You've Got to Hide Your Myopia Away
August 16, 2024 1:58 PM Subscribe
John Lennon was known for his iconic "granny glasses", which he wore in the later years of his career with the Beatles and into his solo years. The Journal of the College of Optometrists present a historical perspective examining Lennon's prior relationship with contact lenses during the "Beatlemania" phase of his musical career...and the one unexpected thing that made his lenses fall out less than usual. (Spoiler: it was cannabis)
Yeah some people just seem to have a face that suits glasses.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:33 PM on August 16
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:33 PM on August 16
I still enjoy wearing round granny glasses with medium tinted rose color lenses. I also have several versions of the large round frames favored by painter David Hockey and .every member of the cast of Thoroughly Modern Millie...I just get plain no script lenses. Frames can be an icebreaker and a bit of a mask
posted by Czjewel at 3:51 PM on August 16 [2 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 3:51 PM on August 16 [2 favorites]
Paul McCartney recounted a story of John's spectacle wearing habits from their teenage years in Liverpool.6 ‘He was pretty short-sighted, and it led to some funny occasions… Normally if there were girls around, he'd whip them off. He was a little bit shy with them, so if he was out and about, he'd just take them off… But he came down to my house, he lived about a mile or so away… We were writing some stuff and we got finished about midnight. And so… he took off his glasses and walked home. The next day he said “…do you know those people on the corner of Booker Avenue?” I said ‘Yeah’. He said, ‘They're crazy… at midnight when I left you, they were out on the porch of their house playing cards’. I said, ‘You're kidding me’. So, I had to investigate. I went around and had a look… it was a nativity scene’.The kid was holding aces and eights, I guess.
posted by jamjam at 4:36 PM on August 16 [6 favorites]
I still enjoy wearing round granny glasses with medium tinted rose color lenses.
The discussion about how cannabis kept in John Lennon's contact is interesting, because cannabis may also be the reason why putting colored lenses in granny glasses became popular.
According to the Wikipedia entry for the musician Fritz Richmond, a member of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band,
Richmond also contributed a key counterculture fashion accessory. Roger McGuinn and John Sebastian credit Richmond with the introduction of "granny glasses" in the early 1960s.[9] A well-known photo by John Byrne Cooke shows Richmond wearing his homemade pair in 1963, long before John Lennon popularized the "British welfare glasses".[3] Spectacles like Richmond’s – consisting initially of colored non-prescription glass set into old wire-frames, thus shielding the often-stoned performer's eyes from public view – then became common on the San Francisco rock scene where the Jim Kweskin Jug Band was paired in concert with bands such as The Doors and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia, who also socialized with Richmond, were among those who adopted the colored-lens look.
posted by jonp72 at 9:17 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
The discussion about how cannabis kept in John Lennon's contact is interesting, because cannabis may also be the reason why putting colored lenses in granny glasses became popular.
According to the Wikipedia entry for the musician Fritz Richmond, a member of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band,
Richmond also contributed a key counterculture fashion accessory. Roger McGuinn and John Sebastian credit Richmond with the introduction of "granny glasses" in the early 1960s.[9] A well-known photo by John Byrne Cooke shows Richmond wearing his homemade pair in 1963, long before John Lennon popularized the "British welfare glasses".[3] Spectacles like Richmond’s – consisting initially of colored non-prescription glass set into old wire-frames, thus shielding the often-stoned performer's eyes from public view – then became common on the San Francisco rock scene where the Jim Kweskin Jug Band was paired in concert with bands such as The Doors and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia, who also socialized with Richmond, were among those who adopted the colored-lens look.
posted by jonp72 at 9:17 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
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