Down with Deathiversaries25 years ago today, John Lennon was shot by Mark Chapman and died within minutes. That fact I have known everyday since the very night it happened, and if there was anything I could do to change it, I would. Afterward, I was under a heavy, dark cloud about it for about two months. So was my friend Mason Kuhl -- one day I ran into Mason on the street, and he said to me "I sure will be glad when this is over." I knew exactly what he was talking about -- he was under the same cloud.
I like the fact that the Lennons are getting a lot of attention today. Yoko is always great, and Lennon's message of peace is something that needs to be heard in the world. Especially this one.
But with the good comes the bad, and most of the coverage is bad. I'm mad at Jann Wenner for pulling out those 1970 Lennon interview tapes for Rolling Stone where Lennon is slagging off the other Beatles, fans, whatever. Those of us who care have already read all that stuff - it's been available in print for decades. At that time, Lennon was in court with the Beatles; working out their "divorce" was a logistical nightmare and he was good and pissed at all of them.
John wasn't good at keeping such matters to himself. Though not all the problems relating to Apple Corps etc. were really worked out to anyone's satisfaction, on a personal level many of the problems vis a vis Lennon and the other Beatles were settled as the 70s wore on. These tapes were made in the thick of his worst days of that upheaval, and they make Lennon sound like a pariah. The way that they have been presented to the public, it leaves one to assume that these comments were his secret thoughts that no one knew before.
It was heartening to see all of the people at the vigil in Central Park. I wasn't sorry that I didn't go myself, though. In a time like this I think that if the world were to do anything positive about it, we should celebrate Yoko rather than mourn John.
But instead, in the end it's all about gossip and worship of celebrity. Geraldo Rivera calling Lennon "my friend." Wild takes on Lennon from the 70s played in a random order while "When I'm Sixty-Four" plays in the background, as a newscaster drones on about how Lennon would have been 64 himself last year, had he still been alive. The seeming inseperability of Lennon from The Beatles in the mind of the media. The comments of Mark Chapman.
I hate that bastard -- to me, he's nothing but an assassin. I will not listen to him on TV, radio nor read his words in the newspapers. I can't believe that people actually buy into some of the crap that he says, implying Lennon somehow deserved what he got. Somehow over the years Chapman's byline has softened from "assassin" to "deranged fan."
Not long after Lennon died, I was all for my friend Lamb's suggestion that they should just take him in a helicopter out to the desert somewhere, announce the location to the public, and then drop him with a parachute. But the resulatant mob scene would've been out of step with Lennon's own notions of peace. Better to let him rot in jail forever. They won't release him as long as Yoko is alive, and recently she's said that she'd like to live to be a 100. For that matter I hope she lives to be 130!
John Murray and I wrote a song the day John Lennon died, and when that happened we named it after him. When we recorded it two years later, we modified its ending to reflect his ending. My mother hates that - she said "it was a beautiful song, and you had to go and ruin it." I didn't ruin it - it was the logical outgrowth of the tribute we intended, which I was forced to censor when the track was reissued this year owing to problems of clerances.
I'm glad the Lennon is getting attention, but I'll also be glad when all of this memorializing is over, so John Lennon can go back to the people who love, care for him. His work and its meaning is something that should be in the background of our daily lives, not trotted out on a deathiversary so people can talk about -- death.
For me, John Lennon's life was never defined by his death. If I must think of his death at all, I hope that Lennon believed he was being martyred for his stand on peace, the only aspect of the event that might offer some sense of release from it's burden. But I don't think that John Lennon was "naive," as many commentators would have it. John probably knew what happened to him, and why. That's the part of it that still really bugs me, even after 25 years. Why would I want to commemorate THAT?
Uncle Dave Lewis