John Lennon

Thirty years ago tonight, I learned about the death of John Lennon from Howard Cosell. That's the common refrain by many. It was toward the end of the Monday Night Football game (Miami vs. New England), and ABC News had verified the singer's death, and passed it along to the truck covering the game. This morning I heard the fascinating bit of tape of Cosell consulting with his boothmates on whether to go public with the information. Cosell, in an uncharacteristic nod to restraint, thought it wasn't the right time or place, but Frank Gifford talked him into it.

I watching in my dorm room in college. I don't why I was watching the game--did I really watch Monday Night Football to its completion in those days? I rarely watch it now. But I was, and when Cosell made the announcement I remember bolting upright in bed. What did I do next? I don't precisely remember, but there was no CNN yet to turn to--none of the other TV networks had the story yet. I think I turned on the radio, to WNEW, the classic rock station. They were all over the story, the DJs breathless and uncomprehending.

Of course I was devastated. John Lennon remains one of my idols, despite his warts. The death was so senseless, so unnecessary, that it still boggles the mind. What hurt even more was that the man finally seemed to be happy. He and Yoko Ono had just released a great new album, Double Fantasy, and he loved living in New York City. Assassinations were supposed to be the stuff of political figures, not rock stars. To this day, though, I can't help but feel sorry for his murderer, Mark Chapman, who was insane.

Forty years ago this month Lennon released his first post-Beatles album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It's still a remarkable work, full of incendiary power. It fully explores the everlasting hole in his psyche--his relationship, or lack of one, with his mother. The album opens, after the dirgeful tolling of bells, with "Mother," and the line "Mother, you had me, but I never had you." For good measure, the album closes with the brief "My Mummy's Dead." The man had issues, and chewed over them in public.

In addition to great songs like "Love," "Well, Well, Well," "Isolation," and the searing "Working Class Hero," the penultimate song, "God," is one of the most affecting I think he ever wrote. It starts with, "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." Then he recites a litany of things he doesn't believe in: magic, Jesus, Buddha, Yoga, Elvis, Beatles, ending with "I just believe in me, Yoko and me." In a nod to Beatles fans distraught about the end of the group, he closes with "I was the Walrus, but now I'm John. And so, dear friends, you'll just to have to carry on. The dream is over."

On the Saturday following Lennon's death a public memorial was held for him in Central Park, just across the street from his residence, on a spot today known as Strawberry Fields and marked with a mosaic inscribed with the word "Imagine." I did not attend, and I wonder why I didn't. But I listened on WNEW, and after a ten-minute period of silence (it was odd "listening" to a moment of silence on the radio) they played "God." Tears.