Salute to John Lennon

Paul McCartney's instantly-notorious first public comment on John Lennon's murder in December 1980 - "it's a drag" - was at the time held up as an example of gross insensitivity by an estranged friend. In reality it was the understatement of devastation. There's a telling line in Sidney Lumet's 1983 film "Daniel" - a fictionalized account of the struggles of the two children of executed "spies" Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. "Why don't you console her?" asks someone about the suicidally-distraught daughter at one point. The answer is chilling in its intensity. "Did it ever occur to you that she might be inconsolable?"

The world has had to come to terms with the senseless murder of John Lennon nearly three decades ago. But for the millions around the world who were deeply enthralled and touched by Lennon's gifts - the ache remains.

Early and tragic death of a hero, a leader or a cultural icon always produces reactions of greater intensity than the sad passing-on of a revered figure at a grand old age. Our loss is not just the pang of regret that a much cherished person has finally shuffled off the mortal coil. It is also the burning pain of what might have been.

It is certainly true that when John Lennon was shot he was immediately eulogized, mythologized and indeed canonized. And if you weren't a follower - or were too young to experience the Lennon impact in 'real time' - you could be forgiven for reacting suspiciously to all the hoopla on every anniversary of his death. "I mean he was just a pop singer right? Married to that kooky Japanese woman. I'm sorry he died - but why the fuss?"

Did we over-react to Lennon's death in 1980? Are we pining for a mythological cipher now?

Those are healthy questions. I don't begrudge them. The weight of 27 years of soliloquies hangs heavy on the uninitiated. So let the answers be given.

John Lennon was not God. But he earned the love and admiration of his generation by creating a huge body of work that inspired and led rather than simply following. The appreciation for him deepened because he then instinctively decided to use his celebrity as a bully pulpit for causes greater than his own enrichment or self-aggrandizement.

For several key years in the late 60s and early 70s - he and Yoko Ono consciously turned their lives into a virtual "Truman Show" to promote the issues they believed in.

One of Lennon's many gifts was his humor. He knew - but accepted that many people were laughing at them. He didn't care. He cared that the message was being heard. If disbelievers were going to ridicule his peace protests that was at least preferable to them being engaged in violence. One of the secrets of Lennon (and indeed all four Beatles) was that he took his work seriously. But he never took HIMSELF too seriously.

What is the Lennon legacy? There is the astonishing body of music. The jaunty anthems he wrote in the early Beatle years (1962-1965) may have been teen love songs - but they displayed an exuberant joy that is surprisingly undiminished by the passage of time. Then, once Bob Dylan showed him that lyrics could be personal - Lennon tapped into his feelings and revealed a gift for sensitivity and self-awareness that completely belied his oft-proclaimed status as "just a rocker."

From mid-1965 onwards in both his Beatles canon and his solo oeuvre - he learned how to direct-inject his feelings into his songwriting.

One thinks of the reflections in "In My Life" - "Though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before..." And the lines in "Help!" - "When I was younger, so much younger than today...." He was still only 24 when he wrote those words. An old soul indeed...

Poets and playwrights wrote of insecurity. Pop singers may have (justifiably) felt it. But they certainly didn't sing about it to their fans. Lennon did. "Every now and then I feel so insecure..." he sang in "Help!" He also admitted to jealousy, suicidal depression and (in "Cold Turkey") heroin addiction.

When he undertook primal scream therapy under Dr. Arthur Janov in 1970, he instinctively took painful revelations and turned them into cathartic art for a world raised on denial of emotion.

Lennon had been abandoned by his father before birth - and then again when he was 5. And his mother gave him up to be raised by her sister. Lennon lost his mother again when he was 18, when she was run over by a drunken off-duty policeman. (The fact that the driver was a policeman was an incidental detail - his profession was not the reason for the fatality - but it probably colored his attitude towards authority figures.)

Twelve years later, Lennon philosophized the loss in simply and heart-breakingly stark terms: "Mother... you had me - but I never had you. I needed you - but you didn't need me."

And in the song's stunning coda, Lennon set to music a repeated plea that was primal and universal. "Mama don't go... Daddy come home..." His howls of anguish - quite unheard of before in popular music - were truth at 33 revolutions per minute.

