John Lennon, gone 28 years today...

[no one]

I listened to the Lennon Legend compilation today. Instant Karma still sounds superb.

so have i!...in fact, i still have it playing.... right now "Love" is on...

i didn't think much about him in the past few days, because i have so much going on in my life at the moment..... but for whatever reason, as the day progressed, i thought more about him..... i miss the man, still.... it's so strange because it's not like i knew him personally, but at the same time it felt almost as if i did, because he was that familiar, from the beginning of my life to the end of his and beyond that.... i guess when another human being touches you to that extent, they don't ever really leave your system, do they?

[mission]

I was eleven and had only just moved to Midland, a rough eastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia, and contender for "Biggest Hole in Australia" distinction.

I was starting high school the next year and felt, in the way that only a kid in a new town during the summer holidays could, genuinely alone. No friends, endless heat, nothing to do and John Lennon and The Beatles all over the radio for the as-yet-undecided FM radio grieving period.

Early the next year, walking home from school in the 30-plus degree heat, I stopped at a power pole, took out my Liquid Paper and painted "Lennon Lives" on the dry, grey wood. It was small, it was stupid but it was mine.

As an adult, I haven't willingly listened to a single note of solo Lennon. It's shit in the main and sloppy shit at that. I find the supposed complexity of the man a euphemism for his ultra-cuntiness. But this is the guy that had the best voice in rock. This is the guy that made "I'm Only Sleeping" and for three or four really important adolescent years, I wanted to be him.

[Quaco]

i didn't think much about him in the past few days, because i have so much going on in my life at the moment..... but for whatever reason, as the day progressed, i thought more about him..... i miss the man, still.... it's so strange because it's not like i knew him personally, but at the same time it felt almost as if i did, because he was that familiar, from the beginning of my life to the end of his and beyond that.... i guess when another human being touches you to that extent, they don't ever really leave your system, do they?

I think it's been said before (probably much more eloquently), but perhaps we miss that part of us that was connected to them? Not nostalgia for our older selves -- that's something different, and in some cases may apply also -- but each of us has a place for an artist we love, and when they die, sometimes that part changes or goes into remission. I can't think of Lennon the same way I did when I was 14. Of course, I don't think the same way about anyone as I did at that age, but the part of me that liked Lennon was forcibly changed overnight.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

In retrospect I imagine I took his death as hard as I did because it was uncomplicated to mourn for him. I'd had very little experience with death at all when he was murdered. The year before my grandfather died. He'd suffered with cancer for a while and I remember my first reaction upon hearing it was a kind of pride for finally having something big happen in my life. I had no sense of the permanence of the loss and felt guilty for years for having been numb about the whole thing.

Lennon was different. I wept openly and went through a very public year-long (at least) mourning process. It was easy to explain to people that I was destroyed at the loss of this guy I never knew. It made me feel like I was part of something. The whole world was mourning him. Only my grandmother and siblings were mourning my grandfather.

Somewhat poetically, the silence vigil that Yoko planned for John happened on the day they unveiled my grandfather's headstone. I was in the car with my grandmother and my brother on the way back from the cemetery when it was supposed to be taking place. I didn't want to explain to anyone why I wanted to be silent during that drive because I didn't want to disturb my grandmother by letting her know I was mourning anyone else that day. I'd explained this to my brother before we drove off, but he started going on to her about it as soon as I clammed up - so I broke the vigil just to demonstrate to her that I was with her 100%. I always resented my brother a bit for that, but maybe it was a good thing.

As I get older I feel real sadness about Lennon's death from a position of empathy for his loved ones and the years he missed. But I long ago stopped personalizing the loss. I had his music, so he was as present in my life as he was when he was alive. Nothing had changed except the story had become finite and the ending would allow for an enobling feeling melancholy if you felt like mainlining on that. I guess I just got to where I didn't need that anymore.

The above isn't to say that I've abandoned a certain amount of awe of the guy. But I used to idolize him. Now that I'm older I can't do that any more because he went to such pains to pull himself off of the pedestal he and the other Beatles had created. So I honor him by letting go of my hero and allowing him to be a man. Not just any man, but a talented, insecure, sometimes arrogant, always intelligent man who inspired me and changed a lot of my ideas about who I wanted to be and what kind of world I wanted to live in.

That doesn't place him as high on my list as my grandfather Irving, but it ain't chopped liver either.

[Brin]

I remember it like it was yesterday.I was at work and it was a very cold day.I walked home that evening lost in a dream.
Mrs Brin and I cried all evening.It was so sad.

[Bungo the Mungo]

I remember it like it was yesterday.I was at work and it was a very cold day.I walked home that evening lost in a dream.
Mrs Brin and I cried all evening.It was so sad.

[Insouciant Western People]

I was seven years old, and was subsequently very confused about how a dead man could still be seen on TOTP performing his music 'live'.

I was a somewhat slow child.

[Harry Webster]

I will always remember that day as a low one for humanity. I was 36 and after a glittering career had found myself playing for Workington Town in the old fourth division. Things reached rock bottom on 9th December 1980 when we were beaten 2-0 in the third round of the FA cup by non-league Galveston By Sea Athletic & Lawn Tennis Rovers. A team comprised entirely of females between the ages of 12-14!
So when I heard of Lennon's death later on I just said "so he's got problems..he ought to try playing in this team!". That's what I like about football, it helps put everything else into perspective.

[The Great Defecator]

i was not a live ora t least I dont remember.

[Moleskin]

Fuck his standing. I'm only furious that I'll never hear the Lennon/McCartney tunes of 1997.

Really? I can't see it - very, very little suggests that either were capable of achieving the brilliance of their Beatles years. Indeed, some might say, that "Let It Be" and "Abbey Road" were statements to that particular partnership being officially over. And that maybe Harrison was the one coming up with the great ideas by that time?

We may have had more Lennon-McCartney material in the 80s. In dinner chat during the making of Double Fantasy John told Jack Douglas he wanted to work with Paul again.

Might have caused issues with George though.