John Lennon (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980).

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Steve Hoffman, Dec 7, 2011.

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  1. 1973_2fk4

    1973_2fk4 Active Member

    Location:
    Germany
    I was born one day after - but in 73.... 10101973
     
  2. Charlyrok

    Charlyrok Well-Known Member

    34 years, unbelievable. I was at the same location that The Police were which is Sunrise, Florida. Went to their show, and when it was over and I was in the car, I kept hearing Beatles & John Lennon songs. Eventually, the DJ came on and the news was the worst news ever. I went home, woke up my parents to tell them, and me and my mom stayed up all night listening to the radio/TV and crying our eyes out. Besides family, his was one of the greatest losses to me.
     
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  3. rpd

    rpd Senior Member

    Location:
    Nashville
    I always crank DF in the car on this day...
     
  4. jricc

    jricc Senior Member

    Location:
    Jersey Shore
    Another year goes by, and still miss him.
     
  5. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

    Death became a part of my life in 1967, at the age of 8. My father died. After that, for several years, I spent a great deal of time in funeral homes, there was always another family member dying. To this day, the smell of flowers has no positive effect on me, as it does for some, I just look for the casket.
    I of course, also accepted death as a part of life. The last part.
    December, 1980, I was 22 years old. I had just finished a year full of various jobs, and places to sleep at night, but all that was behind me. My original employer from '76-'79 had tracked me down, and rehired me, I was back in my old apartment too, no one had moved in during my absence, so I had simply " had it cleaned," for free. My life was plenty busy.
    The night of Lennon's murder, I was out, and just returning, when I heard my phone ringing off the wall. It was a buddy calling with the news. Of course it was shocking, and surreal due to the circumstances, but I shed no tears over it.
    This was a musician, a celebrity, someone I'd never met, never known, my life of course, was unaffected.
     
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  6. nikh33

    nikh33 Senior Member

    Location:
    Liverpool, England
    Yes, obviously you're the only person in the world to have lost friends and family. When this thread is about them, we'll discuss them.
     
  7. jricc

    jricc Senior Member

    Location:
    Jersey Shore
    I totally understand how you feel, for a long time I felt the same way.
    Try DoubleFantasy Stripped, it's almost like you're listening pre-production demos, while John was still alive.
    To me, it sounds like a different record.
     
  8. Trashman

    Trashman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    I guess the question is, does it really matter if someone knew him personally or not? Does not knowing someone personally do anything to invalidate the grief that someone feels?

    The way I see it, people can have genuine grief over the loss of someone they didn't know, especially if that person brought something into their life that was meaningful. Lennon brought a lot of people joy through his music. His music was a part of their lives, so when he died, the sense of loss was real...whether they knew him personally or not.

    The nation also mourned the shooting death of JFK, even though most people didn't know him personally. He brought something to the lives of many...hope, inspiration, etc... that was as real as something that one gets from a personal relationship. I hope nobody is going to suggest that the heartbreak the nation felt over his loss somehow wasn't "real," just because most people hadn't met him.
     
  9. lennonfan1

    lennonfan1 Senior Member

    Location:
    baltimore maryland
    This.
    It strikes me as absolutely airheaded to think one can't mourn the senseless death of someone they never met.
     
  10. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    Obviously, most people will be more affected by the loss of their friends and family than the death of somebody they didn't know, but it is also important to realise that John was just a friend and family member to those around him, and that is why his murder was so sad, like with any murder.

    We see him mainly as a pop star, but he was also a Father, Husband, dear friend, adopted Son, etc, and when I think of his murder I am mainly sad for the people who lost him, like Julian, Sean, Yoko, Cynthia, Paul, Mimi, Ringo, George, etc, not because he was not able to release more music, although that is also another depressing result of his death.
     
  11. overdrivethree

    overdrivethree Forum Resident

    i never really understood having a profound sense of loss over a celebrity before Robin Williams died. that one hit me like a ton of bricks, total shock. i left my house and just starting walking for no reason. stopped in at my neighborhood bar and drank a beer by myself. felt like i'd lost a friend.
     
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  12. nikh33

    nikh33 Senior Member

    Location:
    Liverpool, England
    And the bits of chat and fun make it seem like he's just recorded it and it's a new album.
     
  13. ModernDayWarrior

    ModernDayWarrior Senior Member

    Still a huge loss felt to this day but the catalog he left behind will remain forever.
     
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  14. Muddy

    Muddy Large Member

    Location:
    New York
    On the afternoon of Dec. 8, 1980, a friend gave me a cassette of DF so I could review it for my college newspaper. That night, I was listening to the tape for my review, trying hard to put aside my euphoria over the mere fact that Lennon was making new music--not an easy thing to do at the time--and be objective about the album. I had just finished side one, which ended with Lennon's "Beautiful Boy." Before flipping the tape over, I was thinking about the song and how stressful it must be for an ex-Beatle to take their kids out in public, when the phone rang. It was the friend who made the tape for me, telling to put on the radio, that he'd heard Lennon was shot. "That's not even remotely funny," I responded, but obviously, it was not a joke. A short while later it was announced that Lennon was dead. There was very little sleep for me in the 3 days that followed, and a review that became an obituary of sorts. As others have already noted, it was very much like a death in the family for me; the only time in my life that I have ever truly grieved for a public figure.

