welcome to my world
I’m never quite sure which day to mark the anniversary of John Lennon’s murder. The date he died in New York was 8th December but it was already 9th December over here in the UK. Whichever date is correct I can still remember the day he died, 29 years ago now.
I woke to a Beatles song on the radio, not uncommon enough to make me realise something was wrong, but when they went straight into another Beatles tune I began to wonder what the occasion was. And then they went to the news and I cried for the first time that day.
I should explain why it upset me so much, more than you might expect it to upset a guy who was only fifteen at the time and who had therefore only been five years old when the Beatles broke up.
As I’ve hinted at in previous blogs, my father was no hero to me and the day that my mother and I left him and travelled across country to go and stay with her mum until we found a place of our own, brings happy memories. We were finally free of his threatening, domineering personality. I had been eleven when we left. By the time I hit my teenage years I was heavily into music, like so many kids, and The Beatles were my favourite band. I wasn’t just a fan, I was a super-nerd. I had all the records, loads of biographies, some interview discs (best of all being interviews from the American tour after Lennon had been (mis)quoted as saying that the band were ‘bigger than Jesus’). I did not have to look further than Lennon for the sort of male role model I found preferable to my own father. He wasn’t a saint, far from it. But he was honest about who he was (unlike my father for whom ‘denial’ might well be a middle name) and he strived to become a better human being.
So John was my imaginary surrogate father, if you like. Hearing of him being gunned down was as upsetting to me as if someone close in my family had died. Sounds weird to put it like that, three decades later, but that’s how it was for the fifteen year old I used to be. I was devestated. I did go to school that day but cried several times and ended up creeping out the back gate during morning break and not going back for two days. Only a couple of my friends understood – fellow Beatles fans. Everyone else thought I was being an idiot. To put it in perspective I can only paraphrase Bill Hicks from one of his rants on why is it always the good guys who get assassinated and the ones you’d rather were killed manage to survive? Or, as he puts it, ‘Kennedy – murdered. Martin Luther King – murdered. John Lennon – Murdered. Ronald Reagan – wounded!’
Rest in Peace, John. Some of us still imagine all the people living for today.
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I remember exactly where I was standing when I heard the news. And I thought it was a cruel joke that the kids at school were playing on me because I was such a Beatles fan. But it was no joke. And I remember going about in a fog that day – stunned that the Earth had lost such a beautiful soul. And I, too, was upset for days and I remember someone saying to me, “But you didn’t even know him.” But I did. We all did. Through his music. Through his poignant lyrics. He shared with us a piece of himself that can make us pause, re-evaluate life, change us for the better. Imagine, indeed.
I started writing a response and it ended up so long I posted it on my own blog! Suffice to say, it is incredible just how much Lennon and the Beatles influenced popular music and popular culture. I feel they are sure to remain key figures of the century for historians when they look back at the twentieth century in hundreds of years time. I think it’s also worth pointing out that Lennon was not only a great songwriter, he was a great performer and interpreter of songs. Their versions of ‘Twist and Shout’ and ‘Rock and Roll Music’ are pretty much as good as rock and roll gets, as far as I’m concerned.
Ah yes, Steve, John was a great rock and roll singer (as was/is Paul McCartney). When he went through primal therapy some years later he cleverly acknowledged that all the shouting that was central to the therapy was just like singing rock and roll songs.
AH! So that would explain why “Hard Day’s Night” has been playing 24/7.
I remember hearing the news of Lennon’s death, standing by the radio as it was announced on the CBC, but the music in our house consisted mainly of old time dance music and one ABBA album. We didn’t have the money to spend on extras like records, and since we were so isolated in the boonies, I didn’t get into the music thing on my own or even know what was out there to be missed. So when Lennon was killed, other than thinking that it was a shame that someone would do that to another human being, I wasn’t quite sure what all the fuss was about. It wasn’t until I went to university that I discovered the Beatles, and I played the music over and over again. That was in the 80s. I was sooo behind the times. Still am, I’m sure.
If still loving the Beatles music is being behind the times then I am way behind and happy to be so, Lynn.
We can still hear that beautiful, otherworldly voice, forever young, eternally irreverent. John Lennon left an indelible mark on our culture that cannot be denied. He is still a very real part of our lives, almost as much as he was all those years ago when he walked among us. Thanks to the miracle of recorded sound, the voice of John Lennon can still be heard, a lingering ghost from our past that refuses to fade into the void. At least we have that to be grateful for. Dr. Winston won’t be going away any time soon.
