John Lennon Oct 9, 1940 – Dec 8, 1980

Townhall.com ^ | December 8, 2020 | Derek Hunter

[MarDav]

Come on! What is this, a funeral? Let’s get this place jumpin’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vbJQ-MrKo

[aspasia]

It’s a shame more people don’t recognize the connection between the 60s revolution and the mess we are in today.

[Tellurian]

Aren’t all Lennon’s songs written while a Beatle credited as Lennon/McCartney? How do you know which songs Lennon wrote?

[Tellurian]

A world wide mass media coming of age had a lot to do with the Beatles’ popularity. Mass communication, and the new digital age, which enables a more informed and a more ordered society, has been hijacked for now by megalomaniacs intent on being masters of a society ordered to their liking.

I think the 60’s was just the messy start of these megalomaniacs finding their voice and learning how to impose their will on masses of people. Granted that the music of the 60’s probably includes some of rantings of the wannabe overlords we see now, but in general the music was, IMHO, just music.

[aspasia]

Music was just music: the tricked outer packaging of a cultural bomb.

But on that other point--just think how popular Stalin could have been with the use of digital technology! And music! The Soviet enterprise ground to a halt with the curiosity of Gorbachev. Now China thinks it has the goods.

[The Fop]

Whoever sang lead was usually the main writer.....Wikipedia has entries for every Beatles song with lots of info....as a diehard Beatles fan who has read many books about them, even I was impressed by the Wikipedia entries...also, Lennon was very dominant in 64, 65....he cooled off in 66....was dropping too much LSD....Mccartney was more dominant in 66, 67

[subterfuge]

Well said. I remember lying in bed on that morning and the radio coming on and reporting Lennon had been shot dead. I was young and didn’t go to work that day.

I like to think John would have morphed into a conservative eventually. He wasn’t big on Chairman Mao like our current democrat politicians.

[Mr. Lucky]

This Mr. Lennon you folks are talking about; did he have some sisters who sang on the Lawrence Welk Show?

[aspasia]

Right, I’m all for objectivity: “One and one and one is three” is meant to influence behavior in a specific way. I’m not digressing. How could Lennon believe his own pacifism?

[SamAdams76]

I remember that time very vividly. I had enlisted in the US Marine Corps and my boot camp was to start in Parris Island on Feb 10, 1981. (I graduated high school that prior June).

So I was working out heavily during that time. I would rise at around 5am and go on a brisk 10-mile walk that would take me about 2 1/2 hours to complete.

I then went to work at a restaurant at the airport (Logan) and at night, I would watch TV in my room while doing situps during every commercial break. I would try to get 100 situps each break. Needless to say, I was in phenomenal shape for boot camp.

So on December 8, 1980, that was my routine. I was watching the Monday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins, I believe.

It was late in the game and I was exhausted after having done about 2,000 situps that night (I had a major sweatstain on that bedroom carpet) and I'm watching them play football. Suddenly, Howard Cosell interrupts the game to tell the nation how John Lennon was just assassinated in NYC by a gunman. Watching the video of Cosell announcing the news even now (linked here) still sends shivers up my spine.

I immediately turned the game off and switched on the radio and already, pretty much every FM station up and down the dial was doing Beatles tributes. This continued for a good week. It was 24/7 Beatles/Lennon on most rock stations all that week.

Now I never really agreed with Lennon's politics and I definitely found much of his solo stuff annoying. But I really appreciated what he did with The Beatles. And his just released album "Double Fantasy" struck a chord, even some of the Yoko stuff. I think Lennon had finally found his groove and would have put out some great music through the 1980s and maybe even the 1990s. He may even have gotten The Beatles back together again for another stretch. We'll never know.

Postscript, on February 10, 1981, my Marine Corps recruiter picked me up at my house and took me to the South Boston processing station to prepare for the trip to Parris Island. As we were arriving there, "Starting Over" by John Lennon played on the car radio, followed by the news that Bill Haley (of the Comets) had just passed away. Then the DJ played "Rock Around The Clock" as we pulled into the processing station. And those were the last two songs I heard as a civilian.

[foreverfree]

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