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A Further Perspective
A Day I Will Never Forget
Hearing the news on December 9, 1980.
I will never forget the morning of December 9, 1980. The day before, my younger brother Micah had turned six. I trudged downstairs half asleep and dragged myself to the kitchen table where my Tri-Vi-Flor Vitamin C tablet awaited me.
The radio was on and for a moment I wasn’t sure what I had heard. For a moment I thought it was Jack Lemmon who had been shot. My mother corrected me but I still didn’t hear it right. “John Lemon?” I innocently asked. “No,” my mother snapped, “John Lennon!!!”
Then it hit me. Hard!!!
Even though The Beatles had broken up two years before I was born I was well aware of their music. My father frequently played Abbey Road on our stereo. Dad would also occasionally play Lennon’s Rock n’ Roll album. I remember him being partial to Lennon’s version of Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” A month earlier, Lennon and Yoko Ono had released the Double Fantasy album. While we did not have that album I do remember “(Just Like) Starting Over” being played regularly on the radio.
And then John Lennon was dead at the age of forty. Not only was he gone but he had been brutally murdered outside his apartment building by a deranged fan. It just didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t.
When I arrived at school, I saw a girl who lived down the street from us leaning up against the wall. She was holding a portable cassette player to her ear listening to a Beatles song with the saddest look on her face. It was the one day at school where the teachers wanted to do school work even less than the students. They were as dazed and dumbfounded as the rest of us.
The radio was still on when I returned home. By now, however, the only thing that could be heard was a barrage of Beatles songs and Lennon solo material. It was as if the entire world had paused to remember John Lennon.
After supper that evening, Dad lit a candle in Lennon’s memory as his mother had done for John F. Kennedy seventeen years earlier. Normally such an honor would be reserved for a Jew. But as far as Dad was concerned, John Lennon was one of us.
In the months that followed, I spent a lot of time drawing pictures of Lennon as he had appeared on the cover of Abbey Road with long hair, beard, granny glasses and the white suit. They weren’t very good. I doubt if any of those drawings survive. Drawing came far more naturally to Micah and he could do things on paper I could never contemplate. Nevertheless, it was the only time in my life I made any kind of serious effort to exercise my creativity through drawing and it was inspired entirely by Lennon.
As such I cannot think of Micah’s birthday without thinking of Lennon’s assassination. I don’t know what thought, if any, he gives to Lennon when his birthday comes around. But in his early teens Micah would start taking guitar lessons. However, those lessons didn’t last long. He was more interested in learning Beatles songs which he taught himself to play. Before you knew it he was playing in bands with high school friends who also loved to play Beatles songs. About a decade later, he spent a couple of years playing bass with the Canadian indie band The Golden Dogs. I remember buying their debut CD in Sam The Record Man on Yonge Street in Toronto. I cannot tell what a thrill it was to go to a record store and buy a CD on which my brother played. I strongly suspect this would not have to come to pass without the Beatles and Lennon in particular. I can even hear Lennon in his voice.
Naturally, I think about what life would be like if John Lennon were still alive. I’m sure Lennon’s politics would not have changed. I’m sure Lennon would have been leading voice against the War in Iraq. I’m sure Lennon would have some choice words for President Bush. I’m sure I would have been annoyed at Lennon as I would have been at the long line of celebrities critical of both Bush and the Iraq War.
But I would have taken it. I would have taken it because I’m also sure Lennon would have had a lot more music to make. Some of that music would have great and some of it perhaps not so great. But it would have been ours for the listening. I’m sure I would have had the chance to see him in concert as I have seen Paul McCartney in concert (twice). And a splendid time would have been guaranteed for all. I’m also sure that John would have eventually agreed to come together with Paul, George, and Ringo. It certainly would have made for a more meaningful Beatles reunion.
My parents are now retired and presently spending the winter in New York City on the Upper West Side a short distance from the Dakota on Central Park West and 72nd Street. If Lennon were still alive it is not inconceivable my parents might have bumped into John & Yoko while walking in Central Park. I’m sure that Dad in his typical Bronx bravado would have had something clever to say and the Liverpudlian Lennon would have been equal to the task. I’m sure my mother and Yoko would have looked each other as if to say they couldn’t take their husbands anywhere.
So if John Lennon were alive, well and living in New York City I would happily put up with his political ranting if it meant more music and memories. But alas I can only imagine.
About the Author
Aaron Goldstein writes from Boston, Massachusetts.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (115) | Leave a comment
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Harry | 12.8.10 @ 6:22AM
I have been reading articles in TASO for years, some with more agreement than others. This is the first time I have seen it publishing pure, unmitigated trash. Lenon was not only unimportant, but to the extent that he mattered at all, he did evil. His life showed no spark of dignity, nobility, courage, reverence or anything but childish self-indulgence. He was a negative and destructive example to a generation.
Brother John| 12.8.10 @ 6:45AM
Harry, sir, you are right-on. The musician in me recognizes his part in the Beatles and their part in altering popular music and expanding the boundaries defining what it might be. The rest of his life, though, was nothing but juvenile, destructive, self-indulgent evil.
Alan R, sir, I agree that (most of) his music if not records were outstanding and original - but what a pity he couldn't grow up before the age of 39, when he'd already been married and had a son.
I used to say that the worst thing about Lennon being shot in 1980 was that it wasn't 1970. Would have spared some folk a lot of grief.
Norman Conquest| 12.8.10 @ 10:31AM
Harry and Brother John, your pathetic, myopic and pig-ignorant views are just the sort of inane ramblings that give ammunition to the enemies of conservatism.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 1:38PM
Harry and Brother John, your pathetic, myopic and pig-ignorant views are just the sort of inane ramblings that give ammunition to the enemies of conservatism."
Well, he did fund "freedom fighters", who disregarded what he sang about quote unquote "destruction" and "minds that hate".
The IRA wasn't just a retirement account, they blew innocent people up.
Seek| 12.8.10 @ 2:12PM
You, sir, are repulsive.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 2:32PM
You wont stick with the discussion of Lennon? a very violent man, who beat women? would you want to place a halo on an icon bearing his pop-star demeanor?
He wasn't Jesus H. Lennon.
Tomas| 12.8.10 @ 2:43PM
Alan:
Astonishing as it is, I agree with you (this will probably be the only time, grant you...).
Lennon was an over-blown hype bubble. Everything he did was a self-promotion stunt. What bothered me most - and still does, I guess - wasn't the man, but the throngs of admirers who bought the hype.
I was in college at the time of Lennon's murder. People were running into the TV lounges... leaving like zombies. It was crazy.
The only sad thing about the loss of Lennon is his violent death - at the hands of a murderer. No one deserves that. No one.
-
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 2:44PM
... I mean, you can't do better than "You, sir, are repulsive"? you wont even make an attempt?
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 2:50PM
"Lennon was an over-blown hype bubble."
Plus, it has beendocumented that Lennon was unusually violent for a peace 'n' love pop-star. At Adrian Denning's music site I wrote "Ethics to one side, Lennon was a fool to say 'the Beatles are more popular than Jesus.'
A blogger became enraged: "I like John alot more than horrible Jesus!"
What, was Lennon Himself the Second Coming?
Buddy Shepherd| 12.8.10 @ 3:01PM
Like most of us, Lennon appears to have been an imperfect person with some admirable traits and many notable faults. He was an immensely talented songwriter and musician with a spotty personal life plagued by sexual infidelity, drug addiction, and other vices; a man prone to wretched self-indulgence, but also articulate, intelligent, and often winningly self-effacing and sincere; at times a charlatan, but undoubtedly a genius.
Booger| 12.8.10 @ 5:08PM
Yep. After reading this article on AmSpec, of all places, I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
scythe| 12.8.10 @ 11:11AM
Why is the myth of Lennon still be perpetrated on the gullible? He is everything you said and a lot more. Great Post!
