John Lennon and the fateful "fat Beatle" comment

John Lennon 1963 ("Beatles Bible" image)

Often people ask: Will future generations of students study the Beatles the way we were exposed to the "classics" like Mozart, Beethoven etc.? Will the Beatles become the "classics?" And while they're at the forefront, many others like Bob Dylan will get interwoven.
Mozart and all that was the popular music of its time. Without electronic amplification, large groups of people were needed to create a moving sound. So we got the whole array of "instruments" that might be considered "analog" today. But they sure haven't faded away. We guide our own kids into these instruments as much as ever. The Beatles, just four guys, harnessed the new possibilities coming from high quality amplified sound.
It's easy to overlook that the British recording industry was ahead of its counterpart in the U.S. We had a Driggs Lecturer at UMM talk about this once. An impediment in the U.S., this speaker explained, was the distraction of the Vietnam war. A generation of young men had this horrible distraction over their heads, of possible war service. Why did the group "Abba," also four people, look so totally fresh and uncorrupted throughout their run? Did Sweden have to deal with Vietnam? I believe not.
In studying the Beatles, we'll have to differentiate between the Beatles period per se and the extensive work these guys did as solo artists.
 
Transformation of a person
My memory of John Lennon is marked by two images I have of him. The early John Lennon seemed most agreeable. He seemed affable and pleasant and totally focused on just giving us good music. His persona in the two Beatles movies projected that. The later John Lennon bothers me for more than one reason. He did classics totally worthy of praise but there was other darker stuff, idiosyncratic stuff. So that's an issue, but what I'm really focusing on here is how he looked.
Today we are so non-judgmental in how we react to people's appearance. We'll be sitting at McDonald's when a quite rotund person comes in the door, and think nothing of it. We might make a mental note - "I'm glad that's not me" - but we make no outward comment. The first wave of Beatles success was in the early '60s. We certainly judged people's bodies differently then. Being "slim" was absolutely idyllic. Being "fat" (or insert synonyms) spelled stigma. Eventually the lens of that time caught up with Lennon.

John Lennon in 1971

So, we have the chapter of his life where he lost weight because of body image. He was in a fishbowl of course because he was famous. The scrutiny of such of person can be vicious. We look at photos of Lennon and his mates from the early '60s, and we think they all look quite agreeable. If forced to compare, yes, Lennon looked somewhat thicker around the middle than the others. Would anybody suggest he was overweight? It would be a stretch. You might suggest that McCartney and Harrison were on the quite trim side.
Let us not overlook how "the camera adds weight." Neal Cavuto talks about this on Fox News today. Celebrity women can look anemic when you meet them in person, as a columnist noted after an encounter with the actress Frances McDormand. The Beatles were bound to be scarred in some way after the big bombardment of attention they got in the early '60s. It was like they were suddenly transported to the Land of Oz.
 
Three words with profound impact
A single fleeting statement from a reporter appeared to have a profound effect for Lennon. A reporter labeled him "the fat Beatle" in 1965. This reportedly stuck in his head. It has been written that Lennon had "an obsession with the 'fat Beatle' criticism." Compare his appearance in 1963 to 1971. I think it's sad that such a superfluous body image consideration would alter his behavior so much. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Many of us have insecurities we are not proud of.
The Beatles were vulnerable because of their sheer fame. Lennon probably thought the world had gone nuts, as it went wild over the four guys when they were simply talented dudes with a gift for creating music, hardly unique to them. They happened on a style when the time was ripe for that style to take hold. In their early rise I guess it was called "the Mersey sound."
John did put on some weight during the filming of the "Help!" movie. It has been written he indulged in alcohol, maybe to excess, for a spell. He didn't hesitate eating rich foods for a time, and so as fate would have it, a prickly newspaper writer decided that based on the "thin is in" standard of the time, a little mean commentary was in order.
"He was fat," an online commenter said, "however the booze gave him a bloated look that made him look fatter than he was. The comment really bothered him and afterwards he went on self-imposed starvation and became too thin for the remainder of his life. Many thought it was self-imposed anorexia."
The anorexia thing has not taken hold. I rather doubt it. What about drugs, really? Did any of the Beatles do drugs to the extent as suggested by legend? I smirk. I reflect on this the way I reflect on all the "outlaw" country-western performers of the 1970s. I have heard it said those "outlaws" were really "pussycats." I heard that comment in connection to Waylon Jennings. And I'm skeptical of the legend because it's really hard work to be a successful composer/performer of music. You can't risk self-destructive habits. The performers allowed the outlaw thing to take hold because it seemed to be cute and good for marketing. The Beatles too sensed, I'm sure, that the new young generation of rebellious youth primarily in the U.S. thought it cool to be associated with so-called "mind-expanding" drugs.
Take a time out and remember it's just entertainment, though I concede that's hard to do.
 
Do clothes make the man? No
I can relate personally to the disruption and unease that Lennon felt at the "fat Beatle" comment. I grew up when clothes were made with the trim and slim in mind. It was genuinely hard to find clothes to accommodate the larger frame. I never felt I was rotund or fat at all - I rather fancied my physique acceptable. For a while I sought pants sized 34x34 and these were hard to find. I walked out of J.C. Penney in a huff once because I only found one pair of pants in the place like this.
We saw ads in those days for "big and tall" men's stores. I don't notice these ads anymore. My theory is that the mainstream stores learned to stock the larger sizes, because those sizes appealed to more than a splinter of the population.
My frustrations got me resolved to try to lose weight, to an unreasonable degree.
Shirts were a problem because they used to be made too tight! Our fashion standards were that "form-fitting" was good, whereas loose-fitting might spell "nerd." Ha! Nerds completely won the culture battle. We don't even hear that term any more, thank the Lord. While the cool jocks were all out partying, the nerds stayed at home and studied the manuals for all the new tech stuff coming out.
I found a serious problem with tight-fitting shirts. Fitting so close to the skin, you'd develop perspiration odor much faster than with more loose, comfortable-feeling shirts. I decided to just assemble a large pile of T-shirts for use in the warm weather months. I found it a shame to wear an expensive button-down shirt which might have too much odor after just one day of use (like a "press day" at the Morris newspaper).
 
My own parallel experience
There is one last anecdote I'd like to share here. It's my own personal version of what happened with Lennon and the "fat Beatle" comment. I was at the county fair back around 1981, at the inside/front of the KQIC Radio bus one evening, talking with a couple friends I had at the station. A couple of high school-age girls walked in front of the bus. They looked up at me for a moment and one said "who's that?" They seemed unaware I could hear them. The other girl said "oh ish." I am saddened I gave such an impression.
It was very soon after that, that I plunged into my decade-long passion of distance running, as I felt a more fit and sleek appearance would discourage a reaction of "oh ish." I ran up to around 70 miles a week and I did the Twin Cities Marathon three times. My weight plunged down to as low as 160 pounds. I was on a parallel course with the earlier John Lennon, having been stung by a hurtful comment, a comment that obviously should not have gotten us so shook. But we are so human. Maybe there's a song there.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com