John Lennon And Depression: The Songs No One Understood

John Lennon spent much of his life calling for help. He did it in the 60’s with the song ” Help!”  and again with one of his last, most prophetic compositions: ” Help Me to Help Myself “. The most idealistic, revolutionary and inspiring member of The Beatles hid a traumatic, dark, yet inspiring side of himself.

They say that sadness is a powerful emotion, the flame behind the most memorable artistic creations in history. You can see it in Janis Joplin, for example. She was a singer with a powerful voice, but her early death left us with the memory of a sad young woman, who strangely enough helped the world to become a little happier.

And The Beatles did the same, but in a much more universal way. The musical, cultural and social influence they had was great. But not many stopped to see the sadness behind the group’s most intellectual member: John Lennon.

Everyone who knew him well knew that something was amiss inside him. It was a suicidal, destructive shadow that led him to a personal isolation that lasted for almost five years.

Oddly enough, one of the last songs he wrote before Mark David Chapman killed him in the entrance of the Dakota building, gave evidence that he got out of the dark hole, and looked for another chance. He was full of hope and began to believe in himself again:

John Lennon and his eternal cry for help

When John Lennon wrote the lyrics to the song “Help!” the rest of the group was a little surprised, but no one thought much about it at the time. It sounded great, and it was part of one of their best-selling albums.

It ended up being the title of a film they wanted to make in 1965. But these lyrics contained the stress Lennon had to deal with and the external pressure he felt due to things moving too fast for him to process.

Several years later, Paul McCartney was interviewed by Playboy magazine in which he said that at that time he could not see what his friend and band member was going through.

Lennon cried out for help, but he lived in a world full of people who could not hear. In the song, he spoke openly about his insecurities, his depression, and his need for someone to help him, so that someone could help him get his feet back on the ground.

John Lennon’s trauma

There are people who say that part of his lifelong anxiety and eternal hidden sadness could have come from his childhood. His father was a sailor who left them early. His mother also left him for a while, and she made him live with her aunt and uncle.

Years later, when he settled with his mother, he witnessed her death. A drunk policeman drove into her with his car, killing her immediately. It had a profound effect on him, and he carried it with him for the rest of his life.

His cinemas say he invested heavily in music to get through the tragedy. Finally, his passion for art came from his mother. She was the one who showed him how to play multiple instruments. She was the one who gave him that fascination. And it was to her that he dedicated one of his most intimate songs: “Julia” .

John Lennon and primal therapy

When The Beatles broke up in 1970, all Paul McCartney, George and Ringo had to do was make some relatively catchy albums, and they would continue to succeed. But John Lennon could not follow that path.

The world was full of voices, movements, injustice and social crossroads that he felt very deeply. It made him furious. He stood up to political hypocrisy and attacked young fans who idolized him and other rock stars.

In one of his albums , he expressed his deepest thoughts very naked in this new stage : ” I do not believe in magic… I do not believe in Elvis… I do not believe in The Beatles… The dream is over… I was the walrus, but now I’m John… “.

Making music no longer motivated him. It did not give him joy or satisfaction. It was all just business in his eyes, and he felt imprisoned, trapped in a box where he destroyed himself through alcohol and LSD.

But something not everyone knows is that after realizing that neither music nor meditation or drugs could turn off the bitter sadness in him, John Lennon began to see the psychotherapist Arthur Janov. This well-known psychologist developed primal therapy, a strategy intended to treat mental trauma through primary screaming and psychodrama.

This discipline, like many other cathartic, expressive therapies, focuses on the idea that we can bring all our repressed pain to the surface and solve it by dealing with the problem and expressing the pain that arises because of it.

John Lennon used this therapy for many years, with good results. It lasted long enough for one of his last songs to be a direct result of the therapeutic journey that led him to wonderful inner reconciliation.

The song title was “Mother”.