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 1:42PM
He was very confused concerning violence, he sang about destruction: "don't you know that you can count me out ...in"
He beat women up. Once, after breaking a DJ's ribs, he put a woman's hand on one of those hot pipes they used to often use for heat in England.
SobSister| 12.8.10 @ 2:13PM
And then there's "Imagine," one of the most ridiculous, maudlin songs ever.
How well I remember my dumber-than-dirt hippy friends strummin' their sorry guitars and singing this pukey, little ditty.
John and Yoko! Two utterly shallow people with little or no talent, and they are Goldstein's cultural heroes. Good God Almighty!
Mark| 12.8.10 @ 2:16PM
Imagine if Lennon hadn't been a Beatle and walked into a record company trying to sell "Imagine". He would have been tossed on his butt for that mindless drivel.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.10 @ 2:54PM
How many Yoko CDs do we own in aggregate here?
Don't raise your hands all at once!
Tim*| 12.8.10 @ 6:31AM
Aaron, my brother, please leave the icon of liberals in the limbo of faded fame where he rests peacefully and remember instead the fallen heroes of Pearl Harbor.
Clint| 12.8.10 @ 6:42AM
You ain't Tim*
You're Just A Wannabe Posseur.
alan r| 12.8.10 @ 6:32AM
Sorry, Harry, you know not of what you speak. If you listen to the album Double Fantasy you hear the long and painful story of John and Yoko's journey from hippie dysfunction to becoming a marriage and a family. Yes, whether or not John would verbalize it to others (or even himself), in wiser later years he began to live like a conservative.
Set aside his youthful arrogance and lefty stupidity - his music was always great. Very few song-writing teams have turned out so many songs of such strong identify that they are covered by hundreds of artists.
So really he is not the worthless beatnik you describe; he was a great musician who eventually became a partially-recovered hippie.
carnot| 12.8.10 @ 7:01AM
no...you don't get it....Lennon had "mommy" issues from day 1 that followed throughout most of his adult life. the bios typically gloss over this part of the story and they also underplay the many destructive aspects of his personal life.
SobSister| 12.8.10 @ 2:15PM
According to John's son, John Lennon physically and psychologically abused Yoko (what an awful ice-cold, no-talent woman)!
JimmyMac| 12.9.10 @ 5:57PM
I'd always thought John Lennon a narcissistic gas bag with a moderate musical talent- generally a worthless human being... but now that I learn that he abused Yoko... well, maybe he wasn't all bad!
Mickey | 12.8.10 @ 6:45AM
I think it' s difficult to be a conservative at times when you like some music and know the musician's personal life. And, I can see your point about Lennon's growth, but I always liked George Harrison more as a solo artist.
alan r| 12.8.10 @ 7:47AM
I agree - I liked George Harrison a lot as a solo artist. And one thing he brought to music that John never could (because of his relative immaturity) is mature spiritual searching.
Appleby| 12.8.10 @ 6:52AM
John Lennon was a wealthy rock star already fading when he was shot down, with the self-indulgent fantasy that he was bulletproof -- else why would he be walking around New York City in those days without a bodyguard of any kind?
And why are we talking about him and not about Pearl Harbour?
alan R| 12.8.10 @ 7:53AM
Conservatives need to engage the culture and confront when necessary. It does no good to sit in church and preach to the choir - we need to take it to the streets. I have actually trapped a liberal friend into endorsing some aspects of conservatism by discussing what went wrong in John Lennon's life and what went right.
p.s. I talk and write about Pearl Harbor all the time. I think I have time for the Beatles too.
p.p.s. his walking around sans bodyguard was not proof of self-indulgence, it was having the guts to live his principles (however foolish): he rejected the limosuine-liberal rock-star lifestyle in an attempt to be a common person.
Eric Cartman| 12.8.10 @ 9:41AM
I remember coming down to breakfast that day also and hearing the news Lennon was shot. It was like, Wow! What am I going to have for breakfast? I hope I don't have a test in math today. Hope I get that Atari for Christmas. Well, gotta go before I'm late.
L. Ross| 12.8.10 @ 11:01AM
That was just about my reaction. That and some confusion over why everyone seemed to think it was such a big deal. Now when Sam Kinison died, that broke my heart. Still haven't recovered.
Eric Cartman| 12.8.10 @ 12:12PM
Sam on African Aid: "You want to help these people? Stop sending them food. Don't send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help these people? Send them U-Hauls, send them luggage, send them someone like me, I'll walk out there..send a guy who'll go,
'Hey, we just drove 700 miles with your food and it occurred to us that there wouldn't be world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A F*CKING DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A F*CKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. YEAH. DID YOU KNOW NOTHING CAN GROW IN THIS SH*T? HERE, EAT SOME OF IT, TASTE IT. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A F*CKING DESERT! GET YOUR KIDS, GET YOUR SH*T, WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, @SSHOLES!"
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:17PM
Yes, the great Kinnison. Very sad. See my note on the Stooges, Eric.
Eric Cartman| 12.8.10 @ 2:36PM
The Stooges are great! I love 'em. ( They are on AMC on Saturday and Sunday mornings.) What was the lady that was always their foil. She was always the aristocrat . "Well, I never!" The one where they are all plumbers was just on - they turn on the TV and were watching Niagara Falls and the water comes splashing out LOL. Next time I'm out in LA I'll stop by their grave sites with some roses from both of us, Occam. Think we're heading out after Christmas. The fireman at the air port scene in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World." Priceless.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 7:10PM
Thank you very, very kindly for that, Eric.
beebop| 12.8.10 @ 2:59PM
WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, @SSHOLES!"
Actually?
We irrigate them and build golf courses ....
Eric Cartman| 12.8.10 @ 3:48PM
Take it up with Sam Kinison.
Liberal Reader| 12.8.10 @ 8:23PM
Yep. That's just what the Baby Jesus would say when confronted by starving people. Get out of the desert, assholes. Nice. It's always good to come to the American Spectator for a little moral refreshment -- from depraved fucking Nazi pigs.
Bydand76| 12.8.10 @ 9:51PM
Ah, never under estimate the predictability of stupidity.
LR you are about the lowest of life form and I include your mother in that estimation as well.
Go crawl under a rock and die please.
Pro Libertate!
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:07PM
I remember thinking, "Jeez, it could have been prevented if John was carrying and everyone knew it." Then I realized he supported gun control and was in New York.
I was much more interested on where I was going to college.
Sheila| 12.8.10 @ 1:41PM
Finally, a voice of sanity among the increasing inanity at this website. Poor wittle Aaron, who wasn't even born when the Beatles broke up, tells us that Lennon's death was a defining moment in his stellar little life! Hey Aaron, I'm older than you, I'm probably stronger than you, and I guarantee I heard a whole lot more about Lennon's death (I was attending grad school in the U.K. at the time) than you did.
Pearl Harbour happened long before I was born, but even my children know that's what December 7 is to be remembered for - a day that lives in infamy. Too bad (but not a surprise) that even my pre-adolescent son has a greater awareness of history than you, with your prepubescent angst over John Lennon.
Perhaps you're related to Robin of Berkeley over at American Thinker, Aaron? Your inane, emotion-filled posts strike a similar dissonant chord with me.
coal carrier| 12.8.10 @ 7:10AM
What I envision when I hear the name John Lennon is another lefty drug addict. I will never understand this fascination with the freaks in our society.
Craig| 12.8.10 @ 7:31AM
It is hard to say in totality how juvenile this article is. While Lennon may have been a good musician I am not sure he ever reached the level of great. Other than that, what exactly about his life would we use as a model for our children?
alan r| 12.8.10 @ 7:59AM
I remember when some Israeli musicians protested when a concert was cancelled because the music was written by the composer Wagner, who was an anti-Semite. Their point was this: however offensive his politics, they would win in the end by keeping the great music he wrote and discarding the rest. To say John Lennon was not a great musician indicates to me that you are letting disdain or even hatred bias your judgement, or you know nothing of music.
