" played backward.

32. John Lennon returned his Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) four years after receiving it as a protest "against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping down the charts."

33. In the 1983 movie "Wargames", John Lennon was interested in playing the character of Dr. Stephen Falken but he was murdered while the script was still in development.

34. Before one of the Beatles sessions, John Lennon accidentally took LSD instead of an upper and complained about not feeling well. The producer unknowingly took him to the studio roof for fresh air, but his bandmates, who knew what happened, rushed to the roof and brought Lennon back to safety.

35. When John Lennon was having his toilet replaced, one of the builders, John Hancock, decided to store it in his shed. About 40 years later, in 2010 Lennon's lavatory was auctioned off for £9500.

John Lennon wrote, recorded, and mixed his song Instant Karma in one day. The single was in stores ten days later.

37. John Lennon invited Yoko Ono to visit when his wife was away on holiday. When she returned, Ono was wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon, who simply said, "Oh, hi."

38. When John Lennon got his driving license, numerous luxury car dealers brought their wares to Lennon's house, so that the rock star could personally see their cars without leaving his house. The idea worked for a Ferrari dealer, as Lennon bought a 330GT 2+2 from him.

39. John Lennon hated his own voice and loved to double-track his records. He would often ask the producer, George Martin: "Can't you smother it with tomato ketchup or something?"

40. John Lennon wanted to include Jesus, Hitler, and Gandhi in the Sgt. Peppers cover but the idea was rejected by the record label head.

When John Lennon performed "Woman Is the N****r of the World" on the Dick Cavett Show, Cavett was told to apologize for the song's content before the performance. The show received about 600 letters of complaint but all criticized Cavett's apology, not the song's lyrics.

42. John Lennon once yelled in his son's ear so loud that he had to go to the hospital.

43. John Lennon once almost got beaten up at the Playboy mansion after he stubbed out his cigarette on a priceless Matisse painting.

44. John Lennon always found delight in mocking his manager Brian Epstein for his homosexuality and for the fact that he was Jewish.

45. John Lennon was an advocate of peace in the public, but often beat his girlfriends and wives. He once almost killed a man for calling him gay. He was also emotionally abusive towards his son, and mocked disabled people.

There is only one known recording of John Lennon and Paul McCartney playing together after the breakup of the Beatles. In it, Lennon is heard offering Stevie Wonder a snort of cocaine.

47. The famous shot of John Lennon and Yoko Ono (with Lennon naked) was taken only 5 hours before Lennon's murder.

48. The moment John Lennon died, the Beatles' song "All my loving" came over the hospital's sound system.

49. Before his death, John Lennon told Beatles producer George Martin that he wanted to re-record everything the Beatles ever did. When the astonished Martin asked, "Even Strawberry Fields?" Lennon answered, "Especially Strawberry Fields!"

50. There is a statute of John Lennon in a park in Havana. Visitors kept stealing its glasses until a retiree volunteered to protect them.