Lennon Gone 28 years now...

I was watching the channel 2 news,waiting for the 11:30 'Quincy' rerun.Toward the end of the news,'this just in-reports of John Lennon being shot on the upper West side.'NOOOOO......Better turn on WNEW.Vin Scelsa will tell us it was some minor incident.Turned the radio on just in time to hear Vin announce that John was definatly dead...Stayed up all night.Never did see Quincy...

(Side note:a friend of mine was on the air when the newswire went off.He was playing "Another One Bites The Dust" & was cueing up "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"....)

 

I was always hopeful the Beatles would get back together... when Lennon was fatally shot, that hope ended. But at least he left us with an incredible body of work. What might have been... we'll never know.

 

Found it!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190221852509

...don't know why I never thought to check there...

 

Same here. it's a death I'll probably never really come to terms with.

 

What was it about Lennon that caused such a strong reaction to his tragic death? I guess I was too young to understand...I was 8 at that point in time.

 

Well, for those I guess who grew up with the Beatles, that alone would probably make it sad, but because of the way he died, it made it arguably tragic. I'm sure we all have people we may have either idolized or something that we would or will feel that way about. Personally, I'm with you here. I don't deny Lennon's impact on pop culture, but 28 years on, I'm still surprised people still feel this visceral about it. Maybe people feel like he was a family member, so it still stings.

We watch the news every day and see people killed in tragic ways who leave families behind who have no noteriety. Lennon just had a globe of people he touched so there's no denying that the sadness associated with it would impact many more people.

 

I'm playing John's Shaved Fish compilation this evening as I dwell on all of the magnificent contributions to music, peace and art he gave us.

It's been 28 years since he was taken from us and it never gets any easier as time goes on.

 

I was a sensitive 13-year-old Beatles fan whose favourite musician was John Lennon and though it might sound melodramatic to some, his murder was life-changing for me. I realized my own mortality at the age of 13 due to this senseless act of violence, and would never look at the world the same way again. What a cold winter that was.

 

It doesn't get any easier, does it?

 

I'd been introduced to the Beatles in '77 when my mother played her copy of 'Meet the Beatles'. Man, I wore that record out! (And I still have that copy in my possession)

But that was it. I didn't have the money at 8-yrs old to buy records. That means that MTB was my only exposure to them even though that record rocked my world.

Fast forward to 1980 when an insidious record called 'Stars On' was popular. I was home sick and listened to this thing endlessly. This was my clue that the Beatles were so much greater than they were according to my 1-album experience. At this point, we were in Germany because my Dad was in the service. That meant that we were behind the curve and we didn't hear until much later.

I'll never forget the 9th of December when my Dad came home from work. He wasn't the greatest fan of rock music, but he knew how much I loved the Beatles. When he told me the news, my life changed forever. All those dreams of a Beatles reunion went out the door. Double Fantasy became the album of that season and I cannot listen to it without thinking of that day.

 

For me it used to be grieving for a hero I never met; then it was grieving for one of the greatest rock artists of all time; and as I get older it hits me more that the guy was a human. Lennon was somebody's husband; somebody's father; and a close friend to many. What happened 28 years ago tonight was a tragedy first for those people.

As much as it hurts to have a legend taken from us - it can't nearly amount to the loss people like Sean, Yoko, Aunt Mimi, Julian, Paul, George, Ringo, and others must have suffered. The thought of that hits me every December 8th (and as I write "Beautiful Boy" plays). Uggh.

 

What I find sad is when people try to compare the loss of Tupac or Biggie to the loss of Lennon--who was murdered by a deranged fan vs. being murdered because of a slight directed at another rapper or dealing gang related. Not even comparable.

 

Dimebag Darryl has been gone 4 years now to this date as well. Let's not forget Dimebag Darryl..

 

New England at Miami. Cosell broke the news just prior to a crucial field goal (by Patriots kicker John Smith, who coincidentally enough was born in the UK), and it's very strange, almost surreal, to watch the juxtaposition of the two. As Howard himself said to Frank Gifford, it was hard to go back to the game after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcdz1IRVoM

 

I was in eighth grade. I had just started getting into the NYC FM stations that were still pretty decent at that point and my cousin gave me a few used Beatles 45's the week before...

My neighbor friend had a NY Daily News route, but was away for a few days, so I was delivering them at 5:30 that morning, all the while reading about what had happened to this man who I knew so little about.

Our teacher, who was about 70 years old, told us that Lennon had "died" the night before and that it should be a lesson to all of us that when you take drugs and live a "wild lifestyle," that it will catch up to you.

Within a few days I realized what was what. My first lesson in questioning what "grownups" tell me. I played hookie a few days later and went on my first record shopping excursion, buying "Double Fantasy" and a bunch of Beatles Apple 45's.

It was the first death of anyone that really had an impact on me.

Rest in peace.

 

I've always felt it was a strange quirk of history that Lennon's murder happened one day after the Pearl Harbor anniversary. I realize that you can't really compare the scale and magnitude of the two tragedies, but both are events (and dates) that are indelibly implanted in the minds of the people who were alive at the time they happened.

 

I was 6, and while it didn't have any 'impact' on me at the time, it was certainly the first time that the death of someone unknown to me registered anything, I remember asking my mom about it.

 

We were so lucky that John ever lived.

 

I celebrated the aninversary by listening to the Love DVD-A (LOUD) with my
18 y.o. daughter and her boyfriend, both of whom are Beatles/Lennon fans for life.

Crap, this stuff at 96/24, or whatever resolution they encoded it at, it sounds
utterly amazing. The DVD-A -vs- the dvd compressed audio versions sound night & day different!
The DVD-A sounds twice as large and far more convincing.
Why can't Giles Martin remix the whole catalog to 5.1 DVD-A for the reissue campaign?

 

Yeah that really hit hard he was being 'A Good Person', and doing right, gone were the wild days, and importantly he was very Happy!

 

I think because of Lennon's death, I am very bitter towards the USA and your Gun thing which is terrible IMO, but its just the way I feel. I doubt it would not have happened in the UK maybe he would have been carved up a bit with a knife, but at least he would have stood a fighting chance - Guns are so final, when a country have them available for any idiot to have!

 

Uh oh...politics!

 

Hello Dave, nothing to do with Politics, just my own personal feelings about it

 

I had to check, because I thought to myself "God, was Mimi still alive when John died?"
She died in 1992 according to wiki but in the same article it says Yoko and Sean visited Mimi after Lennon's death. WTF?

 

Must be tired, I'm all mixed up. Please disregard my post above, got my dates all confused.