Julian Lennon: Here Comes the Son As the inspiration behind Beatles hits and the son of John Lennon, he isn’t really afraid of anything By ELIZABETH KAYE
Photograph by Richard Avedon
Early April 1963, not far from Penny Lane. Outside in the cool night air, the young girls wait for a glimpse of John Lennon. Inside Sefton General Hospital, Lennon dashes through the corridors to see his son, Julian, for the first time.
Gingerly, he enters the room where Cynthia Powell Lennon sits in bed, Julian on a pillow beside her. He stops, stares at his child, then at his wife. “Who’s a clever little Miss Powell, then,” he says. He picks Julian up. He holds him in his trembling hands. “Who’s going to be a famous little rocker,” he says, “like his dad?”
Julian Lennon drums his fingers on the green velvet couch in his hotel suite. When he is nervous, he jokes around, but when he is very nervous, he says nothing at all, and now, one month before his first tour opens in San Antonio, he stares straight ahead, his brown eyes fixed on the middle distance.
Julian’s drumming fingers are being studied by Perry Cooper, a vice-president at Atlantic who has become close to Julian and often travels with him. Perry asks, “Nervous about the tour?” “Possibly,” says Julian.
For most of his life, Julian has been caught between two distinct worlds. As if to illustrate that, he wears on his right hand a wide silver ring, a gift from Yoko Ono, and on his left wrist a vintage Rolex watch, a gift from his mother.
He is dressed in cowboy boots, faded jeans, a gray T-shirt with cutoff sleeves. His features are soft and sensual in repose, though his face is usually in constant motion: his eyebrows dart up and down, he widens his eyes, tilts his head, and these gestures are, as he is, simultaneously expressive and evasive. His face is pale, dominated by a close-mouthed smile that turns the corners of his mouth straight upward, and by his eyes, which sparkle with the mischief of someone who knows a secret he isn’t telling.
Now Julian’s manager enters the room. Dean Gordon is twenty-two, has blond, Beatle-cut hair, a smooth face and sharp features. “We just sold out San Antonio,” he announces, “in less than two hours.”
Julian’s expression does not change, but he drums his fingers even faster. Perry and Dean stare curiously at his hand. “I wouldn’t be doing this,” says Julian, also staring at his drumming fingers, “except that I’m so bloody nervous.”
Two weeks later, thirteen days before the opening in San Antonio, Julian and the six members of his newly formed band are on a plane, headed from New York to Dallas for two weeks of rehearsal. In the crowded coach, they are all conspicuous by their earrings: hoops and double hoops, diamond studs, an earring shaped like a guitar, another like a G clef, and Julian’s own earring, Sanskrit letters that spell the word om, which he selected because he likes its shape.
Julian remains in his seat throughout the flight, and also remains absolutely kinetic. He chews gum and eats pistachio nuts, which he keeps in an airsickness bag. He searches for a pack of “ciggies” in a large black bag that also contains a portable keyboard; a pair of slippers from his recent flight to Japan, where he went to publicize his album; matchbooks from clubs in New York, San Remo and London; a picture of his girlfriend; a hairbrush; two sets of headphones; a pair of red socks; and postcards from Disneyland, where he appeared on the thirtieth-anniversary television show.
All the way to Dallas, people approach him as if he were a shrine. Flight attendants literally kneel at his feet, telling him how much they like his music. Dean watches from across the aisle, relieved that interest in Julian has ascended, at last, from “I’m a fan of your father’s” to “I’m a fan of yours.”
Dean is one of Julian’s closest friends; his inclination, as well as his job, is to be protective of him. It is Dean who makes sure Julian has money in his pocket when he goes out, since Julian loses credit cards and rarely carries cash; it is Dean who frets when he and Julian are in a club and a disc jockey plays “Hey Jude,” the song Paul McCartney wrote for Julian when his parents were being divorced, and the one Beatle song with disturbing associations for Julian, who now, on the plane, puts on headphones and listens to Steely Dan, signs autographs, eats more pistachios and pelts the sleeping road manager with the empty shells.
Just before the plane lands, the captain comes out to thank Julian for flying American. Seeing this, Julian’s friend Carlos Morales, one of the band’s two guitarists, thinks something he has thought before: that people feel guilty for what happened to Julian’s father.
Then the plane comes to rest. The passengers rise as one, except for the band and Julian, who are seated seven rows from the back. Then the passengers turn, not forward to the doorway, but toward the back, and there they stand: the women with dyed, teased hair, the overweight men in cowboy hats, the young girls in too-tight jeans, the serious men in neat ties, the grandparents on a holiday, the mother with a nursing child. All of them are still, and silent, and staring at Julian.
The next day Julian and the band Arrive at the Dallas Communications Complex. The equipment has been set up at one end of the barnlike rehearsal hall. Julian’s eyebrows move up and down as he surveys the Tama drums, the Kawai keyboards, the two Harrison sound consoles, the blue folding trunk, with its bottles of green smoke fluid and copies of Playboy, the guitars resting on chrome-plated stands, and the equipment boxes, marked with white tape, on w...
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