JOHN LENNON'S SONGS ABOUT HIS MOTHER

It's not often you get a renown singer-songwriter who records three songs about his mother. And yet, that is what John Lennon of The Beatles did. He wrote "Julia" for the White Album. He wrote two songs as a solo artist in his debut album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band about his mother. One simply called "Mother" and one I never heard of called "My Mummy's Dead."

Julia Lennon gave birth to John while the Germans were bombing Liverpool during World War II. Her sister Mimi ran to the hospital during the air raid to help her sister. Around the age of five, John started living in his aunt Mimi's house because her aunt kept complaining to Social Services that Julia was living in sin with an unmarried man and sleeping in the same bed with them. Mimi was the one who raised him although Julia was in daily contact with John. I don't think John wrote any songs about his aunt Mimi.

Julia seemed like a fun girl. She had a great sense of humor and knew how to play guitar and accordion. She bought John his first guitar, but John could only play it at her house because John's aunt Mimi was against it. She taught John how to play guitar and piano accordion. The song "Julia" is from the White Album. John sang and played the instruments without the help of any of The Beatles. John took some of the lyrics straight out of a poem by Kahlil Gibran called “Sand and Foam.” These lyrics are “Half of what I say is meaningless.” The lyric “Julia, Julia, oceanchild, calls me,” is supposedly about Yoko Ono. Yoko means “child of the sea” in Japanese.

The song "Mother" was written by John and produced by Phil Specter. Ringo played on drums and supposedly John asked George to play but George refused because he hated the song. The song was influenced by John doing primal therapy. This therapy is based on the belief that neurosis is caused by childhood trauma that has been repressed. This trauma has to be re-lived to be cured. The song also mentions his father though not by name.  His name was Alfred, but was known as Alf. Never heard a name like that except for a smart alecky life form with a sitcom by the same name. Alf was an absent father, although he almost ran off with John to New Zealand when John was six.

The third song that John Lennon recorded about his mother was called “Mummy's Dead.” The song is only 49 seconds long. The song is about the pain of losing his mother. Julia was killed by an off-duty police officer who was driving under the influence. John was seventeen at the time.

Who knows how many songs John wrote about Yoko. Gotta figure that one out one of these days. Some of them are actually really good. So in that sense, thank God for Yoko. There must've been something John saw in her that most of us don't see. Still don't in fact.