I've been offline for the last week and didn't get a chance to post on December 8. That date is the day that John Lennon was gunned down by Mark David Chapman in New York City. It's one of those days that I will always remember. I was still living at home, I had just turned on the television and the end of the news was on. I caught just the end of someone being shot in New York. I hadn't watched tv earlier that night, so I missed Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football interrupting the game to announce it. After the news MASH came on. I sat down to watch the show. Within about ten minutes they interrupted the show to announce that John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City earlier.
I was stunned. For me music begins with the Beatles. The first 45 I purchased was the Beatles' "Eight Days A Week." The first album I bought was "Beatles 65." I grew up on the Beatles. And while I thought all four were great, John Lennon was always something of a hero to me.
John was a flawed man and he was the first to admit it. He said and did things that he knew were hurtful. He wasn't the best father or husband. But he tried. He tried to make the world a better place. He wasn't afraid to appear foolish or dumb in that quest.
I have a pile of magazines and newspaper clippings from that time that I have not looked at since. I haven't been able to bring myself to go back and look at them since that day. Maybe one day I will. I have tapes of interviews he had done just before his death. It's heartbreaking listening to him talk about how happy he was and how much he looked forward to the future. He and Yoko had just released "Double Fantasy," his first new music in five years.
1 comment:
The date kind of skipped on by me until I saw mention at someone else's blog.
This was a seminal moment of my senior year in high school.
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