on several greatest all-time rock albums lists, with
praise for Lennon’s unvarnished vocals and inti-
mately personal lyrics, as in the lead track, “Mother,”
which railed against the parents who abandoned him
as a child. A year later he produced a masterwork,
Imagine, which included his timeless anthemic plea
for peace. It too marked a thaw between him and one
more ex-Beatle: George Harrison played guitar on
several tracks, though not on the love song to his new-
found domesticity, “Oh Yoko!”
Early in their marriage, when he and Ono were still
based in England, Lennon maintained a relationship
with Julian, his 6-year-old son with fi rst wife Cyn-
THE BEATLES 1969 PEOPLE 41
LIVE PEACE
Exultant after his first shows with his Plastic Ono Band
three months before, Lennon and Ono (with him on the
cover of his post-Beatles debut LP, inset, and in a
conceptual “bagism” art piece onstage, top) performed at
a UNICEF benefit at the Lyceum Ballroom Dec. 15, 1969.