Recollections of John Lennon's Assassination (30 year anniversary today)

Not exactly in the league of Pearl Harbor and 9/11, or even the JFK assassination, but for those who are old enough to remember, it was a pretty big deal when John Lennon was assassinated in New York City exactly 30 years ago today, on December 8, 1980.

So I thought I'd put a post out there to see if anybody has any thoughts from that day, how they learned about it and how they felt about John Lennon and his music at the time and more importantly, how they feel about him today now that we have had 30 years to get older and wiser.

Not all Freepers were smart enough to be conservative their entire adult lives and I have no problem stating that I am one of those who started my adult life ignorant, stupid...and liberal to the core.

Not that it was all my fault. I was born and raised in Massachusetts just a few miles from JFK's birthplace in Brookline. Therefore I was raised to believe that Republicans were evil and if you didn't have the obligatory portrait of JFK hanging on your living room wall (usually over the fireplace), you were suspect.

Well anyway, I remember very clearly what I was doing on December 8, 1980 as it was a time of great transition for me and my conversion to a rock-solid conservative was just beginning to take root (but would still take several more years to complete).

I was 18 years old and working as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. I had graduated high school the previous spring and had enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. However, I delayed my entry into boot camp so that I could have some "partying" time now that I was finally out of school. My report date to Parris Island was still over two months away (February 10, 1981).

The night of December 8th, I was watching Monday Night Football as my New England Patriots were playing the Miami Dolphins. Now this was way before Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and so the New England teams were typically awful during that era, but this particular year, they had a winning record and were still in contention for the playoffs at the time of this game.

Late in the game, Howard Cosell made the announcement about John Lennon. I will never forget the shivers that ran up my spine as he told about how he was shot, rushed to the hospital and then pronounced dead-on-arrival in his characteristic deadpan style.

I immediately forgot about the game (Pats ended up losing anyhow), turned off the TV and turned on my radio, which already was playing nothing but Beatles and Lennon records up and down the dial. Remember that this was before 24-hr cable news stations so the only way to get breaking news was to turn on your radio.

Now I was too young to remember The Beatles when they were still together and in their prime but as I came of age in the 1970s, you couldn't escape being exposed to their music, which was still in heavy rotation on most rock stations. So I was a big fan of their music and always harbored hope that they would get back together again as a group now that I was old enough to appreciate it.

Obviously the assassination dashed that dream forever and over the next few days, I listened to tribute after tribute come over the radio. Almost every rock station out of Boston pretty much dedicated the next several days to nothing but Beatles/Lennon music, tributes and documentaries. It was almost a full week before they went back to regular programming.

Looking back at those times 30 years later, it is almost like I was a different person in a totally different life. Having gained three decades of maturity and wisdom, I wonder what I ever saw in John Lennon and how I could have been so stupid to think he was some kind of saint or messiah.

Before writing this post, I looked at some of his 1970s era interviews on YouTube and he comes across to me now as a long-haired doper without a clue, unable to speak even a coherent sentence. Well, not too unlike many of our entertainers today, that think their stardom gives them special insight on how the world should be run (and with whom our young people put so much stock in).

I also find Yoko Ono even more despicable. During most of those post-Beatle years, she was always pretty much up his butt, controlling his entire life. What he saw in that woman, I'll never know. During my YouTube session, I saw video of her (and John) standing proudly next to a poster that accused the United States of having committed Holocaust on a scale worse than Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia (in Vietnam). Now that is pure evil right there.

As anti-American as John Lennon was in those days, he certainly had no desire to leave our country and in fact, fought for years to stay here despite efforts by our immigration department to deport him. And despite all the phoney-baloney lyrics that made him such a liberal icon (such as "Imagine"), he lived in the most exclusive area of New York and traveled by limousine and private jet.

Yet 30 years ago, John Lennon was a hero to me and here, on the 30th anniversary of his death, I find it hard to reconcile the person I am today with the person I was 30 years ago.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, my conversion to conservatism was just starting to take root in December of 1980. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president and while I cast my vote for John Anderson that year (the first election I was old enough to vote), I was secretly glad that Reagan won instead of Carter, but still did not have the self-confidence to say so to my friends and family. I was just a few months away from becoming a US Marine, which would accelerate my political conversion all the more.

