We just paid our respects to John Lennon outside the Dakota, where he was assassinated 44 years ago this evening. I was 13 at the time -- too young to have experienced the Beatles phenomenon, but plenty old to appreciate him -- and just remember being stunned that something like this could actually happen. (The world was such a different place pre-Columbine.)
Yoko Ono is comforted by David Geffen, right
The following year Reagan was shot, and since then we’ve seen Marvin Gaye and Phil Hartman get killed by loved ones and Rebecca Schaeffer and Versace stalked and murdered by fans. But no celebrity killing has ever been as shocking as that of John Lennon, who symbolized peace to a generation of people around the world.
Normally I post personal memories of that fateful day -- and share Susanna Hoffs's song about her finding out the tragic news. But after 17 years of doing this it seemed a bit redundant, which made finding this on a Blondie Facebook group all the more fortuitous!
Debbie at the childhood home 🏡 of John Lennon...in Liverpool. John was murdered on this day in 1980...🕊 ✌️ 🇬🇧
Although their careers feel like from different eras -- he was a babe when the Beatles struck it big whereas she floundered around the NYC scene before making her mark -- it's interesting to note that Lennon would have been 82 today, a mere four and a half years older than the Blondie singer. How chilling to realize the man has been dead longer than he lived, yet we're still the lucky ones.
If I can get up enough energy -- my recovery has been slow-going -- I hope to walk by the Dakota later this evening, now just a stone's throw from my home. I think we could all use some comfort about now.
Carly Simon shared this:
Remembering John Lennon today. With Yoko, James, & John. I was very pregnant with my son Ben. #1977
Last week everyone was buzzing about the postcard John Lennon sent to Ringo Star about Blondie's "Heart of Glass." Read HERE.
And now I see a reference to a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, in which Sean Lennon said:
"My father had an old Wurlitzer in the game room of our house on Long Island. It was filled with 45s, mostly Elvis and The Everly Brothers. The one modern song I remember him listening to was 'The Tide Is High' by Blondie, which he played constantly. When I hear that song, I see my father, unshaven, his hair pulled back into a ponytail, dancing to and fro in a worn-out pair of denim shorts, with me at his feet, trying my best to coordinate tiny limbs."
Who knew the late Beatle was such a Blondie queen? :-)
For the past 15 years on this date, I have noted on my blog the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon. Dec. 8, 2020, is different, of course, as it marks 40 years since the senseless crime -- with the Beatles legend now dead the same number of years he was alive.
The New York Post had an interesting article over the weekend about Lennon's last days in New York City. When I was younger and more naive I used to be so sad thinking how the world might have been so different, so much better, had this madman not done what he did. But now that I'm older -- a dozen years north of Lennon at the time of his death -- I've come to realize that it probably wouldn't have made that big a difference overall, which might even make me sadder.
Hard to believe John Lennon has been dead nearly as long as he was alive. I normally post Susanna Hoffs's song about finding out about the Beatle's assassination on this somber day of remembrance. This year someone posted a live version of the song, which adds another layer to her sorrow.
P.S.
I'm not sure if this photo is legitimate or not. But if so, it morbidly illustrates the song perfectly, for better or worse ...
Pardon his French, but he's singing what my mother has been preaching since I was a small child and the courts told her to stop being "hysterical" for firmly explaining why she wanted to keep us safe from our alcoholic father. There can only be one reason the media normalized Donald Trump and demonized Hillary Clinton. And the worst part? Exit polls reveal white women voted for Trump like gangbusters, which is part battered-wife syndrome (not their fault, but please get help) and part "women hate other women" phenomenon (totally your fault -- please get help to figure out why you like to drag each other down).
A favorite from "Revolver" -- or "Yesterday and Today" for you old-school Americans -- which is one of seven Beatles albums I own. ("Help!," "Rubber Soul," "Revolver," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Magical Mystery Tour," "Abbey Road" and "Number Ones.") I briefly called the Beatles my favorite group in the late '70s -- probably after seeing the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton remake of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and getting a "Beatles" cassette at the Green Acres drugstore on Chicago Road in Warren. It turned out the bargain bin recording wasn't by "the original artist"(!), but the songs were so good I loved 'em just the same, After going on a post-Fleetwood Mac Beatles bender this past weekend, I asked a friend with a big record collection if he could send me Zip files of "Let It Be" and "The White Album" -- the two I'm most interested in learning more about (but not paying for) -- and he says he might, but assures me I have the best already. Thoughts?
The Dec. 5 tribute concert to the late Beatle will be held in New York City, and will also feature performances from Kate Pierson of the B-52s, Marshall Crenshaw and Joan Osbourne. Read HERE.
On the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon, I wrote about how I had been a huge fan of the Beatles' music -- namely "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" -- yet couldn't really remember the exact moment I heard about his assassination other than being home watching TV. Perhaps at 13 I was just young enough not to appreciate the enormity of it all, because I can remember the attempt on President Reagan's life just three months later like it was yesterday -- and I didn't even like him. But he was the president. It wasn't until many years later when I first heard Susanna Hoffs -- nearly a decade my senior and an obvious Beatles freak -- sing about the tragedy did I finally cry about it. Something about the dread in her lyrics and her plaintive vocals on "Weak With Love" -- from her 1996 self-titled sophomore LP -- took me back to that day in December 1980, and seemed to allow me to feel exactly what every Lennon fan felt at the time. And now today on the 33rd anniversary of that fateful moment outside the Dakota, I saw this moving status update on a slightly older co-worker's Facebook page, which cut even deeper.
I was a freshman at the University of North Carolina in December 1980, watching a Monday Night Football game between the Patriots and the Dolphins, when Howard Cosell interrupted the broadcast to announce that John Lennon had been shot and killed. An impromptu vigil formed up in one of my friends' rooms, as we listened to "Sergeant Pepper's" and everyone, when not sitting in stunned silence, asked, "Why the hell did someone kill John Lennon?" Eventually I left my friend's room, but I couldn't sleep. I walked outside into the cold night and ended up a stone bench in the Paul Green Theatre, and just wept for a good 10 minutes. Those tears and that pain weren't all about John Lennon, but his death had plenty to do with it. It is a night I will always remember.
My brother Bill, who is the same age, recalls that he was watching "Lou Grant" on the little black-and-white TV in my dorm room in Tucson.
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