His gut decision to turn his life into art set Lennon apart from McCartney in terms of style. (Lennon was a diarist - and McCartney - no less artistically - was a dramatist.) Indeed it set Lennon high above the others in his own tree. There were many who joined Lennon or who followed Lennon into the new world of singer/songwriter-dom. But few matched his poetry or honesty. For Lennon, confessional songwriting was much more than just the prominent use of the first-person pronoun - which seemed to be the norm in the self-obsessed 70s.

It is interesting to read the original (pre-murder) reviews of Lennon's 'comeback' album after his five years dedicated to the raising of his second son Sean. The 1980 album "Double Fantasy" included several paeans to the joys that maturity was bringing John Lennon. His love of Yoko, "Woman please understand - the little child inside the man..." And his prescient warning to his five-year old son that "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." A lot of reviewers were bemoaning the album - complaining of its gentler lyrical themes. As usual Lennon had grown up before his critics. The tragedy of December 1980 overtook those foolish reviews and the sentiments were forgotten. Indeed the poignancy of the lyrics assumed unbearable weight. But the lyrics were beautiful BEFORE the loss. It just took the "other plans" of a deranged human for some people to get the message.

Lennon was certainly no saint. His personal life did not always match his philosophy and aspirations. When he fell in love with Yoko One - who was truly his soul mate and muse - he treated his first wife rather shabbily. Her financial settlement - while broadly in line with the conventions of the day for a working class man from Northern England - was not the act of a generous or gracious man. His laudable devotion to his second son Sean was partly in reaction to the guilt of his neglect of his first son Julian. Though he was just starting to make amends to Julian - his murder took place before the reparations were that far along. Julian to this day bears the scars of the shortfall between intention and action that affects many parents. But for the son of a suddenly canonized dead father - there was nowhere to go to get that love. And castigating a murdered hero wins no friends. Hence some of Julian's displaced anger towards the "wicked step-mother who stole away my dad." The anger Julian feels is towards his dad - and that is an anger that dare not speak or sing its name...

But Lennon's admirers accept those faults just as Martin Luther King's personal failings are put in perspective by the greatness of his achievements. We know that heroes are flawed. And we are sad for those they hurt. However, those weaknesses don't diminish the overall achievements. They are simply a reminder of human limitations.

Of all Lennon's legacies - one of the most enduring and - perhaps the most impressive is who his enemies were.

I'm not referring to jealous friendly rivals such as Mick Jagger - who has never entirely recovered from Lennon writing the Stones' first hit "I Wanna Be Your Man" (after begging John and Paul for a song) only to discover that John had given him a throwaway so weak that Lennon then threw it into the Beatles roster as a Ringo vocal!

Nor to the inexplicable bleatings of detractors such as REM's Michael Stipe who implausibly claims never to have been influenced by Lennon or the Beatles and to regard them as "elevator Muzak." (Actually close analysis of Stipe's lyrics reveals that he is telling the truth. He is much more influenced by the Monkees!)

No - the true measure of John Lennon's greatness was that in the 1970s he terrified the most powerful man in the world. He literally petrified the then President of the United States into a succession of illegal acts of persecution - out of fear that Lennon's popularity would prevent his re-election.

The story - in condensed form - is this. In 1971, Lennon recorded his follow-up to the ground-breaking "Plastic Ono Band" album - the powerful "Imagine" album. Shortly before the album's release in October 1971 - Lennon and Yoko Ono decamped England and moved to New York. The album and the "Imagine" single immediately topped the charts and solidified Lennon's position as the world's most influential rock star - particularly in America.

Lennon was at the height of his political involvement at this time - railing against the war in Vietnam and many other injustices. Within weeks of arriving in the US he was meeting with Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and other members of the New Left. America had just lowered the voting age to 18 - and the upcoming 1972 presidential election would be the first opportunity for America's under-21s to vote.

Lennon expressed interest in partaking in fund-raising, voter-registration anti-war rallies and concerts - which would take place in many of the 1972 primary states. With the full protection of the First Amendment (which protects citizens and non-citizens alike) - Lennon's intended actions were completely legal.

