Posted on 12/08/2010 6:53:25 PM PST by SamAdams76
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’ll bite. I remember precisely where I was. I had spent a long afternoon and evening holed up in the U of WA library, studying. It was late in the evening when I finally trudged back to my dorm room in McMahon hall. I was just sticking the key in the doorknob when my buddy next door poked his head out his door and said... “Hey! you hear about John Lennon? He was shot!”
I was incredulous. What the hell? Who shoots John Lennon? But yeah... we flip on the TV and there it is...
I was pretty conservative for a college kid back then, but I enjoyed the Beatles and Lennon anyway. Still do.
I can't agree with Matthews on that at all. Imagine that.
I haven’t read the preceding posts, but things happen in our lives that are only viewable in hindsight. I was born in ‘71 and couldn’t care less about the Beatles. But they contributed to where we are today.
I am 39 and love Eminem. In 30 years Ill probably hate him if I’m still alive. But, it is what it is, at the time...
Hope so,but in that moment in time,he did find the answer.
“Everyone is saying I should remember where I was and what I was doing that day - but I have no idea.”
Honestly I think it’s an overblown thing. Any murder is a shame, but Mr. Lennon was no prophet. He was just a man, a rather mixed up man, who wrote some good songs and some bad ones. He was an icon of his age, but, that’s about it.
I think most of his best songs were before he got really strung out.
How does the saying go..."If you're younger than thirty and not a Democrat, you don’t have a heart. If you're over thirty and are not a Republican (conservative) you don't have a head." I think most of us go through the transformation you did. I did. Reagan, who was originally a Democrat, certainly did.
Ah, the Beatles. I was in high school in California during their heydays. In fact, on their last tour and last tour concert in Candlestick Park in S.F., me and a bunch of kids snuck in the back behind a fence in the outfield. At some point I just felt like, "Heck with it, I'm going," ran up, threw myself over the fence and began to scoot across center field towards second base where Ringo was. A whole bunch of kids followed. Never made as security swarmed in but I was fast and got away from them and went back over the fence. Some films show us starting across the outfield during concert.
Fun times. Also sorry Lennon was shot but I too realized later he was a liberal red-diaper-doper baby whack job.
Anyway, I used to see him all the time at an after-hours club on West 72nd street just west of Columbus Ave. We never sat and chatted but I didn't really feel the need to. After seeing each other a few times we fell into a kind of "hey, how ya doin'" nodding thing. He seemed vulnerable most of the time.
The last time I saw him there was probably a month or so before he was shot, maybe more, I forget.
“If you’re young and not a liberal, you’ve got no heart.”
I’ve got some young conservative kids! You should hear my 13 year old verbally lacerate the liberals on the news! And I have another teen who FReeps and follows the political events. Some of the t-shirts he wears are VERY politically incorrect.
Trust me, they have hearts and are pretty compassionate people for their age. . .
Most of us except for the ones who were born perfect conservatives will remember turning points.
The first Beatles Album I bought was the White Album, with the poster inside, sometime in 1968. Paid about $5. It was a turning point in the wrong direction for me. The Beatles had, like Dylan, captured a certain zeitgeist and were like pied pipers leading a segment of our generation away to alternative (evil) spiritual destinations under the guise of peace, love and being cool.
Raised a Christian, I drifted away and was rescued by God in 1978. By the time Lennon was killed, I was on the way out of Egypt. Spent a lot of time in the desert, and struggled with a lot that I would have avoided had I not bought into the Beatles and others that came along.
I appreciate your post. We all have milestones.
Uhm, it was a murder not an assassination.
nothing
I rather like some of Sgt Pepper and most of Abby Road, but agree on some of the others like “Magical Mystery Tour.” I really prefer their early “pop” stuff that was just light and fun and didn’t try to impress some sort of deeper meaning.
Did you happen to see them at Candlestick Park in S.F. in 1966?
Interesting anecdote about 1966 and The Beatles. I was barely four years old at the time and naturally didn't remember a thing about it. But at the time, I was living practically in the shadow of Suffolk Downs (a horse racing track in East Boston) and The Beatles played a concert there that August. It turned out to be one of their very last U.S. concerts ever.
Anyway, my mother told me that the night of the concert, the screaming from that concert was so loud that it carried right into our house. During the concert, my mother carried me out into the yard to see what the fuss was all about. So in a way, I guess I can say I attended a Beatles concert.
And then there were some of us who, even though we had a clue what was going on, just DIDN’T CARE!!! It was really sad how Lennon and his cohorts held others of his generation (who didn’t agree with him) hostage to his stupid ideas.
When he was gunned down, I felt sadness, but it wasn't overpowering. I do remember when it happened. It was just another crappy, gray, cold, otherwise completely forgettable December evening.
No, I saw them at Dodger Stadium two nights earlier. August 1966. It was their 2nd to last concer,t Candlestick being their last. I remember The Circle and Bobby Hebb (spelling?) were The Beatles opening acts. Great show!
On post # 25 I tell how I couldn’t afford to go but had more fun sneaking in. Those were some fun days.
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