Conservative_Monster| 12.8.10 @ 8:45AM
Lennon was not a great musician. He was a mediocre guitar player who benefited greatly by the contributions of others around him. He wrote several memorable songs and had a distinctive voice. He was a pop start but he was not a great musician. Time does that ... it strips away the gloss and hype. The Rock and Roll album mentioned in the article? It was rubbish recorded on a drunk binge with a dying Harry Nilsson.
Liberal Reader| 12.9.10 @ 1:57AM
Mediocre guitar player.
Right.
Do all you guys smoke chrystal meth before getting on your computers?
Alert1201| 12.8.10 @ 7:48AM
I remember waking up, reading the news and not really caring. I remember going to school and wondering why all my friends and teachers were so upset that he died, even to the point of crying.
The Bishop| 12.8.10 @ 8:19AM
A friend of mine's father is a retired NYC detective who was on the scene and investigated Lennon's murder. He remembers the needle-scarred arms and basic lack of hygiene of the deceased. While being a long-time fan of the Beatles' music (and connecting with my grandchildren on this point thanks to Beatles Rock Bank XBox 360 fun), his demise did not make the date an indelible remembrance such as where I was when I heard that JFK had been killed. His lyrics in the first line of "Imagine" came back to haunt him on December 8, 1980.
Herb| 12.8.10 @ 8:24AM
When I saw on TV that John Lennon had been murdered, all his foibles and hippieness melted away, because it was a brutal senseless fate that no human being deserves. I felt bad as well for Yoko Ono, an imperfect human but who had never really hurt anyone else.
I say this as a Vietnam vet who holds that the Sixties rock generation damaged us as a society in ways that are still being felt; i.e., many former hippies are now middle aged and in positions of power over the rest of us.
drudge ette obama| 12.8.10 @ 8:30AM
I was in college when he was killed and went with some people to a park in Austin where there was a vigil. I remember looking all around and seeing people crying. And I remember thinking ridiculous these people were.
Little did I know they would mature into Obama voters.
Lennon was weird, as was his wife - okie onie. Who wants to see a 70 year old Japanese woman screaming in black?
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:10PM
"Imagine" is one of the most horrific songs ever written...it opened Europe up to the destruction of its cultural heritage. See "America Alone" for a more complete explanation.
John Lennon was not fit to sniff Roy Orbison's jockstrap. Now THAT death was a tragic day.
Conservative_Monster| 12.8.10 @ 8:41AM
I had already dismissed him as a selfish ingrate before he was killed. I wasn't listening to his music when he died and I'm not listening to it today.
P.Smith| 12.8.10 @ 8:46AM
I was sixteen when Lennon died, barely knew who he was and was only vaguely aware that he had been assassinated. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet and Johnny Cash were my musical taste. I don’t remember anyone in my school, whether it was teachers or students mourning or even caring about his death, though am sure a few may have said something about it. I actually know more about Lennon now than I did when I was in high school and frankly the more I learn about him the more reprehensible he becomes.
Lennon’s song Imagine is beloved by many and on the surface the song seems rather benign and somewhat peaceful, but I believe that it is one of the most evil and subversive songs ever written… and I tell people, to their dismay, just that.
P.S. John Lennon had a song called Give Peace a Chance…I prefer PJ O’Rourke’s saying “Give War a Chance”.
Alert1201| 12.8.10 @ 9:11AM
My kids have been raised on classical music, they know very little about rock nor the performers. The other day we were driving along listening to a top 40 70s station and the song Imagine came on. I told my kids (ages 13 and 15) to listen to it carefully and let me know what they thought about it when it was over. They listened and half way through concluded that not only was the song stupid but the writer/singer must have been equally dumb and deluded as well.
PZKFW| 12.8.10 @ 8:47AM
Why are we reading this? This is tabloid material..."where were you"....who cares?
PJ| 12.8.10 @ 9:46AM
John Lennon wrote some nice songs w/ & w/out the Beatles, although I can only remember a few. (Is this an indication that his music is not very memorable?) I liked the man, even w/his weaknesses. He was a reflection of those times, ie. 1960s & 70s.
Now we have aging Madonna, Lady Gaga, Gangsta Rap, & Justin Bieber! EEEEE!!!
Groad| 12.8.10 @ 9:51AM
I never cared for Lennon's solo trash. Even the stuff he wrote for the Beatles was depressing and nihilistic in the late years. More so on his own. Yoko had a ring in his ...nose and he was a recluse by 1980.
I can't stand "Imagine", the Anthem of the anarchist left. When I tell people to listen to the words, (most haven't), they are shocked to find it isn't uplifting or inspiring at all, but cynical and empty. Most of his solo stuff was juvenile, negative and outright depressing bilge with little value.
Yes, it was sad and atrocious that he was gunned down like that, but let's disconnect his former talent from the later substandard years that 's all we are saying.
CharlieEcho| 12.8.10 @ 10:02AM
I had perused this article and gone on. I had to come back because a though slapped me in the face. I recall watching Ed Sullivan when The Beatles first appeared across their pond. It was The Beatles and not John Lennon. Still a school boy at the time. I do remember where I was when JFK was killed. I do remember where I was when The Beatles first appeared. I do not remember where I was when Lennon was killed. I was most likely working.
What came to mind as I left this page the first time, was that John Lennon exemplified what was wrong with the 60's. The decade I came of age.
Bob K.| 12.8.10 @ 10:05AM
The Beatles as a group had some fine songs but I never liked Lennon's music and even less his incoherent philosophy; and I never understood how he became an Icon, but that is what happens in our age of "public" opinion that is driven by popular sentiment.
It is sad the way he died and those influenced by that spirit of the age will mourn for him as Mr. Goldstein does.
Finbarr Moran| 12.8.10 @ 10:19AM
I find this Lennon-worship distasteful.
Here is a man that told us to give peace a chance and he could not get along with Paul McCartney.
Here is a man who told us to imagine no possessions – I wonder how many people with no possessions live in resident hotels like The Dakota.
I wish the Baby Boomers would stop trying to recapture a youth that never was.
KyMouse| 12.8.10 @ 12:41PM
People such as Lennon talked about "peace" all the time, but not "freedom" or "liberty" for people enslaved under Communism (in Russia, eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc.).
In recent years, Yoko Ono (she of the dead-mackeral voice) planted a "tree for peace" near the Smithsonian. Why never for "freedom"?
Mark| 12.8.10 @ 1:57PM
Their "tree for peace" etc. is just another manifestation of their self indulgence. It's always all about them. They'd rather have a PR moment than actually do the hard work of making the world a better place by confronting evil. To do that, they'd have to admit that evil exists and that it simply isn't a matter of different equally valid world views. Useful idiots is the correct description of these clowns.
Anthony| 12.8.10 @ 10:26AM
My girl friend, at the time, insisted we go to New Haven for a Lennon memorial concert. I can't remember if there was live music, but certainly there was Beatle music and speakers.
I remember it all being very contrived and forced, despite the obvious pain many of his fans were feeling. Something was missing, perhaps being in my late '20s, I had grown up.
Mike| 12.8.10 @ 10:33AM
Mr. Goldstien
Lennon was murdered in 1980 not assassinated. Had he been gunned down at the height of the Beatles popularity in the 60's you might be able to assert he was assassinated.
As a worn out, drug addled, hypocrate he does not deserve to have his death elevated to the level of an assassination.
I enjoyed the Beatles music growing up but I have never understood the celebraty worship of pop music stars. I, like many posters above, yawned over his death. It has no influence or impact on my life.
