Today (December 8th) is the anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in New York City. John Lennon was one of my heroes when I was growing up. During high school (and a bit before and after) I was infatuated with all things Beatles. While I enjoyed Paul McCartney's music more so than Lennon's, I was very influenced and inspired by John's activism, his honesty, and his struggle to find his place in the world.
John was very vocal and challenging for peace: "War is Over If You Want It!" "Give Peace a Chance." He also promoted Love: "All You Need Is Love." And despite some very public failings, he worked at his relationship with his wife, Yoko Ono, as well as promoting fatherhood. He was not shy about admitting his sins; he was certainly not perfect.
He challenged us to discard the deification of idols (e.g., The Beatles, Lennon, Christ, Buddha, Pope, Priests, etc.) and instead to focus on the good things and work to make them a reality. Imagine.
In 1980, I was in college. The evening of Monday December 8th found me at home working on homework for chemistry lab or something. I don't remember how I heard the news, if someone called, or someone saw it reported on TV. It was late and there was little news at first. But by Tuesday morning, it was clear: John Lennon was dead!
I remember going to a candlelight vigil downtown in Public Square later that week (Tuesday?). At the time, I worked at a record store in Parma. We sold so many copies of John&Yoko's latest album, Double Fantasy. Some stores were selling it at full price in order to maximize their profit but our store manager refused to profit over such a tragedy-we sold it at regular price.
Double Fantasy was the first album by Lennon after a 5-year hiatus as "house husband." The album was preceded by a single, "(Just Like) Starting Over" on the A-side and Yoko's "Kiss Kiss Kiss" on the B-side. Everyone at RecordRev was quite disappointed when we first heard "Starting Over." 1980 was the height of punk rock and Yoko's song seemed more in touch with the energy of punk. "Starting Over", on the other hand, sounded like a throw away version of an old rock-n-roll riff, pleasant but nothing to really grab ya.
With the death of Lennon, came the end of our hopes for the Beatles to reunite. They were the messiahs of our generation and there was so much hope that things would get better if they would reunite and capture the magic and energy of the 1960s. Now, with the death of Lennon, we were faced with having to take the responsibility on ourselves.
RIP John Lennon.
"Remember Love" is the Yoko song on the flip side of Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance" single.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_John_Lennon
http://www.johnlennon.com/biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Need_Is_Love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Fantasy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXwodT5ANis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Peace_a_Chance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJWLHq5CzE4