But Congressional Republicans who cherished their beloved President - Richard Nixon - were worried. The popularity of John Lennon could help galvanize the anti-war movement and result in a massive vote against Nixon. After all, Lennon's anthem "Give Peace A Chance" had been sung by over half a million demonstrators at the famous November 1969 anti-war rally in Washington.

On February 4, 1972, a secret memo (now revealed under the Freedom Of information Act) was sent to Richard Nixon by none other than the late Senator Strom Thurmond (then a youngster of merely 70.) In the memo he railed about Lennon and the danger he could cause the President's 1972 re-election campaign. Fortunately, Thurmond (writing as a member of the Senate Judiciary committee) had a solution in mind. "If Lennon's visa is terminated it would be a strategy (sic) counter-measure." Though he noted that "caution must be taken with regard to the possible alienation of the so-called 18-year old vote if Lennon is expelled from the country."

This memo arrived in the Nixon White House shortly after the notorious 1971 John Dean memo in which he proposed "We can use the available political machinery to screw our political enemies."

As we all know - Nixon followed Dean's advice to the letter. And John Lennon was on the receiving end of a vicious 4-year campaign of FBI surveillance and INS harassment.

(In 1975 the INS chief counsel on the case resigned his position - telling Rolling Stone magazine that the US government was being more vigorous in its attempts to deport John Lennon than it was in its attempts to expel Nazi war criminals dwelling in the US.)

Threatened with imminent deportation at a time when he and Yoko needed to be in the US (they were trying to trace Yoko's daughter who had been abducted and taken to America by Yoko's previous husband) - Lennon was forced to tone down his quite legal political activities. Nixon was safely re-elected, and J. Edgar Hoover, who personally supervised the campaign against Lennon, was allowed to pursue the ex-Beatle aggressively.

(Time revealed the true nature of both Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover.)

One cannot think of a single artist or entertainer prior to - or since John Lennon - who had that kind of impact. No other creative artist has ever induced that level of fear in a man who was ostensibly the most powerful man in the world.

Ideas, honesty, passion, humor and brilliant empathetic songs it seems were more powerful. Just imagine that....

And that is why today my eyes are red. My heart is heavy. I will play John Lennon music today. I will watch the video of Lennon insouciantly chewing gum as he sang "All You Need Is Love" live to 400 million people worldwide by satellite in June 1967. I will laugh as I watch him tweak stuffy pomposity again and again: "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you just rattle your jewelry..." And I will weep still more tears at the loss of a man who inspired me in my childhood - and who inspires me to this day.

Paul got it right. It was a drag. It's still a drag. And I'm still inconsolable...

***

This is a column I originally wrote for TIME.com in 2000 - on the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death. I republished it on HuffPo in December 2005. I offer it here again as my homage to Lennon on this painful anniversary. Click here for details of an event saluting Lennon in Los Angeles on Sunday evening.

Follow Martin Lewis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheMartinLewis

Comments

[dragbunt]

Wow, the party's over. Everyone left this thread three days ago. But no one's cleaned up. All these posts! Yet no sign of life. I'm writing for no one. Oops, that's a paul song. Maybe if I just make a list...a thank you list for John. Anytime At All - I Feel Fine - Ticket To Ride - Help - A Hard Day's Night - I Should Have Known Better - All I've Go To Do - You Can't Do That - Girl - Norwegian Wood - If I Fell - She Said She Said - Across The Universe (I always knew that one would work out for you-the sleeper in the cannon) - I'm Only Sleeping - And Your Bird Can Sing (That was to me, right?) - Strawberry Fields (It was worth all the trouble) - A day In The Life - Lucy - Cry Baby Cry - Because -

Oh my love -

Thanks Johnny Rhythmger

[tiger313]

John Lennon, great musician and artist? Yes. John Lennon, great father and humanitarian? No. I understand the anger between divorcing adults may never fade, but to abandon Julian and then hoist Sean onto a pedestal? I have no respect for him outside of the musical arena. In fact, his treatment of an innocent child (Julian) cloaks his music in hipocracy. I find it difficult to appreciate what I know intellectually, is some of the best ever created. How could someone sound so loving, but not actually be so loving?