    (Sadly, I don't know if it's the circumstances of his death or the passage of time, but aside from all of Plastic Ono Band and a few other tracks, I don't think John's solo music has held up particularly well overall....which, IMO, compounds the sense of loss.)
     
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  15. Ken E.

    Ken E. Senior Member

    For many of us in the NYC metro area, WNEW was a source of comfort throughout the night. I don't remember going to class the next days, just sitting in the pub trying to forget.
    After 34 years I still can not listen to D.F., it is the only JL album I do not own a 'keeper' copy of. Perhaps as time passes my attitude will change.
    God rest the soul of John Winston Ono Lennon.
     
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  16. Brother Maynard

    Brother Maynard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    I was only nine, and I remember it vividly. Actually, I remember 12/9/80 vividly because I had to go to bed at halftime of Monday NIght Football. I can see the images on the 12 inch black and white TV in the kitchen that morning: The Beatles getting off the plane in Japan wearing the robes, Ed Sullivan, the scene outside the Dakota, etc. I couldn't process it. I didn't have anyone to talk to about it at school that day, and my older brothers where out of the house, so it was a very strange feeling. One of my brothers at college in southwest Missouri popped a blank cassette in and hit record in the hours after it happened with AM stations from Chicago to New York (WABC) fading in and out. The tape survived long enough for him to copy it to CD, which I have a copy of. Very eerie, very sad.

    All these years later, it's still a solemn day for me. I usually listen to a couple of his albums, with Walls and Bridges capturing the mood the most for me for some reason. I've thought about how celebrating his birthday might make more sense, but this just hits me every year.
     
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  17. JL6161

    JL6161 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    Exactly. The largest element of my sense of grief is just empathy for his suffering, for the terror and trauma inflicted on Yoko, and the loss experienced by his sons and the other people who loved him. I react the same way to hearing about any violent and brutal death, but this case is made stronger not only by general admiration but more by the fact that Lennon at times openly expressed his feelings about those people in his songs. For instance, how can anybody hear the first verse of "Beautiful Boy" and be totally unaffected?
     
  18. adm62

    adm62 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Of course not. My initial post was because somebody had been unable to play a pop record for 34yrs because of the death of someone he almost certainly never met. While Lennon's death was tragic, that strikes me as an overreaction.

    And the album is pretty good too ....
     
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  19. Jamie Aces

    Jamie Aces Member

    Sigh. Another year, and I'm still absolutely submerged into his music and life view.

    Utterly saved my wretched life as a kid and continues to today, despite me going off on many musical tangents, I always come 'home' to the Beatles & John. It's a lovely place.

    Spent the day listening to the Bealtes in Mono (done the whole set!) and will no doubt return to the solo vinyls after a run with the dog who has been looking increasingly desperate with every new visit to the turntable to put on another...

    *oh, just Revolver*
    *ok, definitely just the White Album..*
    *well, it'd make sense to finish it with my mint UK 1st Abbey Road*
    Etc etc!
     
  20. Todd W.

    Todd W. It's a Puggle

    Location:
    Maryland
    I was watching the Monday Night Football game with my dad. I was 20. If I remember correctly, CNN had just gotten it's start late that summer and it was pretty much on all the next day.
     
  21. DLeet

    DLeet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chernigov, Ukraine
    Luckily, at least in this life, I was spared to witness his passing. I found out about it in the mid 90s when I was a little kid. I felt sorry about him, but the gravity of the loss hit me much later. This is one of those death I cannot get over. Just to think how much more great music he could have created. Even though DF is not associated for me with his death, I cannot help but think... what would have come after... Especially hearing such a song as "Starting Over"... so much hope and light in those last songs of his.

    We all miss you John, evуn though some of us never walked on the same planet with you.
     
  22. Peter Pyle

    Peter Pyle Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario CAN
    To this day I can't separate the album from that horrible sense of loss. It's still painful to listen to so I totally get what that other poster was talking about. For me, it's as sad as losing a loved one. :(
     
  23. JL6161

    JL6161 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    Some people have really strong sensory associations between music (or smells, taste, etc.) and times that were painful for them. If someone associates a song/album with a traumatic moment in their life, it doesn't really matter what the horrible moment involves. It's even worse in a case when the content of the songs themselves are directly relevant to the upsetting event.

    I don't eat french toast very often anymore because I had a mouthful of it when I saw a passenger jet smash into the World Trade Center, and I didn't know any of those people personally either. That doesn't stop my brain from making me queasy and killing my appetite at the thought.
     
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  24. Solace

    Solace Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brussels, Belgium
    A quite splendid way to spend the day. Any day in fact. Good for you Mr. Aces.
     
  25. Maciek

    Maciek Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Lancashire
    Listening to DF now for the first time in full running order and must say that those Yoko's songs aren't as bad as I thought. Saved by arrangments and great muscianship.

    On the other hand, I was thinking about those middle-aged conservative families naturally touched by Lennon's death at the time who bought this album in 1980. Within 10 minutes from putting it on they were experiencing woman's climax in Japanese. I wonder how many of these albums were never listened to again, mine looks and plays near mint.
     
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