THE DAY John Lennon died I was an eleven year old grade six student who loved the Beatles, and my favourite album in the world was Sgt. Pepper’s. My parents had somehow “missed” the 60’s pop culture revolution, so my love and pursuit of Beatles’ music was my own personal journey. My mom was so disconnected from the mainstream culture of her generation that as a 29 year old in 1973 she was buying Jim Nabors albums instead of things like Dark Side of the Moon, and my father’s album collection consisted of a few Tex Ritter cowboy ballads and some movie western themes like the soundtrack to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. The only thing I remember my mother telling me about the Beatles was that she got sick of Ob La Di Ob La Da after hearing it play incessantly at a diner she once worked at. Yet I had inexplicably received a Sgt Pepper’s cassette in my Christmas stocking one year when i was 6, and the magic of that album had imprinted on me as I played it throughout the holidays before being chewed up by whatever crappy cassette player I had at the time.
As a young boy, I did three things incessantly; I played music, read, and listened to the radio. I had a small collection of albums at that point; a couple dollar bin 50’s rock compilations from K-Mart, Elvis’s Sun Sessions, and a vinyl copy of Sgt. Pepper’s[1]Bought when I was around 9 to replace that cassette that was chewed up when I was 6, and my evenings were spent alone in my room reading and listening to those albums or the radio until the wee hours of the morning. It was on one of these evenings of late night reading and listening that the news of John Lennon’s shooting and reported death broke live.
The news, as the details trickled out, and then the near continuous coverage of the world reacting to that news, had me transfixed. This was before the 24 hour news cycle, and in many ways it served as the prototype for how future news events of the same ilk would be covered. The template for coverage was being invented in real-time, and the drama of how it was covered became as much of the story as the event and details of the shooting itself.
I remember running downstairs to tell my mother (my father was already in bed). She responded to the news with polite concern. She wasn’t indifferent – she said it was sad – but for her it was just another piece of information. I returned to my room, and continued listening to hours and hours of live coverage on the radio. They described the spontaneous spilling into the streets of New York by fans, and the impromptu the vigil in the park, and they played audio of interviews with fans and their reactions – the singing – the sobbing and cries of disbelief and anguish — it went on and on.
That morning I awoke. My father had already left for work and my mother was still asleep, so I readied myself alone, eating cereal and showering before dressing and leaving for school. I attended a special program (French Immersion) which meant my school was unusually far from my home, so I left early – the walk was about 45 mins. The walk itself had a strangeness to it. I had adult things that I needed to talk about. I needed to commune with someone about what I had heard and experienced. But there was no-one. It was too early and the streets were empty so I walked alone in silence.
I still remember the weather. It was cold, and dull – Overcast but very dry. And as I rounded the corner approaching the school it too seemed empty and barren. There was one kid – a boy – probably a 9 year old, playing alone on the outdoor rings – suspended in space by his arms. Or it may have been a girl. I don’t remember. I called out: “John Lennon – did you hear?” The person just stared at me, suspended over the ground. I wondered: Is anyone even there?
In the parking lot of the school I saw a teacher pulling some stuff out of her car. I approached. “John Lennon’s dead. Somebody shot him” I told her. She turned and looked at me with strangeness – as if I was strange. Why is this child saying these things? She hadn’t heard and it was obvious that she didn’t believe – or she didn’t want to believe. This wasn’t how you were supposed to be told about these kinds of things – by a child in a parking lot. She quickly left – dashing to the teacher’s lounge to get the bad news confirmed – and I was alone again.
My Original Albums
It wasn’t until I saw my friend Vartan that I had someone to share the experience with. He liked the Beatles too, though he was more of a Yellow Submarine guy. Our conversation centred around John’s family. We expressed sadness; sadness for John and his wife, and especially his young son. We seized on the idea that he would never be 64.[2]This was a Paul song but the sad irony remained and we both remembered a recent Sunday Newspaper article that had an artist’s rendering of what all four Beatles might look like at 64.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon, at home watching TV, that I got to see the visuals of what I had heard on the radio. The outpouring of grief, the crowds, the celebration and commiseration had continued throughout the day. My parents were there then, watching with me, commenting. “It’s sad. Look at all those people…”. Could they not see what this was doing to me?
I could feel my mind and body changing through the experience as I watched the drama. I think I became an adult that day – breaking through the amniotic sack of adolescence to be new baptized by the world’s tears for John. I now carried the burden of knowledge and of knowing.
That Christmas is also one I’ll never forget. Double Fantasy, and that famed image of John and Yoko kissing, (and the one of them both standing on the street casting their gaze towards an uncertain future) — those were the visuals of the season. And around the tree that morning, opening presents containing now long forgotten toys, there was one present that was obviously an album addressed to me from my 80 year old grandfather. At 80 he was already half senile — long beyond what I had assumed was the ability to absorb new information about the world. His stories, like his mind, seemed permanently resident in the past.
I can remember peeling away the wrapping and seeing right away that it was Double Fantasy. I thought my parents must have purchased it for him – that maybe this was an acknowledgement of their understanding. I looked over to my Grandfather to give him the obligatory thank-you as he watched me reveal the contents. He gestured, calling me over for what I assumed was a Christmas hug. As I leaned in towards him he grasped me by the arm and pulled me in closer, whispering into my ear: “He was the best.” I pulled back almost in shock while he held me firm and looked into my eyes. His eyes confirmed it. “He was the best” he said again. I couldn’t believe it. He knew! He knew!
I still have the album – and back then I played it endlessly, building an elaborate narrative and mythology about John, Yoko, and young Sean in my mind. In this way John’s story was, as the album said, A Heart Play. It was a story of love – for family, his lover, his young son, and a story of his redemption in the world and the promise of the future. And my act of remembering – my own act of fantasy – was how I kept him alive. And today, almost 40 years later, as I reach into the caverns of my mind’s construct, I can still find that place where John lives – places where all the people I’ve lost still live (including my grandfather, and now – my own father) – and I cherish the memory while I acknowledge the nagging sting of the loss.
This article has been updated and reprinted with permission from a previously published article.
Notes & References