[Alvin4NY]

From John:
"You make your own dream. That's the Beatles story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story. That's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and and worshipped for the cover but not for what it says, but the instructions are there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you, you can cure you. "

[Lazslo]

I enjoy Lennon's music most of all the Beatles, and I appreciate his political activism after the Beatles, but rather than giving it short shrift as you have in your post of Lennon, his abuse and neglect of his first child Julian is not a "personal shortcoming". To neglect Julian and then later in his life write "Beautiful Boy" about Sean is really disgusting. Moreover, Lennon was riddled with substance abuse from 1965 to his death in 1980. Many of the beautiful vistas created by Lennon in his music were directly influenced by drugs. This doesn't invalidate the beauty of the music, or even the importance, but there is a level of non-reality expressed in his music. That being said, it was indeed a sad day when he was murdered.

[dragonswizardz]

Just "Imagine" what could've been had John not been shot. All the poetry not written; all the kindness not done; all the artistry not shared with the world; all the people not influenced to be better than their fathers. Yes, it's true: pain really DOES NOT lessen with time! And the pain is not because a beautiful person left us behind, its because of John's artistry and poetic sensibilities left unexpressed. We miss John today because of who he was, not because he was a Beatle. The pain of that Dec night will be forever ingrained in the memory of everyone who loved John, his music, his poetry and his love of life. Yes, it is a drag: a very emotional, painful drag. But then we remember what John wrote, the beauty of his lyrics and begin to "Imagine".

[erathwomen]

I only read this today, Monday, but it exemplifies how I feel, too. I cried Saturday--not as hard as I cried that day 27 years ago, but I'm still sad. I felt for Paul when he made that statement--I don't think he could have said anything better. Those three words told me how devastated he was and I thought it was horrible for the press to expect him to say anything at all, let alone vilify him. I feel saddest for Julian and Sean. Julian never really knew his dad--he has said so--and Sean had to grow up only having known him a little. As sad as I am about John's death, I can't imagine what it means to them.

[tjkreidler]

I had just gone to bed, the radio playing softly in the back ground, circling sleep in that luscious limbo where nothing is real and everything is crystal clear, when the DJ said a news flash had just come in reporting that John Lennon had been fatally shot. At first I thought I was dreaming, but I was soon awake enough to realize it was true. I rolled out of bed and went down to the living room and turned on the stereo to hear better. I sat there 'til almost dawn, listening as the DJ paid tribute to John by playing nearly every song he ever wrote or co-wrote, my vision blurred by tears as I thought about all John had meant to me. He was the biggest influence on my life.

I was just 15 when the Beatles first came blasting out of my radio and from the first time I heard “I Want To Hold Your Hand” I knew something magical was gonna happen to my life and I would be forever changed, renewed, inspired. I soon found John to be my kindred spirit. He was the person I longed to be…brash, intelligent, funny, insightful, sarcastic, bold. And as I matured, so did the Beatles, especially John. He gave words to the myriad thoughts running around inside of my head, spoke my ideas better than I could ever hope to, seeing the world through his eyes clarified my vision ‘til it shone like crystal. Oh there were so many at that time who spoke for our generation, Dylan, Simon and Garfunkle, but it always felt like John was talking to me alone. He had a song for every situation in my life.

So now he was gone, and how would I ever make it on my own? My crutch was gone, I would never walk straight and tall again. But I guess his lessons worked ‘cause here I am, 59 years old and you can’t even notice the limp any more. But I still listen to his music and he still talks to me through it.

[dgrffy]

Actually, my world is quite colorful, enjoyable, and fun. It is the world where I need not proclaim imaginary, Pollyanna realities, then turn back and indulge in the aspects of life that are simply convenient. I would have been more impressed if he had written there was nothing to die for in this imaginary conceptual world, then went out and gave his life to save a child or something. That would have made an impression. But wagging his finger at the rest of us, asking if we can join him in imagining a world with no possession, then suffering the burdens of reality with caviar and limousines is a little difficult to take seriously. Which is why they changed the lyrics for the 9/11 tribute to ‘I wonder if WE can.’ Even if you doubt my interpretive skills, I am sure those who made the change noticed something you may be missing. But as I said, at the end of the day, Lennon was a talented musician and song writer, and I enjoy his music. But that’s about it. He's no prophet, or even insightful thinker, as far as I can tell.

