I invite you to tune in to this Sunday’s Service, which focuses on Lennon’s 10-year post-Beatles career. Having long tired of Beatlemania, he lit out on his own with Yoko. He issued two amazing records in his first two post-Beatles years, 1970 and 1971: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. The first was a serious statement of freedom from pop music, and an embrace of his new wife, and of being able to freely sing about his interior states. It’s been called by some people, ‘the most honest album by anyone ever.’ Imagine was a little more political and a little less personal, but still honest and edgy. His and Yoko’s next album Some Time in New York City, 1972, was even more political, and proclaimed their love for NYC and the United States. He liked the freedom, and the art and the power and essence of the great city of the world. He essentially settled in Manhattan, had to fight J. Edgar Hoover, but got his permanent residence status, and was happy here. New York and America loved him right back, and that is why Manhattan gave part of its precious Central Park for a memorial to him. Much of the world appreciated his honesty and his risk-taking on behalf of the have-nots and the persecuted, like the Irish, and women, and dissenters.
This Service will have a lot of photos, and a whole lot of John’s music from those years. Lennon-lovers love it. I hope you will too if you don’t already.
Valerie Howells’ memorial Service is at 4pm this coming Sunday, October 17th. I hope everyone will attend, in honor of this extraordinary, larger-than-life person, and friend of this Congregation. 4 to 5 PM, at the Centre of Elgin, 100 Symphony Way.
Rev. Leland Bond-Upson
0 Comments