Hero or Heel, Vol. 1

50 years later people are still singing his songs. Definitely a hero. Didn't live long enough to ruin that with his politics.
 
I watched The Beatles make their US television debut on The Ed Sullivan show on my parent’s black and white set two lifetime’s ago. The screaming from the women in the audience was like nothing we’d ever seen.

I owned Imagine when it was a new release. Aside from the fact it’s bad that he was gunned down, I didn’t hold him in particularly high regard in his post Beatles career.
 
What spawned the urge to label him? Worse yet, what spawned the urge to make US label him, while you post no opinion?
You're reading too much into it. There is no poll asking you to concrete a decision.
Hero or Heel is simply generic terminology leaving open the choice of either, or neither.
I post no opinion as that can be construed as an attempt to; A) Coerce people along my line of thought, B) Argue

Don't get carried away. It's just a discussion about an interesting person. I like talking with my friends here. Most are pretty sharp, and their experiences are wildly varied.
Maybe someone here met him?
This is Vol. 1. There will be others. No requirement to play or share thoughts.
 
To me, neither.
To many, a hero. He inspired an unknown amount of people to do their art - paint something, play music, whatever.
Hell, even now/recently there was a movie based around their music, pretty good too.

I enjoyed the Beatles. Well, most of it, their later psychedelic stuff aint really for me. But while I dont consider him a hero, I dont know what 'bad' he did to warrant the 'heel' tag either.

Funny, though, as I was just reading into his death recently. I think the anniversary just happened. I think.
Im making a 'this day in history' PPT for my class, including some famous people born that day and events, and I remember seeing something about this in the early September area.
His killer is in the last picture of (alive) Lennon. Shot him multiple times and then waited on the police to arrive to arrest him. Weird.
 
I dont know what 'bad' he did to warrant the 'heel' tag either.

While I’ll grant that “heel" is sort of an arbitrary perjorative, many people of the generation preceding you, even those who owned his music when they were new releases (me) ultimately grew up to view some of his lyrics as the antithesis of what made this country great.
 
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He certainly doesn't fit my definition of a "Hero".

I came here to post those exact words.

He was a talented songwriter with a very successful career. His life ended tragically. I wouldn't consider him a hero or a heel from what I know about him.
 
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I know what I call somebody that stages a "stay in bed for peace" rally, but has no qualms with the staff keeping up their pampered ass, and it ain't "hero".

Otherwise, kudos to his success for his overrated boy band.
 
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Neither.

Damaged man, who brought a great deal of joy to billions of people. His work continues to bring smiles decades after his death. He’s one of a handful of people whose music will still be played in hundreds of years, like Mozart or Beethoven. None of us will accomplish anything like that.


I don’t look to artists to be ideal people. I look to them for their art. I know plenty of overall kind and decent people. Those people will live good lives and leave no mark. Neither hero nor heel.

Nothing wrong with either side.


What spawned the urge to label him? Worse yet, what spawned the urge to make US label him, while you post no opinion?
He seeks to divide us. Probably one of those paid agitators.

:D
 
I also watched the Ed Sullivan debut for the Beatles. Had a "Beatle Wig" and tried to sing all their songs. But I became a Dave Clark Five fan, so my interest in the Beatles waned. For whatever happened to what has to be considered a great talent, hero or heel, I'll just leave this here. It must have been some good sockittomesideways.

 
Neither. The Beatles made (what, at the time, I thought was) pretty good music. That is as far as my interest in any of them ever extended. The only Beatles song I've played in the last 30 years or so was "Blackbird", and that was all Paul McCartney, I think. And I was today old when I learned that the lyrics may have had any meaning beyond the literal words, but I like the song, so I'll probably keep listening to it.
 
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As for the song "Imagine," I think it's highly ironic that two atheists and near-communists would write and perform a song whose ambitions could only be described as Heaven. Don't fret over the "And no religion, too" line. There would be no "religion" in Heaven. The only place "Imagine" describes is where the lamb could lie down with the lion. (Often misquoted from Isaiah 65:25, "The wolf and the lamb will feed together...")
 
Complex guy with a dark childhood, the yang to McCartney's poppish-bouncy yin as a talented songwriter, a mediocre guitarist but a gifted singer with a great natural sense of harmony. I never could figure out what he saw in Yoko. A much "nicer" guy and fairly politically conservative by the time he died, so I hear. Not my favorite Beatle, but I still say the world's a better place because of him. Sooo... I give him a 7.5 out of 10, Dick. A little unconventional, but still a danceable beat.
 
Not really a big Beatles fan, definitely not a Lennon after the Beatles fan. He never did anything heroic. Just another dirty, dope smoking hippie who married a whiny, no-talent, fugly Chinese girl.
 
He was an artist who was very good at his art. Outside of his art, he only really accomplished being a face for pacifism Even that was part of his art. That is not meant as a dig as that is the case with most artists...expressing their views through their art.

I join the "neither" club. At his core, he was a hippie with more money and influence than most hippies. Nothing about his message was particularly noteworthy other than the amount of influence behind it.
 
He left a mark on music that people will still be talking about 100 years from now.

I don't think it makes him a hero or a heel. But certainly someone very notable.
 
John Lennon.

Hero or Heel?

Neither -- just another child of God with a modicum of musical talent who was fortunate but didn't make the most of it.
 
Not really a big Beatles fan, definitely not a Lennon after the Beatles fan. He never did anything heroic. Just another dirty, dope smoking hippie who married a whiny, no-talent, fugly Chinese Japanese girl.

Not to split hairs or disagree, just to correct the record. :)
 
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I like some of the Beatle music, especially some of the early stuff before they got too full of themselves, but think some is total garbage. I often wonder whether they would sit around and wonder as an inside joke how horrible a song they could write and still have people think it was incredibly meaningful and worthy of praise as high art.

That "song" in which Yoko just stands up and screams is about as bad as it gets. I can not imagine anyone not totally wiped out on mind-numbing drugs, which they may have been, considering that to be a good piece of music. I bet they laughed all the way to the bank every time they heard it being played.
 
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Meh, I'm gonna say neither. He had more talent than Luke Bryan but that ain't saying much lol.
The Beatles wouldn't have been the same without him but I though McCartney was the talent of the Beatles.
 
I'd say neither. After a point he began to take himself too seriously and thought his opinion was important.

The key phrase here is "Shut up and Sing"
 
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