My wife and I were living in suburban Boston, I had just graduated from Berklee College of Music, playing in a band at night and working at Sears for a day job. We had to get up early to go to work, and our clock woke us up each morning with a local radio station, usually when they were reporting the news.

We heard the newscaster say something like, "John Lennon was born...." and "John Lennon was important to music" ..... everything was "John Lennon WAS" and I'm thinking "Holy crap, what's happened." When the segment ended with "John Lennon.....dead at the age of 40," and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" began playing, I just hugged my wife and cried like a baby.

It was worse than November 22, 1963, because even though I was as sad and shocked as anyone on that day, I was in the third grade. I didn't understand why everybody else was crying but I wasn't.

It took John's death to make the tears spill immediately.

Shawn20 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> sweetcharmedlife Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yeah EG,I remember watching Monday nigt
> > football.(might of been the dolphins &
> jets)when
> > Howard Cosell came on announced Lennon's death.
> > Very surreal.
>
> It was actually the Dolphins and Patriots,but I
> too recall this night. I thought when Cosell
> announced Lennon's name...John was waiting in the
> wings as he was that night in 1974 when he
> appeared in the booth with Howard to promote Walls
> and Bridges. It was a terrible, terrible night.

I was also watching the game but I have always thought that it was the Broncos vs the Raiders. I Remember the Cosell annoucement. The first one was of shock when he was wounded but later when he announce that he was DOA gave so much sadness.

Terrible night.

I wasn't even born when John was murdered but every time I see those clips I get the same feeling that all the people on this thread must have felt when they heard the news. In my book Lennon was streaks ahead of the rest and if I was granted the powers to bring anyone back it would be John. Hope you haven't changed a bit John wherever you are and I hope that you're still making music! Gone too soon but at least we had you around for a while John because if we didn't have you around at all where would music be now?

"I only found out yesterday, I heard it on the news, What I heard well it p***ed me off and now I've got the F***ing BLUES!"

R.I.P John you made a lot of people smile.

i heard about it on Monday nite football too , it still turns my stomach
also i remember thinkin later on " there's no way da Stones are gonna tour in 81 "











does anyone have da full page color photo of John & Yoko w/ Mick & Bianca in a NYC restaurant that was on the back cover of The National Star mag. circa 1975 or 76 ? what a incredible photo that is

remember

JOHN
LENNON

on

October 9

I'll have to head down to Strawberry Fields in Central Park later. I live a block away from Lennon's apartment. I usually walk a different route on purpose, but yesterday I walked in front of the Dakatoa, by the spot, and it gave me chills.

I can only echo the beautiful and moving posts above.

His death was terrible and horrible, and to describe how I feel about it even now, is impossible. We were robbed of someone who had played such an important role in all our lives.

Yet astonishingly, not one of the UK's football grounds that following Saturday, honoured him with a minute's silence. Not even at Liverpool the week after that.

Unforgiveable, but sadly an all-too-typical sign of those times in Britain.

Believe me; a working class hero really WAS something to be.

God Bless you, Johnny Boy!!

I say it every year on this date but truly, it is one death that I never quite got over, along with my Dad's and RFK's. It still seems surreal, like a really bad dream that you can wake from. I've made the pilgrimage to Strawberry Fields, I took pictures, have walked all around the front of the Dakota. I could seriously pull the lever on his murderer without one twinge.

Not only did that creep cut John's life in half, causing him to leave this world in a truly horrible manner, but he also changed forever the way we hear Beatles music. What happens to the artist after he makes his art DOES change the way in which his art is experieced. I wish it didn't, but it does. After Dec. 8, I was never able to listen to the Beatles in quite the same way again. I could not hear John's voice or see his image without thinking "That's John. He's dead. Someone shot him and he died."

Howard Cosell:

"Near the end of the "Monday Night Football" broadcast my producer, Bob Goodrich, said, "Roone Arledge just called and told me that John Lennon has been shot and rushed to the hospital. We're waiting for details from ABC News." I couldn't believe it. Goodrich then told me that he was dead on arrival. I was devastated. We were in the midst of a tied football game that was about to go into overtime, and I was wrestling with the problem of breaking the news on TV, thinking that, even in this sick, sports-obsessed country, *this* is far more important than any goddamned football game will ever be. I went on the air and said that it was just a game, and I felt compelled to tell this story.

John and I became friends in 1975, when he did a one-hour interview with me for an ABC talk show, and I found him to be candid, engaging, a man who understood himself. We kept in touch and, ironically, I even had him on "Monday Night Football" as a guest.

This man meant a great deal to me. My own daughters came of age in the era of the Beatles, and I saw a lot of the magic and excitement of that time through their eyes and experiences; they truly touched us all.

I'll tell you something that no one should ever forget about John Lennon: He was *never*, *ever* a hypocrite about anything ever ever did or said or believed. With his family, his music, his ideals and his opinions, he was a man of conviction and commitment. I am proud to have known him."

