John Lennon Murdered, 31 Years Ago.
Posted: Thursday, December 08, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
John Lennon was murdered 31 years ago. I remember the event vividly. I was at home babysitting, drinking beer and watching Monday Night Football. Howard Cossell announced that Lennon had been shot to death on the streets of New York City. I was shocked and sad. I called my wife at work to tell her the news. She was a Beatles fan too. He was forty. We were twenty-eight.
The only record player we had was in a huge wooden cabinet-like thing that was a combination television, radio, and phonograph. It was the main piece of furniture in our living room. My mom only had 78 rpm records of classical music and opera. We had a couple of red vinyl ones with things like Davy Crockett and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer for me. Before we could play it, we had to install the gadget that held the 45’s, and then change the speed of the turntable. She liked the Beatles songs. She liked the harmony of the singers and the ‘beat’ of the music.
That winter the Beatles were all over the newspapers. They said that their arrival in the United States was the biggest event in entertainment since Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, came over, way back when. We watched them on the Ed Sullivan show. My dad thought they were pretty good, too. He like their songs and thought they were smart and polite. My mom said that the way George and Paul sang at the same microphone, she hoped they didn’t have bad breath. She thought Paul was cute, but John was the best looking.
For the next six years the Beatles dominated popular entertainment. Each new record was special and wildly popular. Everyone seemed to like them, my mom, my grandmother, even my great-grand mother like them. They permeated all aspects of life for us, young teens, growing up. They provided a back drop and foundation on which our young world was built.
Then they broke up. John seemed to become a little foolish and ridiculous. Then we got jobs, got married and had children; became grown-ups. The members of the Beatles continued to make records on their own. But then, John disappeared. I figured that, like most of the bands and groups I liked in junior high school, the Beatles would fade away and be forgotten; not the music, they still played the music everyday, but the men.
We took the kids shopping at the K-mart store in Casper around Thanksgiving. My son was five and my one daughter was three. The baby girl we carried. I was almost shocked to see a new John Lennon album for sale, Double Fantasy. I thought we’d never hear from him again. I thought he’d faded into obscurity. I bought it. It was pretty good. Then, two weeks later, he was murdered.
I was very sad, it seemed like a piece of my history was gone, but I was happy to see all the people around the world who remembered John. I cried watching the crowds in New York singing Give Peace a Chance and All you Need is Love. I had no idea there were so many who felt the same way about him that I did, so many people who still remembered him from so many years before. John had been one of my heroes when I was growing up, and now I saw he was to others, too.
I assumed that the Lennon Fever would soon abate. I assumed that he now would really fade from the memory and conscience of the world. He would no longer make music. He would no longer cry out for peace and love. The book was closed, the story finished. We had to grow up and move on.
Of coures, as we now know, I was silly and naïve. I did not realize just what the Beatles really were. They truly were and voice of their time. John Lennon truly was a working class hero and the conscience on his, and my generation.
The Beatles have sold more records in the 2000’s than they did in the 60’s. John Lennon is now an immortal icon. At the turn of the millennia, a survey in the United Kingdom asked who was the greatest British citizen of the 20thcentury. Winston Churchill was number one; John Lennon was number two. In another ten years, when the veterans of WWII are gone, Lennon will be first.
In 1964, when asked about the success and future of the Beatles, Lennon thought for a moment then said. “You know, I could be big headed and say, ‘We’re going to last another ten years,’ but then I turn around and think 'Yea, we’re lucky if we last another six months.’”
Or, he could have been realistic and said that they were going to last another 500 years. I’m sure my great-great-great grandchildren will know who John Lennon was and hear his music on the radio and buy Beatles songs, just as I can now, 31 years after he died.
"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. It is not dying. It is not dying."
from: "Tomorrow Never Knows" by Lennon and McCartney
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Hmmmm makes one contemplate.
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