When a celebrated person passes on, we may pause and reflect for a moment on his or her life and career, but then we move on. We may watch with appreciation the brilliant performance of a long dead James Dean in the film Giant and think not a thing about his absence from our lives. That’s not the case in this instance.
I sure do miss John Lennon.
Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you’re busy making other plans
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Tom, Lennon’s voice does sound properly ghostly at times, especially his solo material which often has his voice double-tracked to fatten it up. SOunds slightly other-worldly but then, Lennon seemed as though he was from a different planet to me anyway. Too talented and honest to have sprung from earthly parents, surely?
I am too young to really understand, but I really liked this post. Music is amazing. I just know that I always quote Lennon, “Life is what happens when you’re making othe plans.”
On my first trip to New York City there were two things I really wanted/needed to see: Ground Zero and the Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park near the Dakota building where Lennon lived. Ground Zero was a failure at some level. It’s scale was dehumanizing and it didn’t help me gain any perspective or understanding I didn’t have before visiting. I was amazed and horrified to find that some ‘entrepreneur’ in Bush’s America had employed a number of destitute immigrants to sell ‘memorial booklets’ (read: glossy magazines) about the attacks. The whole situation felt cold, hard and unfeeling.
The Lennon memorial was very different. People were rather hushed, but not off in their own bubbles. When it started to rain someone let me share their umbrella as we talked about our favourite Beatles songs. I was with my father and I recalled the fact that when I was young one of my favourite t-shirts had been a John Lennon, Strawberry Fields memorial shirt. He’d probably told me at the time, I’d missed it, but he informed me that he’d been on business in New York on an anniversary of the assassination and had bought the shirt not far from where we were then standing.
I decided not to point out that a few weeks after I’d the shirt he’d turned half of it pink by washing it with a coloured load of laundry. I wore it anyway. In fact I wore it until the stitching in the shoulders started to rot, and the bits that had been pink started to turn yellow by some process I’m glad I don’t understand. As for my dad’s mishap with the laundry. . . he’s always been, first and foremost, a Stones fan.
Great tale of the T-shirt, Max, and am jealous that you’ve been to the Strawberry Fields memorial. I can still remember the footage of epople stodd outside the Dakota building the night after his murder. The place was crowded yet calm. People held cnadles aloft and sang Lennon songs. That’s when I understood his death was a ‘Kennedy moment’ and I would never forget how and where I heard the news (today, oh boy)
I remember exactly where I was when JL died – at home in Ireland and I like you was about 14 or 15 and it was very powerful stuff.
I went to Strawberry Fields about 14 years ago with my then boyfriend and it was a really peaceful place in the midst of the madness that is New York…we went ice skating after that in Central Park – magic!
I had the pleasure of taking my daughter to New York City for her 13th birthday. She set the itinerary: the Bronx Zoo, shopping at FAO Schwartz, and dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The one stop I wanted to make was Strawberry Fields. She had never heard of it, nor did she know about the man. The Beatles were familiar to her but Lennon’s music was foreign to her. When we stopped at Strawberry Fields we were the only people there. It was an unusually warm day in November. We lingered there for almost 15 minutes. What was wonderful about that visit was that it gave me an opportunity to pass on to my daughter, what John Lennon meant to me. I had never articulated those thoughts and I found myself caught up in my reccollections. Every child should know about John Lennon and his vision for humanity. We should all strive to work toward improving our life through music.
Thanks for the reminder about John Lennon. I only vaguely remember hearing the news about him when it originally happened. This year I marked Pearl Harbor day here in the states but amazingly I didn’t hear anything in the news about John Lennon. Perhaps I wasn’t listening well enough.
QUE A PAZ QUE TANTO QUERIA ESTEJA PARA SER REALIZADA PAZ PAZ ´PAZ PAZ
Caras, não manjo nada de inglês, mas se vocês estiverem falando bem do Lennon então somos todos amigos
Why would someone want Ronald Reagan dead? He is one of the better humans to have ever existed. The guy didn’t have an evil bone in his body, unlike the rest of us that have many.
This is the same Reagan who yelled ‘Let’s bomb Moscow’ off microphone is it?