It was 25 years ago today

[invisible Pole]

I was just leaving for school at 8 a.m. when I heard the news that John Lennon had been shot. I was shocked and almost burst into tears.
The Beatles were my first musical idols and I still think they are the greatest, the most adventurous band ever.
Also, although a lot of John’s solo work has been dismissed by critics I think it’s only because expectations were impossibly high and the truth is 99% of artists could only dream about recording albums as good as Imagine or Plastic Ono Band.
I can’t believe 25 years have passed since that sad day.

Thank you, John.

[bambooneedle]

Good article from teh Boston Globe:

Imagine Lennon as himself, not an icon
By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | December 7, 2005

Tomorrow marks 25 years since Howard Cosell cut into the Patriots-Dolphins Monday Night Football game to announce that John Lennon had been shot. Expect plenty of file footage on the evening news of teary fans gathered outside the fateful site, lighting candles and singing ''Imagine." Brace for the talk show commentaries about how his death marked the first day of adult reckoning for baby boomers who grew up with the Beatles.

I wasn't yet born when the Kennedys got shot, and I don't remember where I was the day the Challenger went down. But I do remember the day I heard Lennon died. I was standing in a frosted-over schoolyard in Oslo. The entire fifth grade was lined up for morning call, standard at the British-run school. A buddy named Simon told me about John. I couldn't believe it.

The Beatles were my favorite band. Having come to Oslo for my father's yearlong sabbatical, I had musical options that seemed to begin and end with ABBA. Then one day ''Help!" came on the tube. I grabbed the Radio Shack tape recorder and crammed its speaker up to the TV. Those tapes, dialogue and all, would become my soundtrack for the year.

I write this as someone who believes, as callous as it might sound, that Lennon in death has become just another outdated icon on pop culture's milk carton of consciousness. I see people laughing at the failed ''Lennon" musical, and the idea that 10 different men and women could portray him. I scan the endless line of Lennon merchandise, from hardcover editions of his cavemanish drawings to the baby bedding collection adorned with his name. I look over the pathetic sales figures (42,000) of the latest Lennon compilation, ''Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon." How would John feel to know that Paul McCartney's new album had moved eight times that total?

I miss the human soap opera that Lennon lived, and seemed to thrive on. He was a master manipulator of the press, staging bed-ins as his agit-rock adaptation of the 1960s ''be-in." Rather than make nice, he attacked other musicians. He called Mick Jagger ''a joke" and slammed McCartney, his onetime musical brother, in song and print. ''How Do You Sleep" taunted Paul with lines like ''The only thing you did was yesterday." Did Tupac ever make Notorious B.I.G. feel so small?

Lennon tried heroin and primal scream therapy, medication and macrobiotics. He was an absentee father to his first son, Julian, and then a model of domestic ambition during his second try, with Sean. He wrote loving tributes to Yoko Ono, and sabotaged his artistic legacy by placing her work -- some of it quite good, but none of it meant for a Lennon solo album -- on his records. He also carried on a brutally public affair after Ono kicked him out, wandering around New York City bleary-eyed for a year. He cared as passionately about injustice as Bono. But his abrasive, unpredictable approach to politics would never earn him a Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, Nixon wanted him kicked out of the country.

So what if John had lived?
Sometimes, I like to think he would have made peace with his past. He would have joined the other Beatles for charity projects, or helped deal with the group's legacy. If that didn't work, I imagine he would have fought hard to keep them from harvesting his scratchy demos. I don't think we'd be able to buy ''Real Love," at least legally.

I also believe Lennon would have tried harder to help his sons, both of them finding it hard to grow up. (Neither has spoken about the anniversary of Lennon's death, and both appear to have abandoned their once-promising music careers.)

If Lennon had lived, I suspect Kanye West wouldn't have been the only loose cannon during the Katrina telethon. I have no idea what Lennon would have said in that live spot, and that's the point. He was not a guy to stay on script.

Most of all, I miss the chance to hear more music. Lennon's supposed comeback album, ''Double Fantasy," was a hit. But when I listen to that final record, I hear an artist trying to reconnect but saddled with the lifeless sound of the late '70s New York studio scene. So what? After five years of changing diapers, maybe Lennon needed more time to find himself musically. Bob Dylan snored through most of the '80s. McCartney needed until this year to make anything that could stand up to his best work of the 1970s.

I want to hear Lennon work with new producers, rediscover his talent.

He certainly had some success as a solo artist. Just listen to 1970's ''Plastic Ono Band," on which he confronts his history, not only as a former Beatle but as a heartbroken boy who lost his mother and barely knew his father. He screams over the haunting, gospel groove of ''Mother," grits his teeth through ''Working Class Hero," and, in ''God," snickers at Beatles fans hoping for reconciliation. ''The dream is over," he sings and then, in suitably smug fashion, dismisses virtually every movement before getting to the kicker: ''I just believe in me, Yoko and Me."

