Editing John Lennon (section)

==Early Life and Background==

Lennon was born in Liverpool, England, during a German air raid on the city in the Second World War. His father, Alfred Lennon, was a merchant seaman who was largely absent during his childhood, and his mother, Julia Stanley, was unable to care for him consistently. He was raised primarily by his maternal aunt, Mimi Smith, in the Woolton suburb of Liverpool — a working-class upbringing that would leave a lasting imprint on his art and personality.

His relationship with his mother Julia was a source of deep emotional complexity throughout his life. She reintroduced him to music as a teenager, teaching him banjo chords and encouraging his interest in rock and roll. Her death in a road accident in 1958, when Lennon was seventeen, was a trauma he would return to repeatedly in his songwriting, most explicitly in the solo composition ''Julia'' and the primal scream-influenced ''Mother''.

A voracious reader and natural wit from an early age, Lennon attended the Liverpool College of Art, where he developed his literary voice — later evident in his published books ''In His Own Write'' (1964) and ''A Spaniard in the Works'' (1965) — and met future artist and collaborator [[Stuart Sutcliffe]], who would become the original bass player of The Beatles.