In closing, while I now despise the man John Lennon was and especially what he represented, I am still sad that he died at the hands of a demented assassin. He certainly did not deserve to go out that way. On the other hand, he also did not merit being the martyr that people made him out to be post-assassination.

December 1980 was definitely a turning point in my life and this anniversary definitely brought back some memories...

I remember The Circle and Bobby Hebb (spelling?) were The Beatles opening acts. Great show!

You must be referring to The Cyrkle (you got Bobby Hebb right) that was pretty much a one-hit wonder in 1966. I'm too young to remember The Cyrkle's one big hit "Red Rubber Ball" when it came out, but I discovered it a few years ago on an oldies station and ever since, it's been a guilty pleasure on my iPod. It's a great slice of mid-60s pop. And if you like that song, you'll love the music of The Cowsills, who were actually the real life inspiration for The Partridge Family.

I'm too young to remember The Cyrkle's one big hit "Red Rubber Ball" when it came out, but I discovered it a few years ago on an oldies station and ever since, it's been a guilty pleasure on my iPod. It's a great slice of mid-60s pop.

Written by Paul Simon, of all people.

I saw them in Hong Kong in 1964 - at least I thought I did - turned out I was deceived - what I saw in the President Hotel Lounge was a group of Chinese girls imitating them. I had only heard their music on our Short wave radio before and had no idea what they looked like and this group of four girls sure sounded like them to me;)

I had a big problem trying to convince new friends back in the States that the Beatles were girls! LOL

Was it really THAT late when the news came out? That’s not the way I remember it.

Well it was definitely late in the game when Howard Cosell made the announcement, which would have made it sometime after 11PM Eastern time. Now that would have been one, maybe two hours earlier Texas time so your recollection of timeframe was probably accurate.

There were some really nice tunes on his last album and he seemed to have had a musical reawakening.

Yes, I meant to include that fact in the original post, thank you for reminding us. Lennon had just released a single called "Starting Over" that was rapidly climbing the charts at the time he was shot. It was a damn fine song too and there were at least three other quality songs on that "Double Fantasy" album (Woman, Watching The Wheels, Losing You). It appeared that Lennon was getting his act back together and so I think that added to the tragedy of his premature death. We can only imagine if that spurt of creativity would have been maintained through the 1980s.

Of course, Yoko had to have her unlistenable tracks included on the album as well but as we were on the eve of the compact disc revolution, it would have been so much easier to play his albums with her tracks filtered out.

He was a pop star with an exaggerated notion of his own importance. I was 30 at the time, and I have no idea where I was or where I heard the news, because the lives of pop stars...just don't approach the importance of presidential murders, Space Shuttle losses, or airliners flown into skyscrapers.

I wish the 60s and all of those who gave birth to those festering times would recede into well-deserved obscurity.

which would have made it sometime after 11PM Eastern time

Yea... that would have been 10 pm CST. Hard for me to believe that I would be heading to her house THAT late...

More likely... since I was a college kid taking finals... it was the next day. And, was the first time I was listening to the news.... on the car radio.

I know, for CERTAIN, that I was ON THE WAY TO her house... so, I hadn't been in the car that long. I guess... I COULD have taken a final that night.. and, was driving there late to deliver her present before I went home for Christmas break...

That would make sense.

I was eight. I thought he was already dead because to me, the Beatles were already “old” music so I thought they were really old or dead! Later, in high school, I had a Beatles phase and I really liked their music. But John was my least favorite. I liked them in this order: Paul, George, Ringo, John. I do remember the news the following day and the look on my dad's face was one of “oh well one less hippy”, although he never said this! I remember people talking about Yoko breaking up the band, and one local kid that painted “John Lennon Lives On” on the local high school, which I found amusing at the time.

He was a pop star with an exaggerated notion of his own importance.

Yes, I think I made mention of that a few times in this thread so I catch your drift. Still, the murder was a pretty significant news event when it happened and as it occurred at a transitional point in my life, I saw fit to make a thread out of it.

Oddly enough, my children see the Michael Jackson death as a significant news event in their lives even though I barely took notice of it - this despite the fact that Michael Jackson is more of my generation than theirs...