Mike Johnston
SFC USA (RET)
KyMouse| 12.8.10 @ 10:35AM
Ah, the Cult of Celebrity.
I've always liked the Beatles' music (especially from their early years), but I never saw them as heroes, role models or founts of wisdom. They were entertainers, period.
Lennon's murder was tragic, but no more so than anyone else's. The killing of a firefighter, police officer or member of the armed forces should make us grieve at least as much.
I'm not sure who Mr. Goldstein is, but he could have used an editor!!!
Claypoole| 12.8.10 @ 10:38AM
In a way, the United States elected John Lennon to the presidency in 2008; Barack Obama was nothing more than a traveling rock 'n' roll show. Oh, John! Oh, George! Oh, Paul! Oh, Ringo! Oh, Obama! I'm going to faint!
No questioning, not a shred of skepticism--just going along with the mindless idolatry of the crowds.
Anthony| 12.8.10 @ 10:54AM
So true Claypoole. This past Sunday, as I pulled up to church, the car in front of mine had a bumper sticker that said "Stand by Obama". I hadn't seen one before.
I sat in my truck stunned. Now, my little town is certainly chicly Obamaville, but still.
I mentioned it to friends that night over dinner. Could anyone imagine a bumper sticker with "Stand by Ford" or "Stand by Ike"?
No, as Claypoole says, our liberal friends are steep into hero worship, and our nation is dying as a result of their mindlessness.
bill carson| 12.8.10 @ 10:42AM
Yeah, it's a day I'll never forget either. I still remember living in Shreveport, LA and watching that loser Walter Cronkite on CBS evening news (too bad there was no Fox News Channel) and was amazed that the ENTIRE 30 minutes was about Lennon's death. Remember in those days that a five minute piece on any subject was considered very long. I just couldn't believe that a murdered musician was more important than anything else in the world. I should have been smart enough to start a celebrity magazine back then. I coulda gotten rich over the star worshipers!
matthew s harrison| 12.8.10 @ 10:42AM
The beatles were trend followers-they just got more radio play than the real talent-the American rock n roll pioneers who were the blues and R&B singer songwriters who didn't get as much play because they were black!
That said, how can anyone say that lennon was anything other than a commie sympathizer who wanted a world with no borders, no sovereignty, no individual rights?
The beatles were boring. They were all heavy drug users, counter culture sheep who dosed on acid with the worst the American left had to offer at the time. In fact, they wrote a lot about their LSD use.
The day john lennon was killed was like any other day-another American(yes he had dual citizenship) was murdered in the streets-because of the left wing belief that psychos can live among us, and that prison inmates can be rehabilitated.
Good on you left-wing America-you killed yet another of your heroes, through your never ending hero worship and cult of celebrity!!
GreyLion| 12.8.10 @ 11:20AM
Let it go people, he is dead and gone, may he rest in peace, talented, imaginative and wrong.
Mick Lee| 12.8.10 @ 11:30AM
In many ways, John Lennon spoke his on epitaph when he made a sharp comment about Elvis Presley. As far as Lennon was concerned, Elvis died the day he entered the army—so little regard he had for Presley’s musical output after Elvis’s Sun and early RCA years. In truth, John Lennon died the day The Beatles disbanded. There is little question that Lennon was a great musician and songwriter as a Beatles. Whatever you thought of him as a person—and his private life was nothing to be proud of—he was nothing short of brilliant. However, if you compare his Beatles catalog with his solo songbook, Lennon’s post Beatle collection was distinctly inferior by several orders of magnitude.
I will leave it to others what was the cause of Lennon’s decline. Was it the fact that he no longer used McCartney as a soundboard? Was it the ghastly influence of Yoko Ono’s mediocre art novo pretentions? Was it Yoko Ono as a person? (It is clear Lennon and Ono loved each other; but there was also something pathological about their union.) Was it Lennon’s fashionable heroin addition? Probably it was a combination of all or some of these things.
As for Lennon’s “great” ode to an ideal, conflict-free world, “Imagine”, when I hear it I am one of those who sees the rivers of blood and carnage it would require to reach such an existence. No utopia here. As for the imagined great music Lennon would have put out had he not met his end, I think we were saved from some rather painful encounters. Painful to hear and painful to watch. It must be remembered that the 1980’s were not kind years to the important rock artists of the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The smart ones laid low during that time of over-produced, synth dominated, drum machine music. The non-smart ones, such as the venerable Paul McCartney, simultaneously made themselves look foolish and inconsequential. Perhaps if he survived into the 2000’s, his stock would have risen such as it has for Paul McCartney. But as for Lennon’s music, given Double Fantasy and Milk And Honey, there was little to look forward to.
Even to this day, it is difficult to forgive Lennon’s very public trashing of The Beatles. Maybe he was just trying to put that part of his life behind him; but his savage assault on the love—love he had courted by the way—his contemporaries had for The Beatles was uncalled for. His deliberate public humiliation of Cynthia, his first wife, with his affair with Ono. His abandonment of his first son, Julian. His physical abuse of women. His verbal cruelty for those closest to him all stand in stark contrast to John, the prophet of peace and love.
Still, it would have taken a heart of stone not to have had the wind knocked out of you upon hearing of Lennon’s murder. The sight of the blood stained payment in front of his Dakota apartment house was horrifying. It all made one think it would have been better if Lennon’s legal fight to be allowed live in America had failed. Yes, I was dispirited. More significantly, I was enraged.
If I ever go to New York, I am not one who will make the pilgrimage to Lennon’s memorial ground in Central Park—just as I am not one to make the trip to Graceland to visit Elvis Presley’s grave. It is the music I have from my LP’s, compact discs, and now hard drives that matter. Yes, I was angry when John Lennon died. But, even though we knew it was coming, when I learned that George Harrison had died, I cried.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 1:15PM
On the other hand, one of my biggest regrets of the time I lived in LA was not going to the 3 Stooges' gravesite and putting roses on their graves. Now THOSE were artists.
SSgt Sherm| 12.8.10 @ 11:50AM
Should have been packing heat. Not a big fan of drug addict hippies.
RCV| 12.8.10 @ 12:28PM
Great column. Thanks, Aaron.
Douglas| 12.8.10 @ 12:45PM
I remember hearing the story on the news and saying, "so what, who gives a rats butt."
Is this what American Spectator has become?
somnolence| 12.8.10 @ 1:04PM
Frank Gifford gave an anectdotal account of Lennon and Ronald Reagan being on the set of Monday Night Football sometime in the seventies where the meeting was apparently very cordial with Reagan explaining to Lennon the intricacies of the plays, etc. Lennon had a rudimentary knowledge of soccer, but not American football. He occasionally sang some interesting songs on his own, including "God", but I have far more Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw, and Hank Thompson collections than I do of Lennon or even The Beatles. Like Lennon himself I prefer the fifties rock and rollers. Of course, he didn't live out the message of that awful song "Imagine," as he certainly loved his worldly possessions. Merle Haggard to me was much more of a "working class hero."
Franco| 12.8.10 @ 1:06PM
I must say this. I must.
I could not give a rats behind about the death of John Lennon. I put this downto the fact that I find his post-Beatles music completely uninteresting, but I was never a huge Beatles fan to begin with (as I suppose we are all expected to be).
Then again, I was also 12 years old when he was murdered. I heard the news and probably went back to whatever Robert E. Howard novel I was reading at the time. I couldn't have cared less about the man himself. I was far more affected by the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads in a plane crash in 1982. I recall driving with my parenst when that news came on and I will never forget it, having just discovered Ozzy Osbourne the summer before through a bunkmate at camp. I recall the death of Groucho Marx, and reading about it in the Times. I recall even the murder of Anwar Sadat when I was in junior high, in all the detail.