===========MARTIN RESPONDS==========

You're quite correct. "As far as I can tell" Shame you aren't able to "tell" as well as most people. But we'll be charitable and hope that your ability to tell improves over time...

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[epotruchyeahright]

I was 18 and hanging out with friends, visiting one of them who was working that night. I heard the news over the radio, and was so overcome with disbelief and anger that I trashed his whole magazine section. The rest of that year was one of the most depressing of my life.
I had grown up on the Beatles' music and unfortunately had never really found the groove in Lennon's solo stuff, but I loved Double Fantasy and was hoping to get a chance to see him perform in L.A. in 1981. His death was devastating.
Seventeen years later I felt that same sense of loss when Jeff Buckley died.

[JKalos]

Thank you for the post. I can remember as if yesterday the shock of hearing about John Lennon. I was cleaning my apartment and listening to the radio and suddenly the dj says Lennon has been shot . . . and then a little while later: he is dead. I cried then and you have made me cry again thinking about it. Yes indeed: what a drag.

[JustImagine]

Martin, Thank You, Thank You ! ! !

I am so happy that I am getting the chance to let you know what your article means to me.

I first read it on one of John's sites but there was no way to get in touch with you.

You said every thing that I also was feeling that day. I remember turning the radio channel over and over again so I would hear something different.

I don't quite know when I stoped crying and started to face the reality of that black day.

As much as all of the time that has gone by to me it will not ease the lose of a person like John - and if ever the world could use his words it is now.

Martin Thank you for your words..............

Sincerely, diane

[wheat01]

Thank you for writing this. If we are all indeed brothers in the larger sense, then indeed we all lost a brother on that day. The older, wiser, braver, most gifted one.
Today I am older than John Lennon was when he died.
But on that day, all those years ago, I was attending highschool in Manhattan. On the 9th, I left school early to stand outside the Dakota. John Lennon was and is my favorite artist. I miss him still. Imagine a world with a 67 year old John Lennon.

[randyw]

"Just imagine" if he was such a pain in Nixons ass the nightmare he would be for the Decider!

[HLM]

There were usually a few kids outside the glass doors of 321 West 44th Street when word got out that John and Yoko were inside (New York City’s “Apple Scruffs”, you might say), but that night, oddly, there weren’t any.

Working late, I left the building at the same time as John and Yoko, John smiled and nodded, as he had the dozen or so times I’d run into them leaving late during the several weeks he and Yoko had been recording and mixing at The Record Plant. We never spoke beyond a “Wotcha, mate,” or “Goodnight” but there was always a friendly greeting for a fellow late-toiler in the vineyard. That night I watched him board the limo and headed for the subway. Arriving home I turned on the radio and heard the news.

With the deepest respects for Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, Richie Valens and Don McLean, Dec 8th 1980 was really The Day The Music Died.

[Charity]

i, too, was only a teenager when the a.m. stations started playing "i want to hold your hand" - and suddenly we couldn't get enough of this group from liverpool, england (liverpool! where was that?!). indeed, we'd never heard anything like them.

i grew up in miami, and was thrilled beyond teenage words when ed sullivan brought them down to the deauville hotel for a show. i was allowed - get that! - to skip school and go to the airport to watch their plane come in at miami international airport.

my friend and i arrived very early, found our place out on the elevated open-air concourse, and luckily were on the side where several hours later the beatles - along with cynthia lennon - deplaned.

when their first american tour was announced, and jacksonville, florida, was on the list, local radio held contests to give away trips to see the beatles. not easy to win, but i won a trip from WQAM, and in september 1964, i saw them perform live with inadequate speakers on a windy night in jax, right after a hurricane had brushed by the city.

the time of my life and i was only 16.

cut to the release of "double fantasy" and it was like a homecoming. the excitement of john lennon finally releasing new material was celebrated in my circle - much older now, but no less fans - and just as we were getting into the album and the reality that lennon was BACK, he was gone.

gone. i, too, heard it on the radio. john lennon shot; john lennon dead. incomprehensible.

we tried not to make sure the dream wasn't over, john, but so much has happened since that time, and we needed your voice so very much.

we needed you then. we need you now.

i can never be consoled for what i personally as a fan lost, and for what the world lost as a voice that dared to be our conscience.

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