I was watching MNF that evening. The Beatles music delighted me and still does, and John was a pop genius, but he ended up being adopted by, and trying to fit in with, a group of third-rate New York intellectuals who were chic, trendy, and ridiculously superficial, and still are.

His murderer was trying to gain celebrity by killing it, and Harrison never spoke his name publicly, an action that I think appropriate enough to emulate. Lennon was, as are a number of young people, angry because the world wasn't as perfect as he thought it ought to be, and he did not grow old enough to realize why. I do not know, given the company he chose to keep, if he ever would have, but he was cheated of the chance by a sniveling, insignificant creep who deserves to die in oblivion and will.

I was living in DC and had just rejoiced in Reagan’s election. I had loved The Beatles all my life, especially John because of his creativity and playfulness with words. Whereas Paul was into show business and more Tin Pan Alley, John was far more poetic. Politically, the left latched onto him and used him and I drank the same liberal Kool-Aid every bit as much as he had up until Carter (I was 24 in 1980) but Carter cured me of liberalism. He left Britain due to its socialism and loved the U.S. Shortly before he was murdered, after watching a news report about NYC police he donated money to them to purchase bullet proof vests. Would that he had worn one.

All the characters in that song are representative of post "Buddy Holly" musicians. "The Joker, on the sidelines in a cast" was Dylan. "I met a girl who sang the blues" was Janice Joplin. "While Lennon read a book on Marx The quartet kept practice in the park." Lennon is Lennon and the "Quartet" is the Beatles.

"So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candle stick
'Cause fire is the devil's only friend.
As I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that satan's spell"

This part is referring to the Stones' concert at Altamont at which the Hells Angles provided "security" yet there was at least one death due to the violence (no "angle born in hell" refers to the Hells Angles and Jack Flash, as in "Jumping Jack Flash" refers to Jagger when The Stones took the stage as the last act).

His murderer was trying to gain celebrity by killing it, and Harrison never spoke his name publicly, an action that I think appropriate enough to emulate.

An action that I agree with also. I too have never mentioned the name of Lennon's murderer, neither have I ever mentioned the name of the dirtbag who took a shot at President Reagan a few months later.

I agree that pop stars and other entertainers tend to get taken in by the third-rate intellectual crowd that you speak of. Sadly, only a few ever break free of that influence, due largely in part that highly paid entertainers tend to isolate themselves in a bubble and they lose all contact with regular people. Therefore they live in a virtual world that has little resemblance to reality.

I was getting dressed for class when I heard about Lennon’s shooting over the radio. I couldn’t believe it. I sat on the bed and listened to the DJ for while, trying to understand what had happened.

I’d seen the Beatles live once and saw Lennon and Ono at a fundraiser when I was in college. Though I had moved on to other groups, I was quite the Beatlemaniac when younger, so this was devastating news.

I was stunned and saddened for a long time. I think it was the first time I really wondered about other people and their sanity.

i was 15-year old... in the tenth grade... it was so sad... a lifelong friend and i went to the record store and i bought (Just Like) Starting Over in the 45 version... today i have listened to Instant Karma (my all-time favorite John Lennon song), Starting Over and Watching the Wheels... i was really too young to be a true Beatles fan in their hey day... but i did like much of their music... i am the youngest of 7 children, so was exposed to a lot of music before my time...

Yeah, it was The Cyrkle, pronounced "circle." They sang Red Rubber Ball that night of course. It was a good song.

I sure as hell don't remember where I was at that moment. I do know that I had gotten out of the service and was in college.

A few things I do remember during that week though...

One prof. came into our class a few days later and deadpanned,"What's yellow and eats alone? Yoko Ono!"

But more I remember sitting with my dad at the old Whiting Hotel, having a drink with my dad on the Friday following the shooting. We were watching tributes to John Lennon, and my father turned to me and said, "He wrote some pretty good songs."

This from my father, who really did not like rock and roll, loved classical music. He was an accomplished and ethical attorney, who had also flown B-29's out of Guam during the Second World War, in bombing missions over Japan. I remember that time with my father more than anything.

Dad passed away a year later due to a stroke.

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