But Lennon? Couldn't care less.
Casey Abell| 12.8.10 @ 1:17PM
"I will leave it to others what was the cause of Lennon’s decline. Was it the fact that he no longer used McCartney as a soundboard?"
As Frank Drebin said when he found the bingo card, BINGO...not to mention McCartney as a tunesmith. When you lose a gifted melodist like that, it's gonna hurt. That's why Lennon's decline started in the later Beatles years - Revolution #9, gag! - when he rarely collaborated with McCartney any more.
Also explains why he publicly trashed McCartney after the Beatles breakup. Lennon knew how much he owed to the cute Beatle, and it irritated him no end.
Mark Shepler- Jupiter, FL| 12.8.10 @ 1:39PM
Methinks what we have here is an overwrought, underlying case of "60's envy". I know the signs because I had it myself, bad. I was born in 1960 at the tail end of the baby boomers and much more than our author here, I was old enough to be a witness to our older brothers and sister's monkeyshines but unable to partake in the fun and games as they occurred. I can remember seeing bonafide hippies staggering out of a local park popular for real "love ins" and open air rock concerts in 1968. Later on, feeling somehow inadequate and left out, I tried my darndest to carry the torch well into my youth even putting together a montage of Woodstock and the protest generation for a Social Studies project in my senior high school year. Much to my embarrassment today I entitled it, "Woodstock: America's Greatest Happening" and even our pinko, foppish teacher blushed on my behalf. He thought the collage was great but the title a tad of an overstatement. My classmates, good natured and practical rural kids in NW PA more in tune with the FFA and machinist's unions, merely rolled their eyes and cracked wise. That was in 1978 and long past the point when the real 60's crowd had moved on to disco, goofy rayon fashions, cocaine and the early stages of materialistic yuppie-ism.
Even though many 60's acolytes did not live through the prior decades, especially those soul crushing 50s the hippies and dippies decried as the proximate cause of their rebellion, we took it as read the decade was a unique point in history full of good causes and liberation animated by cheerful souls brimming with good vibes and "love". How did we know? Because those self-annoited souls told us so, of course, just as this author has convinced himself Lennon is an historic figure. And the Beatles were a big, big part of it for the boomers and their camp followers. I remember watching a cartoon of the beatles in 1965 or so of All My Loving at my cousin's house featuring an octopus chasing our little mop-tops just as if it were Yesterday. My aunt, at the other end of the excluded spectrum, was the youngest of five siblings but still just a bit too old to be in the 60's club. She wasn't even 30 yet but married to a honest working man and mother of two, automatic disqualifications. Never the less, she was a devoted early fan of the Fab Four and longtime fan of Elvis. Strange bedfellows and curious times, indeed. I had, and have, just about every Beatles album and even as I was taking the gibes for my class project my buddies and I were driving the backroads and byways of our little burg getting stoned and digging on the White album and Abby Road. Those were the times we felt enobled and consciously chose a higher way than the more base Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, Black Sabbath, et al. We were holistic wannabes seeking the purer "spirit of the times" and so believed one must fully feed the head.
"Let it all hang out", "If it feels good, do it" and "love is all you need" were our, well of our 60s exemplars at any rate, words to live by and God knows I tried, almost unto death. But by the mid-eighties I'd had enough and had already moved on musically besides and the Beatles were already on the oldies stations down here. Curiously, their earlier, more innocent stuff is what got the airplay then and it is just as true today. Now, we have "classic rock" stations that, having come full circle back to their AM ancestors, air formulaic playlists consisting of one or three biggest hits of particular bands. Listen to our's for a week and you'll pretty much hear their idea of all there was to the 60s and 70s rock music. And you know what? There are almost no Beatles tunes on that playlist and certainly not their best work from Abby Road or the White album or from their pre- Sgt. Pepper days but instead just the usual radio edits of Hey Jude and Let it Be, tunes that were popular radio plays at the time. What you do hear endlessly is Imagine by Lennon, always with gushing sendups by the aging hippie DJ not unlike my project's title, and a couple of those universe changing tunes by McCartney and Wings whose names escape me despite their timeless appeal. Harrison's songs have all but disappeared and Ringo's jaunty solo excursions are long dead on our airwaves. Thus, the Beatles in the twilight.
I not sure how much the veneration of Lennon and the boys has to do with the actual music they produced or the attitudes, memories and past associations of their fans but I know which I'd bet on. The author's heartwarming tale is a good clue and so it would have been for me but for growing up. When Lennon died, for me it was an unfortunate end to another pop celebrity living on past glory but not the consequential events as the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan four months later or the successful one of Anwar Sadat less than a year after. Even I could see that at 21. We got through Reagan's distress and were stronger for it but the whole world lives with the repercussions of Sadat's fatwa killing to this day. Even musically and big-picture speaking, losing Lennon at 40 is not quite the tradegy to posterity as losing Mozart at 35. Listen to the brilliant progression of his piano concertos from 18-27 and ponder what further genius he may have composed had he lived. Don't think so? Then ask yourself this. Will the world still be listening to the Beatles and Lennon in 2200 as they do Mozart 219 years later? Will the world, even cultures not historically heir to Western orchestral music, still be funding huge and expensive orchestras and conservatories to study, appreciate and play their music? Which music really represents an objective brilliance any mind can appreciate and which is merely the soundtrack of a particular populations salad days? Apart from the annual histrionics of Lennon fans and dirge-like repetition of Imagine how many young people really have any grasp of who he was or what he meant to the world yet alone really dig his music? Or do they dig Imagine because some liberal Prof touts it as a statement?
Which brings me to my point. The Beatles and Lennon were as much creatures as creators of the moods, attitudes, politics and character of their times which truly ended in the early 70s. Even Imagine is an anthem of schmaltzy 60s sentiments and it only lives on because of sentimentalism. Fans like the author, his folks and many other old hippies and dippies glom onto them for what they represent of their own past as much as their music. Their songs and poses speak to and reinforce the fan's sense of self and place, not the least that "their generation" and all of its trappings are special and for that both songs and artists are loved. Together they represent a cohort in time and a bubble of culture moving in the larger stream which is destined to disappear with the adherents. As always with certain boomers and their junior auxillaries, they are unable to see and unwilling to admit that what is special to them is not the same as what is special to the cosmos. That time is fast upon us, Goldstein, and as we go so too does the 60s in the public consciousness, God willing. Imagine that.
Seek| 12.8.10 @ 2:20PM
Mark, you've got a bad case of what is known as Dennis Prager Syndrome. Here, the patient demonstrates a ceaseless impulse to prostrate himself before the whole nation, profusely apologizing for his "sins" acquired during or just after the Sixties.
Sorry, apology not accepted. Go listen to a Killing Joke CD.
Mark Shepler- Jupiter FL| 12.8.10 @ 2:42PM
Hey Seek,
Struck a chord with you...as it were? Are you in mourning today and I spoiled your fun? Do you have the dirge on in the background?
Seek| 12.8.10 @ 2:49PM
Actually, I prefer the Ramones and the Kinks to the Beatles. But if you must, go in peace and write your article for The New Criterion. They really hate the Beatles over there.
FYI: I did my mourning 30 years ago. I listened to some happy tunes on the radio this morning.
Mark Shepler- Jupiter FL| 12.8.10 @ 3:12PM
Was never much of a Ramones fan but I used to like some of the Kinks stuff. On the dark side I loved Lou Reed's Rock and Roll Animal. Still have Sweet Jane live on my mp3 player for the gym. Didn't get much into the whole punk thing but I like some edgy stuff, including some contemporary Alt music my kids listen to. But I'm old school. If it lacks melody or it's the standard screaming they do nowadays and sounds too much like noise I just can't dig it.