''Plastic Ono Band" and 1971's ''Imagine" not only sound good, they offer a window into a tortured, torn and brilliantly talented soul who was willing to share his pain. He mocked us, tried to please us, wanted to be hated, loved, forgotten, and immortalized. And for all of this, I hope he is simply remembered.

© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company

[BlueChair]

I will be listening to nothing but John today.

Am eager to hear other recollections by board members.

[martinfoyle]

True to form, Julie Burchill has this sweet memory

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,36 ... 50,00.html

Julie Burchill
Writer

I don't remember where I was but I was really pleased he was dead, as he was a wife-beater, gay-basher, anti-Semite and all-round bully-boy

Lots of other nicer memories in that link, thank god.

[selfmademug]

Well, I wouldn't go so far as that, but I can live without the deification, and I'm sure it would've made John retch. I do remember hearing the news; I was standing at my campus mailbox (it was my freshman year of college). It was horrible news to me, as I'd grown up on the Beatles, and it still makes me very sad. I wonder what he'd be doing now?

[Mike Boom]

What I miss about people like John Lennon and Bill Hicks is hearing what they would say about what is going on in the world today - foremost these people were orginal thinkers, people who could see through the bullshit and people who werent afraid of saying what they think. John Lennon was someone who realised he had a choice , he could become fat Elvis or he could try and use his fame to do something and use his voice to speak out for peace. He was a rock n roller , and was the best of singer of rock n roll Ive ever heard. Most of all he was a searcher and a speaker of the truth.

I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope

I’m sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama’s little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

I’ve had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
It’s money for dope
Money for rope

Ah, I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

P.S Julie Burchill was a talentless hack when she wrote for the NME and she still is.

[A rope leash]

Amen

[alexv]

I was watching that Monday night football game when Cosell interrupted to say that John had been shot. I was going to Law School in NYC and I remember how somber the atmosphere was the next day in a place that was usually irreverent. By way of contrast, giddiness ensued when Reagan was shot, also during my law school tenure. I toyed with the idea of going to the Dakota, but passed since my vision of Lenon was that he was exactly the kind of person who would not appreciate the gesture. Strangely enough, my only other memory of the event was a clip shown on American TV of Paul's reaction which I thought was stupendous in its banality: I recall him staring blankly at the reporter and saying "bummer" while walking hurriedly away. Growing up, we all were somehow divided between the Lenon and McCartney camps (I had been in the McCartney one), and the utter callousness of "bummer" at such a time was like an arrow through my McCartney loving self. I know that since then revisionists, and Paul have tried to come up with excuses for that reaction but I don't buy them. The man, melody genius and all, is a blank.

[cosmos]

Tomorrow's Cosmosis is a 2-hour tribute to John's work with and without The Beatles.

[noiseradio]

I was listening to "Imagine" this morning and when it got to the line "Imagine no possessions," I couldn't help but think of "The Other Side of Summer" and EC's dead on criticism of the problem with a millionaire singing that line. He was a great songwriter, a lousy father, a wandering husband, and a fascinating public figure. He was not a person to be deified. I don't have any illusions about the man. But I mourn his death, and I miss him.

[wardo68]

He was a great songwriter, a lousy father, a wandering husband, and a fascinating public figure. He was not a person to be deified. I don't have any illusions about the man. But I mourn his death, and I miss him.

Ditto, all the way. He was my first idol, and not my last. But he was also the first to teach me that such idols are human, and therefore imperfect.

George has been dead for four years now, but that anniversary never hurts as much as this one does, year after year.

[noiseradio]

It's funny you mentioned George because I was thinking the other day how overlooked his songs are. The more I listen to Harrison tunes, the more I respect and miss him too. But yeah, Lennon kind of dwarfs him in my mind as well.

[BlueChair]

The circumstances of Lennon's death were also much, much different. But that goes without saying.

[selfmademug]

But that goes without saying.

Apparently not!

[wardo68]

The circumstances of Lennon's death were also much, much different. But that goes without saying.

It's still unfathomable that we live in a world with only two Beatles.

[pophead2k]

I was 13 and had just gotten the Double Fantasy album from my sister as a gift. I remember being disappointed in getting Double Fantasy because i was more into Pat Benatar and Loverboy! I was only vaguely aware of The Beatles as an entity and John's connection to them, but after his death I really put some time into Double Fantasy and a few solo things. A few years later, I was a full-blown Beatles fan and fan of all the solo stuff. Plastic Ono Band is still one of my all time favorite albums. I miss John and mourn the fact that we lost his voice.

[selfmademug]

By way of contrast, giddiness ensued when Reagan was shot, also during my law school tenure.

This will do nothing to quell the hilarious notion that we're the same person, Mr. V! However, I suspect you are not meaning to imply that you shared in the giddiness.