Gazza Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ladykiller Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > 8th December 1980 is really a sad day in music
> > history. John Lennon was such a great and
> talented
> > person. I'm so sure, if he would have been not
> > murdered by Mark Chapman, The Beatles would
> have
> > been reunited in the mid 90s for a World Tour!
>
>
> I'm personally pretty convinced they never would
> have done so, for several reasons.
>
> Personal differences aside, I think they knew they
> couldnt top what they had already done and wouldnt
> have tried - plus the fact that Lennon never
> really seemed interested in touring after he left
> the band, and Harrison basically quit touring in
> the mid 70's due to stagefright.

It may have never happened, but Lennon was planning a world tour in 1981 with Yoko. In 1980 he felt fully reenergized and had 2 albums of songs completed. He was already planning the third new album. He wanted things to happen quickly at that time, so I imiagine the tour would have started by summer 81.

Harrison always had an aversion to touring, but he did his tour of Japan in December 1991 with Eric Clapton and his band. That tour came about in the wake of Eric's grief over the death of his son Conor. I think George did that tour as his way of trying to help Clapton have something to focus on other than his son's death. Goerge enjoyed that tour and was intending it to continue into the US and possibly Europe in 1992, but it fell apart in the wake of Clapton's huge success with Unplugged and deciding to go on tour behind the success of that album, leaving George without a band. There were also rumors at the time of George and Eric's relationship getting a little strained as well.

George lost all the momentum he had going at the time from the success of Cloud Nine and Wilburys a little time later when he discovered his trusted manager Denis O'Brian had stolen a huge amount of money from him. He fought O'Brian in the courts throughout the mid to late 90s and although he frequently talked about recording new albums and touring, I believe he lost his creative spark due to the legal issues he was going through and it wasn't until he won that judgment against O'Brian that he was fully back to recording by 1999. Unfortunately like with Lennon, we were robbed of a lot of future activities by George due to his cancer and his near fatal stabbing on December 30, 1999.

Due to his monetary constraints of the mid 90's, perhaps George would have agreed to do a Beatles reunion tour had Lennon still been alive. Who really knows. It did come out, as the result of one of the Beatles lawsuits, that back around 1979 or 1980, that the Beatles including John had been talking about reuniting to record new music for their long planned group history which in 1995 became The Beatles Anthology, but had had the working title of The Long And Winding Road since it was proposed in the 1970s by Apple. Ultimately McCartney, harrison and Starr did reunite to record 3 Lennon demo songs, one of which was never released.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-10 00:42 by Halup.

Glam Descendant wrote:

"I'll tell you something that no one should ever forget about John Lennon: He was *never*, *ever* a hypocrite about anything ever ever did or said or believed. With his family, his music, his ideals and his opinions, he was a man of conviction and commitment. I am proud to have known him."

_______________________________________________________________________________

I think your wrong ................... I'm not an Englisch talking guy so it's hard for me to expres my self.

For me JL is a genius song writter I do think I have all his records and i love him for that, but on the other hand he is childish, take the album "Imagine" Man !!! to spend a complete record to piss of your (friend) only because he break up the Beatles before he did.

__________________________

I think your wrong

I didn't write this, I'm quoting Cosell.


> to spend a complete record to piss of your (friend)

I think that's a more-than-slight exaggeration.

Well Imagine is not an entire album devoted to getting back at McCartney! Really, only How Do You Sleep was the most pointed jab at McCartney and the post card that came with the original with Lennon holding the ears of a sheep (a pointed jab at McCartney's Ram album), Which Lennon claims had several songs that were directly pointed at Lennon and Yoko...which is true. Listen to Three Legs, Too Many People and Dear Boy...
All in all Imagine is an incredible album with some of Lennons best production and writing. Gimmie Some Truth (a left over from the Let it Be sessions, but revamped to hit at Nixon), I Don't Want to Be a Soldier, and Imagin are Lennon's political activism at its best. And some haunting melodies like How, and Jealous Guy (another leftover from Let it Be) are stunning.

Lennon was not perfect and he never claimed to be. As was posted above the beauty of Lennon was he let it all hang out...his faults warts and all, and also never tired of being introspective. He helped his fans think about themselves and the world we live in...which makes it so sad he isn't here to continue with his creative bent on the world. He was known for being a very difficult man to be with and work with. Many of his peers acknowledged he could be a real shit stirrer, Ray Davies, Keith Richards, and McCartney all acknowelded this, even Yoko, who kicked him out for his famous "lost weekend". But he had a heart and soul and talent that made him so damn compelling and emotive.

It would have been incredible to see what the future held for John, but unfortunately, his fate was tied to the crazyness of being a Beatle which eventually got him killed. A sad tragedy that is still so hard to come to grips with.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-10 01:49 by whitem8.