I neither love nor hate the Beatles or Lennon per se but rather love their music and hate his pretensions and typical phoniness. To me, he exemplified so much of what was wrong with that whole bunch who we still suffer under today. You may be right about my obsessions with the 60s in that respect. My loathing of approximately half the boomer generation's "ideals" is the other side of the same coin and directly proportionate to their exalting of themselves. If I am ceaseless in condemning it, it is because it is the scourge that will not die...yet. It is still on the attack and so I've the compulsion to defend. But the good news is it will eventually as we do and that was my larger point today, all of the blather about Lennon's historicity notwithstanding.
BTW, I am a huge fan of Dennis Prager and went to a talk of his once at a synagogue in Cocoa Beach years ago. If you say I'm in his company even obliquely, I will take it as a compliment, thank you very much. :)
I was gonna tear into you before as I would've once upon a time in the early days of BBSs. I'm glad the experience of age counseled me to hold my tongue, so to speak. Take it easy.
believer| 12.8.10 @ 1:42PM
The day Lennon told the press that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus I knew his days were numbered. He was more responsible for spreading pagenism in Europe than the rest of the world combined, Time catchs us all so be careful what you say.
Mark| 12.8.10 @ 1:48PM
Anyone deeply moved by the death of John Lennon needs to get a hobby.
Casey Abell| 12.8.10 @ 1:59PM
"There are almost no Beatles tunes on that [classic rock] playlist and certainly not their best work from Abby Road or the White album or from their pre- Sgt. Pepper days..."
Happened to hear Back in the U.S.S.R., the kickoff to the White Album, on the local classic rock station the other day. They play a fair number of Beatles tunes. Though I'll agree that 60s music in general is fading from the format and moving over to oldies stations.
Lennon's post-Beatles stuff gets almost no airplay on the local station. McCartney gets some of his early solo stuff on the list...Maybe I'm Amazed, Band on the Run, Live and Let Die, etc...
Off-topic: the grammar police still get into a snit over that line from Live and Let Die. Some things never change.
Mark Shepler- Jupiter, FL| 12.8.10 @ 2:20PM
Hey Casey,
Well, your station is better than ours but even Back in the USSR or Birthday, etc. we considered pop-ish though pretty good 'rocking tunes. But the very fact they're on the "classic rock" station points the way, no?
Our station has begun playing the type of 90s tunes I hate the most. The nondescript, angst ridden, tuneless, un-melodious, navel-gazing, adolescent songs that sound like a garage band production. They're in no way "classic" to anyone, even the kids of the 90s, but rather a blatant bid to expand their market. Curiously, they've completely skipped the 80s. I can only guess that it's because the original "classic" fans are getting long in the tooth and less likely to have a radio on all the time, no longer mesh with typical radio advertisers or have gone on to greener pastures. By this process even "classic" rock will be relegated to the station's shelves no longer to be heard after some point.
Lennon is a hero because he's a titan of attitudes from an age of attitudes and once all the lesser poseurs are gone so too will he fade from memory.
Chef Schnauzer| 12.8.10 @ 2:48PM
Lennon, Beatles, Diana Spencer - all answers to trivia questions. Pointless, mind numbing trivia questions.
Occam's Tool| 12.8.10 @ 7:14PM
Chef Schnauzer: is the question, "who is the most overrated person of the 20th Century?"
I listen to my Rolling Stones songs much more than Paul McCartney. The Stones were (are) a-holes off stage, but they are great performers and VERY polite to their audiences.
james| 12.8.10 @ 2:57PM
I have to laugh at all the bleating about John Lennon, especially by anyone under the age of 60. The day Yoko Ono sunk her shrike beak into his neck he stopped having even novelty value.
"Imagine." Are you kidding me? Yanni in whiteface.
Get serious people.
dac| 12.8.10 @ 3:01PM
Amazing, the amount/number/nature of comments and bile spilled over a dead hippie. He was a small, ultimately useless, self-important hippie, at that. With an ugly "wife", a messiah complex, and anti-American and rotten-to-the-core ideas and political instincts. Much like our current president, actually.
I doubt the worms cared much, though, except they may have been annoyed with the lack of meat on the bones. Good riddance and the AmSpec should be embarrassed for publishing anything about this.
rcw| 12.8.10 @ 3:19PM
It is understandable that people who were unaffected by John Lennon's music were likewise unaffected by his death. However, to dismiss his fans' adoration and loyalty as childish, foolish, misguided, etc., is to misunderstand the relationship people had with him -- if only through his music. If you don't understand that type of relationship, you can stop reading this post now.
As a teenager in the late-70s, I was obsessed with the Beatles. As the years have gone by, I have listened to his solo work and hours of interviews. As I got older, was intrigued by his story. I watched and listened and heard what John himself was saying. All one has to do is listen to his songs to know that he rejected the pedestal on which he had been placed by his role in the one of the most -- if not THE most -- influential bands in history. That's kind of interesting, no? A man loses his mother at an early age, becomes a living legend as a member of an extraordinary quartet that changes the music world, tries to use his notariety to change the political world, then becomes introspective and rejects his own success. On that level alone, he's interesting. People don't mourn his political views, they mourn the story of his life and the tragedy of his death.
It's not all that complicated -- he was a man who went about his life creating music and telling his story and millions of people watched and listened. He was, for whatever reason, a compelling figure.
Regardless of one's opinion of is music or his ideas, no one can deny his sincerity and willingness to express his deepest personal feelings in his later music. That is the John I remember and the one for which I mourned the day he was killed. Double Fantasy was the re-emergence of that John, the one I was compelled to listen to and whose ideas I pondered (without any obligation to agree with him). The timing made his murder all the more tragic for those of us who followed his music and his life. Not because he was a god, but because he was a flawed man telling a story. And much to our enjoyment, he was coming out of the shadows to tell us what he had been doing and what he was thinking. With his murder, that story ended prematurely. In that sense, he was taken from us for no good reason by an "insect." And it hurt. And we miss him to this day.
So, to those of you who do not think that John Lennon deserves the place of honor he holds in some of our minds and hearts, let us share our memories of him in peace. We don't want to hear your opinion since you can't really understand the relationship we had with him. It's like you're crashing a funeral to diss the deceased. It's rude and serves no good purpose.
dac| 12.8.10 @ 4:55PM
Stop crying, hippie. Let's say Rush Limbaugh was shot by some eco-communist Earth-Firster, and AmSpec published a "The Day the Voice Died" or some article like that, I'm so sure you'd let people who "grew up" listening to Rush "share their memories" in peace, right? Bullshit. As I'm sure you did when many people were saddened by Reagan's death, right? I'm sure your outpouring of understanding and sympathy was genuine and intense. No, you probably cracked open your finest white wine spritzer or Zima and took the opportunity to mock and slander anyone who expressed sorrow at his passing.
Lennon was a tiny, whiny, pathetic little communist who made a shitload of money with his music, good for him but please spare us all the dope-laced crocodile tears and the pleas for "respect" from someone who would be among the first to "diss" any deceased conservative who acutally deserved respect.
rcw| 12.8.10 @ 10:45PM
dac, this just shows how little you understand. I'm a registered R, have never voted anything but R and I don't go ripping into people with my head up my a-s as you have just done.
gobnait| 12.8.10 @ 5:15PM
Unless you knew Lennon personally, the 'relationship' to which you refer isn't real outside your head.
rcw| 12.8.10 @ 10:46PM
duh. (another rocket scientist chimes in.)
pat i.| 12.8.10 @ 9:03PM
As a teenager i was obsessed as well - only my band of choice was The Who. I'd troll the record stores of Greenwich village every weekend hoping for a bootleg to show up. I'd spend hours in used book stores hoping to find old magazines
with their pictures.
I took their powerful lyrics to heart. I would emulate Townshend by practicing windmill guitar moves, power slides and jumps. Hell I'd even pretend to have a high wat stack in back of me (next to my bed) for feedback.