At the risk of sounding sacreligious, it felt to me at the time of his death that he had largely moved out of the center of musical relevance. That's not meant as deprecation; it's merely to say that his loss was mainly as a public figure. Though the karmic irony of 'Starting Over' (and the upbeat, humane tone of most of Double Fantasy in general) was all there right in our faces, and seemed the most powerful imploring he could do-- live NOW, you don't know how long you have.

Frankly it wasn't until Julian Lennon's Too Late For Goodbyes (a great song, IMO) that the whole story really hit home. I'd rather listen to that song than John's stuff today, cause truly it's too late for goodbyes. He was what he was and he's gone.

[crash8_durham]

i was 14. my father came upstairs that night and told me. I had been hanging out for about a year with some new friends who had been teaching me guitar. They we heavy Beatles fans and I had been listening to them non stop for quite a while. We would go in my dad's church (he was the minister) to the one hall where the acoustics were good and sing harmonies go Nowhere Man. All I really remember from when he told me is standing in shock. I didn't know what to say or do.

[laughingcrow]

Did anyone watch the Channel 4 thing tonight with all the Mark Chapman interviews...really interesting. I have never really felt any great affection toward John Lennon, though obviously recognise what a great musician he was...and to be honest, have always wondered about Chapman being released (the ramifications, morality, etc) as if he had been 'reformed' in as much as penal reform can ever do so.
I now realise he is still very ill, and obviously a danger to himself/others (not to mention the fact he wouldn't last ten minutes)...it seems so strange though, to be almost pitying the guy.

http://www.momentsintime.com/Lennon.htm

[Otis Westinghouse]

I was much sadder over Bob Marley, despite the horribleness of Lennon's death. I'd loved the Beatles as a pre-teen, but the NME/Peel musical world I inhabited in 1980 had little ref to Lennon. Ian McCulloch announced in his first interview 'I fucking hate the Beatles, just because we're from Liverpool people expect us to want to be like them.' And having an entire floor of temperature controlled furs just made Imagine sound like shallow teenage tosh, as Noise alludes to with the pertinent EC ref. I would have been much sadder if Paul had gone, for me, but I agree that I would like him to be around now in this climate, and that his musical legacy is massive. And many of the best Beatles songs are his, it is true.

I knew a guy called Mark Chapman once, who had a great story about going on a bender the day of the shooting, and waking in the morning with the mother of all hangovers to hear on his radio that he had shot John Lennon in NY, at least that's how it seemed to him for a brief and horrible moment.

[LessThanZero]

I can't help it, I think he's the greatest. I'm 25 myself and I always feel down on December 8.

[alexv]

Just to put this into context, in NYC tonight, the news shows are all showing the large group of people that has gathered at the Dakota and at Strawberry Fields to mark his passing. And this is happening on one of our coldest nights this fall/winter. It's truly amazing to me. After all these years, this kind of reaction is unexpected. Not in NYC. It's a testimony to what the Beatles meant to America.

SMM, you are right. I was not one of the giddy ones. In fact I remember getting into it with a guy from Seattle who actually said something like "the fucker deserved it". To me Reagan is to conservatism what FDR was to liberalism: a figure that changed the landscape of the politics in the nation. Both were relative airheads, with as much intellect as my dog Trixie, but with extraordinary characters and faith in their bedrock beliefs. Both were great presidents and historical figures, on opposite sides of the political spectrums. People who dis either of them are stuck in their ideologies and can't see the big picture. You and me, SMM, of course can. Can't we?

[noiseradio]

I can't vouch for the intellectualism or not of Reagan. But to call FDR an airhead seems fairly ludicrous.

No one should rejoice at the assassination or attempted assassination of any president, whether you like them or not.

[selfmademug]

To me Reagan is to conservatism what FDR was to liberalism: a figure that changed the landscape of the politics in the nation. Both were relative airheads, with as much intellect as my dog Trixie, but with extraordinary characters and faith in their bedrock beliefs. Both were great presidents and historical figures, on opposite sides of the political spectrums. People who dis either of them are stuck in their ideologies and can't see the big picture. You and me, SMM, of course can. Can't we?

Well we see very different big pictures, cause I feel perfectly free to dis Reagan and if that's ideology, so be it. As far as I witnessed, Reagan did nothing but shit on the poor every which way he could, including putting corporate America on the steroids they're still addicted to today, and bolstering the religious right in ways that have brought this country to its knees. If you don't think this bullshit over creationism owes loads to old Ronnie, you're delusional. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny to see how enthusiastically Americans are tossing away a legacy of intellectual and scientific excellence in exchange for some kind of facile comfort that they're going to heaven but their queer, flag-burning bretheren are not.

And I agree with Noise that calling FDR an airhead is laughable. In the same basic ways FDR built this country up, Reagan tore it down.

[BlueChair]

I think he's just saying he wouldn't wish murder on anybody