Sarah Mourad joins in the global tribute NOSTALGIA is in the air as 9 October marks the 70th birthday of the singing legend John Lennon, who died 30 years ago now. Millions of fans as well as musicians and artists around the world are paying him homage. John Lennon is known mainly for founding the British band the Beatles who, though active for only seven years, managed to carve out a truly historic status as the greatest band of all time. To this day the Beatles influence people and colour lives. With Paul McCratney, Lennon co-wrote most of the Beatles' songs: one of the most remarkable partnerships in music history. The Beatles are perhaps the only pop band that is studied alongside Beethoven and Mozart. Not only did they invent their own style; they took music to new dimensions. Their album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, for example, is widely regarded as the single most influential work in 20th-century music in terms of both technical and artistic innovation and intellectual import. The band split up at the peak of their achievement in 1970; each started a solo career. Lennon's next decade of success was accompanied by peace activism, often with his Japanese wife Yoko Ono, and his song Imagine became an anthem of the Swinging Sixties and the anti-war movement. In 1969 he and Yoko used their Amsterdam Hilton as a "bed-in" for peace, prompting a second bed-in in Montreal. The song Lennon composed at the time, Give Peace A Chance, was sung by thousands of demonstrators at anti-Vietnam rallies in Washington, DC on 15 October. Lennon and Yoko moved to New York in August 1971, and when his single Happy Xmas (War Is Over) was released, they paid for billboards to advertise it in 12 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, "WAR IS OVER--IF YOU WANT IT". There were rumours that Lennon would hold a concert in San Diego, at the same time as the Republican National Convention, which drove the Nixon administration to try and have him deported. Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his re-election; he was in fact denied a green card until 1976. On 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days. In response, and he held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York chapter of the American Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia: a place with "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people". Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the US. In 1975, the deportation order was overturned by Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford. The following year, his US immigration status finally resolved, Lennon received his green card. Lennon released the album Some Time in New York City with the band Elephant's Memory; it contained songs mainly about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, and his own problems obtaining a green card. His song Woman Is the Nigger of the World was described by Lennon as "the first women's liberation song that went out".When Lennon's son Sean was born in 1975, Lennon stopped his musical career for five whole years, giving all his attention to his family. He was back with the album Double Fantasy, inspired partly by Paul McCartney's song Coming Up. On 8 December 1980, John Lennon was shot in the back four times, by Mark David Chapman, in front of the Dakota, the New York apartment building where he lived with his wife. Despite all those years of absence, he remains one of the most unique and influential people in music history, due to his exceptional charisma, humour, talent, and beautiful mind. The 22nd Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre
