John Lennon
 
By Vijay Phanshikar :
 
“ I believe in everything until it’s
disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it is in your mind. What’s to say that dreams and
nightmares aren’t as real as here and now!”
- John Lennon,
Co-founder of rock band The Beatles
with Paul McCartney,
Ringo Starr, George Harrison

FOR this wonderful definition, everybody would fall in love with John Lennon. For, this simple definition points to the innate innocence we all are born with. As children, all of us have believed in fairies, ghosts, dragons, myths, dreams, nightmares, and have been beset with fears that one day, some demon might even lift us to some distant land away from our home and parents and dolls and dogs. All of us have woken up in shock, drenched in sweat, and have hugged our moms and dads seeking their arms around us in protection. That world, so full of fairies and dragons and witches, was so very real !!! As John Lennon -- whose life ended with his shocking assassination -- created pop music with his cohorts and rocked the world of people young and old, his music did have all those elements of innocent beliefs and disbeliefs.

 

Through music, he sought to ask questions that rocked every mind silently -- as well as violently. That was why that music by the Beatles caught the world’s fancy like very little else did. True, rock and pop music existed even before Beatles came on the scene -- thanks to legends like Elvis Presley (among others). Yet, when John Lennon and co came along, they just rocked the whole scene almost out of shape. What was that element that made the difference? Innocence ! Very much innocence !! For, when a mind rocks to the tune and beat of a band or the lilt of a tune, the appeal is elemental to human emotion, central to the overall human experience (which is first felt in the heart before travelling up to the head).

 

The appeal of music (whether rock or classic) is to elemental emotion, to fine thought, to silent, poetic nuances of human mind ! In other words, music thrives because innocence surfaces from the depths of collective human experience at every possible invitation or provocation or titillation or trigger or nudge or push or pull ... when music’s notes and beats and tunes touch the soul. No matter what rationalisation we offer later in our adulthood to the idea of fairies and ghosts and dreams and nightmares, all those often demonstrate a tendency to swirl up from deep wells of human mind. Possibly, music, too, is often born in that core of our being. So, when a John Lennon talks of fairies, the myths, dragons ... dreams and nightmares, he is only responding to the basic instincts and intuitions and intellect that the humans are blessed with.