Rainbow8711 - You've caught a pun there. The same pun shows up in Don McLean's American Pie ("Lenin/Lennon read a book on Marx"). Lenin was one of the major players in the rise of Marxism as a philosophy in Russia, and John Lennon was enchanted with the work of Karl Marx, as well.
So Lenin and Lennon in a sense become two faces of the same coin. One a political figure in Russia, one a popular English figure. Both proponents of Marxist ideals. The irony of Lennon, however, is that he was in many ways a commercial, capitalistic figure. The name can be seen as connecting both figures in one. Lennon is commercial, so when he speaks of the same ideas as Lenin he puts them on sale - he commercializes socialism.
Of course, David Bowie was known at the time for being very deliberately hard to understand. So I might have that all balled up there.
Rainbow8711 - You've caught a pun there. The same pun shows up in Don McLean's American Pie ("Lenin/Lennon read a book on Marx"). Lenin was one of the major players in the rise of Marxism as a philosophy in Russia, and John Lennon was enchanted with the work of Karl Marx, as well.
So Lenin and Lennon in a sense become two faces of the same coin. One a political figure in Russia, one a popular English figure. Both proponents of Marxist ideals. The irony of Lennon, however, is that he was in many ways a commercial, capitalistic figure. The name can be seen as connecting both figures in one. Lennon is commercial, so when he speaks of the same ideas as Lenin he puts them on sale - he commercializes socialism.
Of course, David Bowie was known at the time for being very deliberately hard to understand. So I might have that all balled up there.