Did Capitol Records really chose not renew John Lennon’s contract?
Given that John Lennon became the biggest music star in the world and then died at the age of 40, some 45 years ago now, the distortion of time makes us forget exactly how the events of his life truly went down. It’s easy to remember the good bits – Beatlemania, getting with Yoko Ono, becoming an activist for world peace – but underneath it all, there were also some extremely tough times.
Indeed, in the final years leading up to his untimely death, Lennon’s career had been in somewhat of a decline – or at least in a restrictive rut, to put it kindly, as his days of boundless sonic innovation and creativity seemed to be behind him. For roughly 15 years prior, he had been at the centre of a prolific musical universe, but all of a sudden, around the mark of the mid-1970s, his mind-bending visions stopped working.
Of course, a change in the pace of his personal life had a lot to do with this, as his second son Sean came along in 1975. Perhaps owing to the fact that his firstborn, Julian, had been born at the beginning of the Beatlemania period, Lennon decided that a quieter life was in order, and said that he was taking a hiatus to take care of his young child. Well, that’s what he told the world.
The truth of the matter was that, really, quite inconceivably, Lennon was theoretically unemployed after a string of lacklustre efforts had meant his contract with Capitol Records had expired and not been renewed, only a few weeks after Sean’s birth. Down on his luck and seemingly cursing the world, Lennon retreated into domesticity, Ono managing his existing back catalogue while he, to an extent, wallowed in his own pity.
What happened to John Lennon after his contract wasn’t renewed?
It hopefully goes without saying that Lennon was, of course, not the rock god mirage he is all too often painted to be, particularly in these latter years of his life. Roundly said to be manipulative, angry, and abusive, much of this was rooted in his musical misfortunes of the late 1970s. His supposed hiatus was little more than a ruse; Lennon had truly run out of luck.
In fact, when asked by a friend if he had retired, he snapped back: “Retired, hell. I’m dead. They’ve nailed me in a coffin called the past. I’m a golden oldie. The only thing I can do is Beatles stuff. Travel the circuit, play Vegas and sing songs from the old days. They’ve turned me into another Elvis.”
With that haunting image in mind, Lennon ultimately had two options – continue feeling sorry for himself and hitting the self-destruct button, or get back up and fight. All too tragically, in his case, he decided to take the latter option at the 11th hour, releasing his comeback album Double Fantasy alongside Ono only three weeks before his murder. It was a pretty bleak end to a blazing life, but nevertheless, Lennon endures as one of the greatest rock gods to ever grace the world.
