John Lennon
British musician (1940–1980)
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician, songwriter and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.
Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed the Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. He initially was the group's de facto leader, a role he gradually seemed to cede to McCartney. In the mid-1960s Lennon authored In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, both collections of nonsense writings and line drawings. Starting with "All You Need Is Love" in 1967, his songs were adopted as anthems by the counterculture and anti-war movement. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, multimedia artist Yoko Ono, held the two-week-long anti-war demonstration bed-in for peace, and left the Beatles to embark on a solo career. Lennon and Ono collaborated on many works, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums and several films.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “John Lennon” is british musician (1940–1980). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through John, Lennon and British, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “british musician (1940–1980)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1203. VIAF identifies the subject as 196844. The Library of Congress control number is n80017868. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1980, 1956 and 1960.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
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Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “John Lennon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow John Lennon primary sources, John Lennon archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “John Lennon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.