Thursday, December 08, 2005

John Lennon remembered

It was twenty-five years ago today that John Lennon was killed. Mention was made several places. Ann Althouse put together a deeply personal and memorable post. It's not too long.

...I was a law student at NYU. I remember dragging myself in to the law review office and expecting everyone there to be crying and talking about it, but no one was saying anything at all. I never felt so alienated from my fellow law students as I did on that day. I was insecure enough to feel that I was being childish to be so caught up in the story of the death of a celebrity long past his prime. I didn't even take the train uptown to go stand in the crowd that I knew had gathered outside the Dakota. What did I do? I can't remember. I probably buried myself in work on a law review article.
Be sure to read the comments as well.

My own musical experience was by then going to sleep. And my youthful idealism was taking second place to rearing a family. I didn't have the luxury of grieving as I had when King and the Kennedy brothers were killed. I was as intimidated by the expectations of the working world as she seems to have been. Only later did I come to the point where I understood that work is a means, not an end. Maybe that's why I can relate to her post.

To complete the picture, go to Richard Lawrence Cohen's account of the same day. If this were not the internet with the images being shared by the characters themselves, reading these two reflections would seem almost voyeuristic. Remember, these two were married at the time. Even in the afterlife of their marriage each retains an admirable respect for the other.
The clock radio woke us, and the first sound that came over it was an announcer’s voice: “We’ll have more about the murder of John Lennon after this.”

We sat bolt upright in bed. Had we heard correctly? It had come to us at the tail end of sleep, maybe he had really said some other name, or not the word “murder.”

But when the commercial was over, we learned that it was true. Then we remembered hearing an unusual storm of sirens when we’d gone to bed around midnight, sirens which we now learned had been a couple of miles north of us.

Again, read the comments...

1 comment:

vietnamcatfish said...

Hello Hootster, I was dreaming of the past, and my heart was beating fast, so I decided to peruse your "place" to see what you were up to.

I wasn't even aware that it had been 25 years until hearing it this week via the airwaves. There is no bigger fan of the Fab 4 than yours truly.

David Chapman went to Columbia High School a mile from H.W.

If I had had the time I would have written my own tribute via Golden Pond. Even tho my last 3 forays were all J.L. v.c.

P.S. Nobody loves you when you're down and out
Nobody sees you when you're on cloud nine
Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime
I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine

I've been across to the other side
I've shown you everything, I got nothing to hide
And still you ask me do I love you, what it is, what it is
All I can tell you is it's all show biz
All I can tell you is it's all show biz

Nobody loves you when you're down and out
Nobody knows you when you're on cloud nine
Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime
I'll scratch your back and you knife mine

I've been across the water now so many times
I've seen the one eyed witchdoctor leading the blind
And still you ask me do I love you, what you say, what you say
Everytime I put my finger on it, it slips away
Everytime I put my finger on it, it slips away

Well I get up in the morning and I'm looking in the mirror to see, ooo wee!
Then I'm lying in the darkness and I know I can't get to sleep, ooo wee!

Nobody loves you when you're old and grey
Nobody needs you when you're upside down
Everybody's hollerin' 'bout their own birthday
Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground