Your new album, Double Fantasy, had been in stores only a few days when Mark David Chapman, for reasons known only to the Devil, took your life in a matter of seconds. Some would later cry "conspiracy" and "assassination," but in the end, we were all forced to admit defeat to a simple madman. In fact, he may have been one of you biggest fans. He was captured without incident, processed by the judicial system, and has remained incarcerated ever since. Millions mourned, and for the first time, public sympathy weighed with Yoko Ono, th e love of your life. There were candlelight vigils (another first for a rock star) and musical tributes (Elton John, Paul Simon). They even renamed a part of Central Park "Strawberry Fields" in your memory. Few public figures in this century have been as revered and missed as you still are to this day.
Not that breaking new ground was a foreign experience for you. The immense popularity of The Beatles, and all the media attention that ensued, were unprecedented by a mere pop music group. Everything about you became important to your fans, even your hair and your favorite candy. Of course, it all seems incredibly silly now, but the 60s were strange days, indeed. And the superstar persona created by the multi-media machine was probably very hard to live up to, but without The Beatles, there would be no Mick Jagger, no Jimi Hendrix, no Axl Rose or Eddie Vedder. Musicians became heroes during that turbulent decade.
People would ask your opinion. You were always honest with them, and it got you in trouble. "We're more popular than Jesus Christ" is a statement that may hold more truth now than it did when you uttered it nearly thirty years ago. Your vocal anti-war stance made you very unpopular with most American politicians, although they still say to this day that it was your marijuana bust in England that made your Green Card so elusive. You knew what fucking liars they were. You protested anyway, because you felt it was the right thing to do. Bed peace.
I'm not a big believer in the phrase "hindsight is 20/20." As time rolls on, we cannot see the past more clearly, only differently. Aldous Huxley holds the key: "If the doors of perception were properly cleansed, we would see things as they truly are: Infinite." You believed in change and spent the post-Beatle years explaining to the masses that they must go on with their lives. The break up of a band did not mean the end of the world.
Any good interviewer will say what a dream it was to talk to you because you would elaborate at great length. You weren't afraid to speak of the past and explain hyow your views and your life had changed. In short, you shattered the superstar icon by showing us what a regular guy you were, baking bread, changing diapers, being thirty-something. Elvis never broke free of the star thing, he was always The King, and that's probably what killed him. But all of The Beatles, in spite of their incredible wealth and influence, have basically remained regular guys and "Working Class Heroes." Humanity can be very charming. No one expects stars to be perfect anymore: Some people make a dubious living waiting for them to fall out of the sky.
I find myself envying the past and wish I could return to the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of 1980. Perhaps I only see things that way because I was three weeks shy of my fifteenth birthday when you were gunned down. At the time, you were my biggest influence: One wall of my bedroom was covered with hundreds of Lennon photos. The day after you died I received sympathy calls from friends. Everyone knew how much your music and philosophy affected me. They worry and depression of my adolescence doubled in the months that followed. I compensated by taking drigs and playing guitar as much as possible. I still cry when I think about those dark, bleary days of my own life. Things got better, but my innocence never returned.
I have now lived over half my life in the shadow of your murder. The world has grown bitterly cold in your absence. Teenagers now carry guns to school. All our milk cartons are covered with photos of missing children. Drive-by shootings are common in our cities. Innocent people die every day in stupid conflicts. We are farther from world peace than when your were alive. The harbingers of the apocalypse believe we have reached the beginning of the end. I dare say they may be right.
Wouldn't it be just like you, John, to be a trendsetter in death as well as in life? Madmen and women go after celebrities all the time now. When police questioned David Crosby as to why he carried a gun in his car, he simply replied, "John Lennon." Even tennis players (Monica Seles) aren';t safe anymore. And how about those vigils in tribute to Jerry Garcia, where crowds gathered peacefully, lit candles and sang quiet songs in remembrance of The Dead? 'Tis pity their concerts had grown so unruly. As Joni Mitchell so eloquently put it, "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone."
Don't get me wrong. There is still a lot of good in the world, and most people are filled with good intentions. But as the populace climbs and the cities grow more dense with numbers, evil breeds like a plague of insects. Hell yes, I'm jaded. Things were better when you were still here, without e-mail and compact discs and PCs (both kinds). I shudder every time I think of the beautiful music you never had a chance to write. Damn that lunatic Chapman. He deprived us of our cultural right to your genius. And sadly, I cannot think of anyone who feels that the killer's confinement has avenged your death.
It's frightfully true. None of us feel any better about what happened because we still don't really understand why it was necessary. Like those who witnessed Christ's crucifixion, we are angered and puzzled by your murder. We can justify our loss by saying you died for our sins, and if I was a Catholic, I'd call you Saint John the Divine Entertainer. So when the anniversary of your death passes again this Friday, I will go to my own private shrine in the woods where I spent that first moment of silence in your memory fifteen years ago. I will reflect agin on your life and summon the strength to go on with my own. I'll assure myself that life is a good thing and that I can be a beacon of positive thinking in a world that grows ever bigger, ever stranger and ever colder. After all, that's what you would do, wouldn't you, John?