John Lennon remembered

December 8th marked the 28th anniversary of John Lennon's death. The 40-year-old Lennon had re-entered public life that fall, after a self-imposed five-year hiatus to spend time with his young son Sean, travel and recharge his creative batteries. On November 17th, 1980, Lennon and wife Yoko Ono had released their "comeback" album Double Fantasy, which included such future Lennon standards as "Woman," "Beautiful Boy," "Watching The Wheels," and the album's lead track and single "(Just Like) Starting Over."

On the night of December 8th, 1980 -- with "(Just Like) Starting Over" sitting at Number Six on the singles charts -- Lennon and Yoko returned home to their apartment building, the Dakota on Manhattan's Central Park West. They had spent the evening at the Record Plant East recording studio mixing a tune of Yoko's called "Walking On Thin Ice." Mark David Chapman, who had been stalking Lennon for several days and had received an autograph from Lennon earlier that day, lay in wait for his return. Chapman, who was living in Honolulu at the time, had made an unsuccessful trip to New York the previous October with the intent of killing Lennon, but couldn't find him.

Lennon and Yoko returned from the studio at around 10:50 p.m., with their limousine dropping them off in front of the building on 72nd Street, rather than pulling into the building's courtyard as usual. As the couple walked in, they passed Chapman, who called out "Mr. Lennon?" and fired five shots from a .38 caliber handgun into Lennon's neck and back. Officers were quick on the scene, arresting Chapman and rushing Lennon in a squad car to nearby Roosevelt Hospital, where doctors worked on reviving the musician, who died from the severity of his wounds.

Dr. Stephan Lynn, the director of Roosevelt Hospital's emergency room, recalled Lennon's injures to the New York Post, saying that, "We made an incision in the left chest and separated the ribs and found a very large amount of blood. We looked for an injury to the heart or to the blood vessels. But what we discovered was that all of the major blood vessels leaving the heart were simply destroyed. There was no way that we could repair them."

The news of Lennon's death was broken by a reporter for New York's ABC-TV, who by coincidence was in the same emergency room after a motorcycle accident. The news was first reported by Howard Cosell during the Monday Night Football telecast.

Yoko returned home and called "the three people John would have wanted to know" -- his aunt Mimi Smith, who raised him; his 17-year-old son Julian, from his first marriage; and Paul McCartney. Within hours of the news, thousands of fans had flocked to the Dakota to stand vigil for Lennon.

Julian Lennon and Ringo Starr made immediate plans to head to New York, with George Harrison issuing a statement saying, "After all we went through, I had and still have great love and respect for him. I am shocked and stunned. To rob life is the ultimate robbery." McCartney also issued a statement, saying, "I can't take it at the moment. John was a great man who'll be remembered for his great contributions to art, music and peace. He is going to be missed by the whole world."

There was no funeral for Lennon, who was cremated almost immediately. Instead, tens of thousands of mourners gathered in New York's Central Park the following Sunday (December 14th) to observe ten minutes of silence at 2 p.m. The event was broadcast globally, with many radio stations ceasing all airplay during the memorial.

THE AFTERMATH


"(Just Like) Starting Over" went on to top the charts for five weeks, with the following singles "Woman" and "Watching The Wheels" hitting the Top Ten in the coming months. Double Fantasy went on to win the 1981 Grammy Award for Best Album.

Both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr contributed to George Harrison's 1981 Lennon tribute "All Those Years Ago," which hit Number Two in the spring of 1981.

McCartney's solo tribute to Lennon, called "Here Today," appeared on his 1982 album Tug Of War, and has been a part of McCartney's live set since 2002.

In early 1981, Chapman pleaded guilty to second degree murder, and is currently serving a 25-years-to-life sentence in New York's Attica State prison. Chapman, a devout born-again Christian, who is allowed conjugal visits, has refused all offers of psychotherapy since the murder. He has been turned down for parole four times.

Yoko has kept Lennon's legacy alive by consistently issuing previously unreleased recordings and videos along with reproductions of his artwork as lithographs, mugs, tee-shirts, baby clothes, and other items -- to the chagrin of some Lennon fans.

Over a quarter century after Lennon's death, he now has had more posthumous releases than he had solo albums by 1980.

In 1995, with Yoko's blessing, McCartney, Harrison and Starr teamed up to complete two of Lennon's unreleased demos -- "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" -- for The Beatles Anthology project.

On October 9th 2007, which would have been Lennon's 67th birthday, Ringo Starr and George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison joined Yoko and Sean Lennon in Iceland for the official lighting of the John Lennon Imagine Peace Tower. The event, which took place on Videy Island off Reykjavik, was kicked off by Ringo and Yoko lighting up the beaming light sculpture "with the broad shaft of blue light" as about 200 people gathered to sing Lennon's 1971 peace anthem "Imagine."

As is the custom every year, several hundred fans are expected to stand vigil for Lennon today across the street from the Dakota building in Central Park's Strawberry Fields. The triangular patch of land was designated by the city of New York in 1984 to celebrate the former Beatle's life and work.

FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND FANS REMEMBER JOHN LENNON


Yoko Ono says she's holding off on issuing any major Lennon projects until 2010, which will be the 30th anniversary of Lennon's death: "For John's 25th, we did a lot. Well, let's put it this way, I really put my soul into doing that 25th stuff, everything, you know? So the next I'm thinking of is 30th. For the 30th anniversary of John's anniversary, I will do something big."