I felt sad when Keith Moon died. becaue I knew that as a band the would never be the same.
Their music still resonates with me. It pained me to see their performance at the last superbowl half time show. Watching a 66 eyar old geriatric
rock guitarist wearing a bandanna and a pork pie hat.
But the idol-worshipping is gone. The love and passion is now reserved for my son and wife.
In other words I grew up.
Worshipping rock stars is a rite of passage when your a teen.
It's quirky and endearing in a hipster
sort of way when you are in your twenties.
In your thirties and on it's sad, pathetic and creepy. If you believe their pablum about no possessions and helping the world while standing outside their multi-million dollar penthouses while clutching their limited edition doodles and t-shirts with their images on them and not for a second ponder the hypocrisy of the situation, you're delusional as well.
rcw| 12.8.10 @ 10:49PM
perhaps that would be sad, pathetic and creepy. of course, I'm not doing what you described. And I said as much.
Chef Schnauzer| 12.8.10 @ 5:29PM
Tell me was this a class project for Goldstein, at the end of the 'effort' was a badge issued?
Bob Grant| 12.8.10 @ 6:31PM
n
Neo| 12.8.10 @ 7:43PM
I remember coming out of work late, in the dark, and getting in my car to go home, only to hear an abnormally heavy playlist of John Lennon on the radio. My local news station told me why.
To this day, when I hear a lot of the same artist on the radio .. on different stations .. I start to wonder if they have left us.
Liberal Reader| 12.8.10 @ 8:27PM
You people posting your hatred of John Lennon just don't know a goddamned thing about MUSIC.
Sure, Lennon could be a jackass. He abused drugs and alchohol. He was frightfully immature. He seems to have pulled it together during his last years, but it's true -- for much of his adult life he often behaved badly. But he wrote dozens of beautiful songs and collaborated on dozens more. All this bile and criticism smacks of lame and weak resentment.
pat i.| 12.8.10 @ 9:09PM
It's not the music we're bashing. It's Lennon himself. Just because I thought he was a hypocritical, philandering, jackhole who dumped his oldest son that doesn't mean he was not a competent musician.
Liberal Reader| 12.8.10 @ 9:20PM
Pat --
You can go to any self-respecting watering hole on any given Friday night and find a "competent" musician. John Lennon was more than a competent musician. He was a really great song writer. I'm not saying he was a saint. I'm not saying anyone ought to consider his political opinions as especially important. But people's love for him is well founded. We like people who make beautiful things.
rcw| 12.8.10 @ 10:53PM
actually, pat, you were trashing the people who had genuine feelings about the man and his music. If only we were all as wonderful as you, the world would be a bitter, uh, better place.
Tony in Central PA| 12.8.10 @ 9:21PM
And where is all of this great music ? You would think that freed from the creative shackles of his Beatle association he would have taken flight as a creative genius.
In terms of actually producing music, Lennon was a virtual nonentity at the time of his death. I remember because I was in college at the time. Some people have made the case it was drugs, but maybe he had nothing left and was only able to feebly regurgitate earlier ideas from his Beatles days.
I found the eulogies and outpourings sad in that people would think Lennon some kind of saint or figure to be imitated.
pat i| 12.8.10 @ 8:44PM
The thing sthat makes me dread this time of year - other than dealing with South jersey mob princesses at the mall and putting up Christmas lights - is having to listen to the saccharine synchophants blather on about Lennon's death - along with the vomit-inducing "So This is Christmas".
Lennon was a charlatan. he didn't practice what he preached - playing the "man of the people" while living a decadent life in the Dakota.
As far as talent is concerned - I feel he was the least talented of all the Beatles, although there's no denying that he was an important part of the formula - small - but necessary - and the Beatles would not have been as famous without him.
For all those flying monkeys camped out at Strawberry Fields in anguish over what might have been had Lennon not been murdered: HE WOULD NOTE HAVE MADE ANY MUSIC WORTH LISTENING TO. The most talented Beatle - Paul - has been unable to get his new material played on the radio. His CDs are selling at Starbucks. Lennon would have sold out in a desperate attempt to be in the spotlight and remain relevant. But let's look at the track record
of the current crop of aging rockstars: Rod Stewart is raping the great American Song Book. The Who are fleecing fans with endless greatest hits and compilation albums, Billy Joel's voice is shot - but that doesn't stop him from charging tone-deaf fans 150 bucks a ticket. The Stones have become a cabaret act - regardless of what your local a**-kissing radio DJ says about them being "better than ever".
Springsteen? Yes he can still rock but his latest offerings are mediocre.
I was working in a record store the day we received Lennon's "Double Fantasy". The regional manager instructed us to mass display it and push it because the record company knew full well it would have been a dud.
Then Lennon was shot. All hell broke loose. People were buying 3 or 4 copies at a time.
Naw. If Lennon were alive today he'd be following the aging rockstar career path - playing casinos, permitting his songs to be used in commercials and showing up at DNC fundraisers with Springsteen, John Bon Jovi, John Fogerty and Babs Streisand - hoping for a some PR to boost their ticket sales at Caesar's Palace.
rcw| 12.8.10 @ 10:56PM
all hail pat i, superior intellect of the universe.
WGMOW| 12.8.10 @ 9:29PM
I kinda remember the morning of December 9, 1980. As usuall I had the radio on while I ate breakfast. A news reporter stated that John Lennon had been shot and was dead. My reaction was, oh well, another washed up rock and roll star down the tubes. Now, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Ray Vaughn - those were tragedies, man.
Execrator| 12.8.10 @ 11:57PM
OMG -I knew there was something about Aaron, the Blubbermeister, that made him special! He will never forget December 9, 1980.
Well, I never will either. The San Mateo Times relegated any story about Pearl Harbor to Page Seven while we were treated of the drama of "Yoko, kneeling by John's fallen body, her full length mink coat, trailing on the sidewalk."
We all have our memories. Mine is of the tripe churned out on Page One that day.
Liberal Reader| 12.9.10 @ 1:53AM
Unless I'm forgetting my history, the attack on Pearl Harbor took place on 7 December. Lennon was killed on 8 December. The morning papers reporting his death would have come out -- can you guess? -- on 9 December. By 9 December, Pearl Harbor stories might naturally be moving off the front page in any given year, no?
But this raises interesting questions. I haven't actually heard Glenn Beck suggest a conspiracy involving the Beatles, electric guitars, and the attacks on Pearl Harbor, but I think there might be something to this. We all know the secret codes on Sgt. Pepper's were giving messages for Satan's Army to begin the War on Christmas!
Happy Holidays, Comrades!
Whitey O'Carr Kennedy Dukakis| 12.9.10 @ 12:53AM
You know this kind of this topic brings out so much vitriol and passion that energizes the TASO community. I think that TAS should make a section of the magazine dedicated to 20th century topics that we the mature readers can enjoy and enlighten the younger readers about. Now a few things that I see that I should point out to everyone. First of all, only one or two of you have noted the former spouse of Mr. Lennon, the former Cynthia Lennon, who was treated like dirt by the drive-by media in the past. She was all but put into the nearest dumpster by John when Yoko appeared on the scene and no one has ever come over to her defense. Has the NAG Gang or any other feminist come to her aid? Nope!!! Another thought comes to mind in that at least John Lennon was spared (By this I am not condoning his murder) the opportunity to embarrass himself by joining in with the hip and obnoxious causes of the latter 20th century. Just imagine John singing "We Are The World" and Participating in hands across America. As for music, all of the Beatles jumped the shark when they joined up the Mahesh Mahjohng Yoghi or whatever was his named and got totally stoned. That and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Band. I mean did any of you see the animated film derived from that album? I think a class action suit can be made from childhood trauma from having watched that piece of whatever (calling former Sen. John Edwards). Then it all comes down to this, the sixties where just another phase of power transfer and legitimacy. There was no justice or peace, just money made from the gullibility of fools. That and all of the bodies that where left over.
