John Lennon was an English songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist who co-founded the Beatles and wrote some of the most widely known songs of the twentieth century. During the Beatles era from 1960 to 1970, Lennon composed 73 songs credited to the group, many under the Lennon-McCartney partnership that became the most celebrated songwriting collaboration in pop music. His Beatles compositions range from the raw simplicity of early hits like Please Please Me and A Hard Day's Night to the experimental textures of Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am the Walrus, and Tomorrow Never Knows. After the Beatles dissolved, Lennon pursued a solo career that produced albums including John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, as well as singles like Cold Turkey, a raw, repetitive piece about heroin withdrawal that showcased his willingness to use songwriting as unflinching autobiography. His partnership with Yoko Ono shaped much of his later creative direction. Lennon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame both as a Beatle and as a solo artist, and the Lennon-McCartney catalog remains among the most performed and recorded bodies of work in popular music. He was killed in New York City in 1980 at the age of 40.