Yoko says that she thinks Lennon would've embraced most of the artistic and cultural changes that came into place after his death: "Internet, Website -- all that would have driven him crazy, but also he would have said, 'I told you so. It was gonna be a global village, and this is it!' You know, that kind of thing. But also, I think he might have gone to rap music -- you know, the first white rapper kind of thing -- because he was a real, you know, real rocker -- and a funky one at that."

Julian Lennon says that the fact that he never truly became close with his father still weighs heavily on his mind: "We saw each other on and off... I saw him, probably, maybe 10 times before he was killed, you know? And I think it would have been nice to find some resolve between us eventually, but unfortunately that was never going to be, y'know? So, there will always be that unresolved point in my life, whether I like it or not. Yes, there is forgiveness, but there is still bitterness, and still anger there as well. But, it's not something I think about on a day-to-day basis."

Lennon's first wife Cynthia Lennon says that during her decade-long relationship with Lennon, she tried desperately to provide a stable home for him after dealing with a childhood during which both his parents abandoned him: "That's all you can do. You can only give him what he needed. What more can you do? You can't change the man's psyche, his nature, his history, his past, his pain."

Cynthia says she was thrilled when she heard he was coming out of retirement in 1980 to begin making music again: "He was writing. He started to write again which was fantastic, you know, Double Fantasy. I thought 'Thank God, he's coming back into the real world.'"

She added that she still feels Lennon's presence in her daily life and pays tribute to his memory every year: "The essence of the man is still within my psyche -- even though he's not here anymore. And I have a son, who is not the image of his father, but I always joke about the fact that he's me for five days of the week and his father at the weekends. But every time there is an anniversary of John's birthday or his death, Julian and I raise a glass to him.'

During a Today show interview in 1997, McCartney said he looks back on his partnership with Lennon with great affection: "We had a great collaboration. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt about that. Certainly from my point of view, John was like a great person to work with. He must've thought I was a great person to work with 'cause we stuck together for all that time. We'd grown up together."

Pattie Boyd met Lennon in 1964 on the set of A Hard Days Night, and throughout her years married to George Harrison, she spent more time with Lennon then she did with her own family: "I adored John. I thought he was tremendous fun to be with. He was exciting -- but also sometimes he'd make me quite nervous because he was very witty, very sharp. He wouldn't let anything go. He was very observant."

James Taylor, who was originally signed to the Beatles' Apple Records, and maintained a relationship with Lennon up to the time of his death, feels that Lennon's murder was inevitable: "I was in the building uptown from the Dakota in New York City -- a building called the Langham -- the night that John was shot. I heard the shots. I couldn't believe it. I have always thought that there was something almost inevitable about it. I often have the feeling that -- I'm not sure exactly where this comes from -- that too much exposure, or too much celebrity, too much of a sort of public profile, is toxic and dangerous. In John Lennon's case, he was so well known, so universally known and loved, that I almost felt that it was statistically inevitable that someone was gonna... he was so accessible, you know?"

U2's Bono says that Lennon's artistic integrity was the blueprint for all that came after him: "Well, he wrote the book for us. You know, you're talking about Rubber Soul, other albums -- we've had, you know, The White Album in the back of our head. He's the one who was ready to take the pratfalls -- to make an idiot out of himself to make a point, if that's what it took to make a point -- to take the jeers and the sneers to sing his life. I think the courage to be uncool, in music and in art, is everything."

The Ronettes' Ronnie Spector, who was married to Lennon's record producer Phil Spector, said that the world will never get over the loss of Lennon's talent: "He was the nicest guy. And when I found out he was dead, I couldn't get out of bed for three days. I was stunned. Because he was heavy. Now here's a guy... Talking about writing -- there will never be another John Lennon."

Beatlefan magazine's executive editor Al Sussman says that the Beatles' 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album was the first major example that the youth of the world were all in tune with each other: "In those days, records came out on Friday. So that weekend, everybody was listening to this album. The same thing happened when 'The White Album' came out (the year after). And you knew, that everybody, everybody, who were at all hip to what was musically relevant was listening to this. Oh yeah."

Fred Seaman, who was Lennon's assistant from early 1979 until his death, recalls that Double Fantasy was originally conceived as solo Lennon project: "In 1980, he started thinking about recording. And then the question was, what kind of record would this be? And originally John was going to do a solo record -- that was his idea. And he thought about it for a long time. He didn't think of it in terms of a 'comeback,' but in terms of an update on what he had been doing. And he had been writing songs throughout the '70s."

Dennis Ferrante, Lennon's main engineer during his New York years, was working a session for the Temptations that night when he first heard that Lennon had been shot. He immediately called Lennon's ex-girlfriend May Pang for confirmation: "So I went inside and I said, 'I don't believe it.' So I called May, and I got her on the phone, and I said 'Hello,' and she started screaming. And I said 'It's true?' And she was hysterical. I said 'Oh my God.' And I just dropped the phone, I turned around, I took my bag, and I walked out (of the session). I left everything on the machine, I left the lights on, the mics up, I just walked out. I didn't even say goodbye. I was totally destroyed."

Ferrante, who worked closely with Lennon throughout the '70s on such classic albums as Imagine, Some Time In New York City, Mind Games, Walls And Bridges, and Rock 'N' Roll says that Lennon's death absolutely leveled him: "I cried all night. And I just couldn't get over it, it was like they shot my father, or my mother, or my brother. And I was so distraught, I didn't go back to work for almost a week. I stayed home. And it's funny because nobody called. 'Cause they knew that I had worked with him."