Tamara| 12.9.10 @ 1:46AM
He was a musician.
He died thirty years ago.
Seriously, who cares?
What's next, an Elvis tribute?
Ed N.| 12.9.10 @ 1:15PM
Good piece, Mr. Goldstein.
On a separate note, I don't know how else to describe the song "Yeah!" other than it totally rocks!
Vasu Murti | 12.9.10 @ 3:26PM
John Lennon was interviewed by Maureen Cleave in the London Evening Standard in 1966:
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first--rock & roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
In the United States, particularly in the Midwestern Bible Belt, reaction was fast and furious. Radio stations banned the playing of Beatles records and radio station KLUE in Longview, Texas organized a public bonfire of their records. The Grand Dragon of the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan attached a Beatles record to a large wooden cross and set the cross on fire during a ceremony. The Reverend Thurman H. Babbs, pastor of the New Haven Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, said: "I will revoke the membership of any member of my church who agrees with John Lennon's remarks about Jesus or who goes to see the Beatles."
John Lennon's apology:
"I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. I wasn't saying the Beatles are better than God or Jesus. I used 'Beatles' because it's easier for me to talk about Beatles. I could have said 'TV' or 'the cinema' or anything popular and I would have gotten away with it...
"I'm sorry I said it, really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. From what I've read, or observed, Christianity just seems to be shrinking, to be losing contact. My views on Christianity are directly influenced by a book, The Passover Plot, by Hugh J. Schonfield. The premise in it is that Jesus' message had been garbled by his disciples and twisted for a variety of self-serving reasons by those who followed, to the point where it has lost validity for many in the modern age...
"By the time I was 19, I was cynical about religion and never even considered about the goings on in Christianity...
"But the record burning. That was a real shock, the physical burning. I couldn't go away knowing that I'd created another place of hate in the world. Especially with something as uncomplicated as people listening to records and dancing and playing and enjoying what the Beatles are. Not when I could do something about it...
"But that's the trouble with being truthful. You try to apply truth talk, although you have to be false sometimes because the whole thing is false in a way, like a game. But you hope sometime that if you're truthful with somebody, they'll stop all the plastic reaction and be truthful back and it'll be worth it. But everybody is playing the game and sometimes I'm left naked and truthful with everybody biting me. It's disappointing."
Radio station KLUE, the station which organized the public bonfire of Beatles records on August 13th, was knocked off the air the next morning when a bolt of lightning struck their transmission tower, knocking their news director unconscious and causing extensive damage to their radio equipment.
No one blinked two years later when Timothy Leary referred to the Beatles as "avatars," or incarnations of God.
When asked about the Vietnam War, George Harrison said:
"...'Thou shalt not kill' means that -- not, 'Amend section A.' There's no reason whatsoever. No one can force you to kill anyone if you don't want to."
According to George Harrison:
"...We've all got the same goal whether we realize it or not. We're all striving for something which is called God. For a reunion, complete. Everybody has realized at some time or other that no matter how happy they are, there's still always the unhappiness that comes with it.
"Everyone is a potential Jesus Christ, really. We are all trying to get to where Jesus Christ got. And we're going to be on this world until we get there. We're all different people and we are all doing different things in life, but that doesn't matter because the whole point of life is to harmonize with everything, every aspect in creation. That means down to not killing the flies, eating the meat, killing people or chopping the trees down.
"...the Beatles got all the material wealth that we needed, and that was enough to show us that this thing wasn't material. We are all in the physical world, yet what we are striving for isn't physical. We all get so hung up with material things like cars and televisions and houses, yet what they can give you is only there for a bit and then it's gone.
"...I'm a musician. I don't know why. This is a thing that I've looked back on since my birth. Many people feel that life is pre-destined. I think it is vageuly, but it's still up to you which way your life's going to go. All I've ever done is to keep being me and it's just all worked out...So it's obvious--because I'm a musician now, that's what I was destined to be. It's my gig."
In his 1993 book, Famous Vegetarians and Their Favorite Recipes: Lives and Lore from Buddha to the Beatles, author Rynn Berry writes:
"It has to be admitted that in the early years of their marriage, Paul and Linda McCartney frequently lapsed from their vegetarian diet. But then one evening while the family was in the middle of a roast mutton dinner, one of their lambs wandered into the kitchen. 'That,' as Paul says, 'was it! Now, we don't eat anything that has to be killed for us. We've been through a lot coming through the sixties with all those drugs and friends dropping like flies, and we've reached the stage where we really value life.'
"As a measure of how seriously the McCartney's take their vegetarianism, when the McCartney's donated Christmas hampers from the posh London department store Fortnum & Mason, to the women nuclear protesters at the cruise missile base at Greenham Common in Berkshire, Paul and Linda took the precaution of carefully removing the meat from each hamper."
somnolence| 12.10.10 @ 12:38AM
Lennon also said in an interview that as he and Yoko evolved into old age that nothing would have suited him better as to be thought of as "the nice old couple that live down the street." Didn't Jagger or one of the Stones imply once that they hoped they "would never grow old," or "don't trust anyone over 40," (or was it 30?) and now both he and Richards' skin looks like it is about to fall off the bones.
Dave | 12.13.10 @ 9:24AM
In checking the pop culture calendar, looks like it was 30 year ago this month,12/8/80 to be exact, a crazed lunatic shot and killed John Lennon outside his apartment building in New York City. And 30 years later, Paul McCartney's former Beatle mate is still being hailed as some kind of musical messiah. Not to denigrate Lennon's contributions to popular music and such, but musical messiah? (ehh) Maybe not so much.
Let's take a moment here and try to cut through the haze of revised conceptions. From my vantage point in the senior seats, it dawned on me long ago that some of the artists who became fortunate enough to get paid the big bucks for performing their songs in large concert venues were simply a few among the musical souls who managed to get lucky and ... make it. The majority of their struggling peers never did. Occasionally, one of the issues that followed these so-called poets is that too many of their pizza faced devotes, the ones who usually hung out around the old record shop, began to think: "Whoaa, those guys are on the radio. They probably know lots o' stuff about ... lots 'o stuff."
Right. And that was a problem.
Tommy Chong (late of That '70s Show) got it about right when his TV character Leo was describing an encounter he'd just had while riding on city transportation: "Hey, I think God sat next to me on the bus today. And guess what? He told me the meaning of life. (pause) Then he gave me a pretzel, man."
Amen, brother.
The glitch among the never got it together crowd is that they often put too much weight in the commentary of some stoner sitting next to them on that city bus or a song on the radio. And if the guy happened to be wearing a pair of ripped Levis or had an unkempt beard - all the more reason to absorb his lyrical wisdom. That, and he probably looked like one of those images we used to see on paintings hanging in our local church ... minus the pretzel.
Most of us went through a youthful cycle of musical hero worship, only to find out later that people like Dylan, Baez or The Boss, while talented in their own way, often became so engulfed with their own press, persona and dealing with acute knowitallitis that the only basic issues we ended up posing to ourselves in later life were - Should I eat that last donut? Paper or plastic? And the timeless battle cry - Do these jeans make my butt look too big?
Now that I think about it, the last cosmic query I really pondered from a pop artist came from a guy named Barry Mann, who back in '61 asked the question -- "Who Put The Bomp (in the Bomp-Ba-Bomp-Ba-Bomp?)"
Nearly 50 years later, I still don't have the answer. But somehow, I'm sleeping just fine, thanks.
For the rest of the lost souls, still not sure where to find those elusive answers, I got a quick tip for you: Try cruisin' the library. The experience could be verrry enlightening, man.