It hardly matters, but for the record, I was in Birmingham, (UK), on a training course.
The man who, in conjunction with Paul McCartney, had been responsible for some of the most memorable songs in the history of popular music, was gunned down outside a New York Hotel by a man for whom, just a few hours earlier, Lennon had signed a copy of his album "Double Fantasy".
Having acknowledged John's massive achievements as a songwriter, a singer and as a truly inspirational human being, it has to be said that he did have more than his fair share of mishaps.
The first of these was the death of his mother after being struck by a car when John was 17 years of age. His parents had split up (his father was a seaman), and John's aunt Mimi and her husband George actually looked after him for most of his childhood and adolescence.
John's scholastic performance was not too good, he failed all his 'O' Level exams, (roughly the equivalent of today's GCSE's) although he did manage to secure a place at the Liverpool College Of Art with a little help from his friends, (actually his headmaster and his aunt Mimi interevened). Their intervention was to no avail however because John reverted to his childhood role as class comic and was eventually expelled.
All of this, of course, had no adverse effect of his talents as a musician and, after completing their apprenticeship in the bars of Hamburg as well as hundreds of other small venues, along with many other British bands of the time, the Beatles had "made it big" and went in search of the big money - in the USA.
It was there that John's quick fire wit and propensity to speak first and think afterwards got him and his bandmates into a great deal of trouble. Whilst being interviewed in the UK he made a remark, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now, I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity." At first this remark went unnoticed in the UK but, after a while, it was quoted in the USA and all hell broke loose. Faced with damming public criticism, where once die hard fans were seen burning their copies of Beatles records and the Klu Klux Klan became involved in anti-Beatles rhetoric, the Band were forced to abandon touring over there.
John's heavy and prolonged use of drugs was another of his RockBottoms. He had periods of dependancy and heavy use of LSD, Amphetamines and, eventually, Heroin. It was his eventual withdrawal from Heroin which was the subject of his stark and shocking song, "Cold Turkey", released in 1969.
As if one major controversy in the USA was not enough, John became the focus some years after the "more popular than Jesus" quip, when his political leanings came to the attention of the Nixon administration. John Lennon had managed to piss off the American Government with his stance on the Vietnam war and Nixon, who thought that Lennon's activities could actually impact his chances of a second term in office, made strenuous efforts to get him deported.
It also transpired that John was the subject of extensive FBI activity, details of which were only released after years of campaigning by the author and historian Jon Weiner. in the end, of course, John Lennon was not the architect of Nixon's downfall - he arranged that himself with his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
Future presidents were more accommodating of John's ideals and he eventually gained "green card" status enabling him to live and work in the USA permanently which, to a large extent, he did. He even attended, with Yoko, the inaugural ball of newly-elected President Carter in 1977.
On December 8th 1980 John and Yoko had been working at the Record Plant studio and were returning to their apartment in the Dakota building in New York late in the evening. The plan was to say goodnight to his son, Sean, before going out to a restaurant. As the couple left their vehicle a gunman who, only that same morning had asked John to autograph a copy of his latest album "Double Fantasy", fired a total of five shots at john's back and shoulders causing fatal injuries.
The murderer, Mark David Chapman, made no attempt to escape the scene and sat on the pavement awaiting arrest. He was tried and found guilty of second degree murder for which he was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison.
John Winston Lennon was born on the 9th of October 1940 and died on the 8th December 1980, aged only 40.
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Imagine 1971, Remastered Audio CD
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