From the ridiculous to the sublime... one blast from the past last night leads to another this morning. Jann Wenner is releasing the unexpurgated text of his 1970 interview with John Lennon in advance of the 25th anniversary of his death. No death has ever come close to affecting me the way John Lennon's did. I remember the night he died more clearly than I remember yesterday.
I had not been a huge fan of John's. At the time I evaluated music on the basis of its sound, not by the stature of the performers. The Beatles were pretty pop sounding, Elvis sounded a bit simple and shmaltzy, Dylan whined etc. Now, the individuality and importance of these men in developing and shaping the sound of modern music, is more of a focus because I'm writing, not spinning records for a progressive radio station.
So, when my mom came in and told me she'd heard that "someone has been shot and they think it's John Lennon", I was unmoved. We'd just lost Keith Moon and the usual assortment of rock ODs, I was used to losing artists and I was in denial. The idea that John could be shot and there would be confusion over his identity was impossible. A few minutes later, I saw the TV screen that came on for special bulletins, we pause for a news flash.... I turned it off, thinking the radio might be safer.... it wasn't, and I'll never forget what came next.
It was Let It Be... and I knew. I basically just lost it, I ran into my parents' room in hysterics. Sometime later, I called my best friend Sue in NM and we just sat on the phone in silence for god only knows how long. There were no words. For probably ten years after his death, I cried every time I thought about John, which was often. He had come to New York, my hometown, for anonymity and safety. He fought hard for his green card. Nixon considered him a huge threat and did everything he could to keep him out of the country. Now Reagan was in office and John was gone, permanently. Conspiracy posters blanketed the city. Traveling in Europe the following summer, I learned not to reveal my identity as a New Yorker, the city that killed Lennon.
Why did I go from being a lukewarm fan at best to reacting with every fiber of being when he died? To understand that, you have to look at the life and death of John Lennon and the timing of his death. He'd had a pretty miserable childhood as the misunderstood genius who is the only person to appreciate who he is, and can't for the life of him, understand why the shmucks around him don't look to him and see the perspective and awareness he has.
He's abandoned by both mother and father. When he finally, at 16, is just about to reconnect with his mother Julia (of the song), she is run down by a truck. He attracts the top talent, forms the Beatles, and their sound is immediately appreciated. He does find the perfect partner in Paul, who tones down his edge to a place where it can be accepted. The American public at that time was a hotbed of repression and every bit of it was exorcised through its teenage girls who made every single Beatle performance into a full on scream fest.
This was echoed by Tom Wolfe in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test who described the scene at their last concert as a frenzy of screaming such that there was no way to hear music. So, here is a serious band going to show after show after show and they see their own fans as, basically, complete assholes. With all the fame and money, they are trapped in a vacuum of backwards babies... still misunderstood. At the same time, despite the great music, there are jealousies and John and Paul (who came from a loving home) never really see eye to eye.
Finally, John does meet someone, an artist in her own right, that really does understand him. Slowly, slowly, she helps him exorcise his many demons. And I mean many demons. John admitted to hitting Cynthia, he made fun of the wheelchair bound fans who thought he could cure them... he was pretty messed up. But he changed his life and became the first househusband. Setting an example for men that would foster much social change, he finally finds happiness in the eyes of Sean. But, in the first five years of Sean's life, he doesn't touch the guitar.
One day Sean asks about the Beatles. John writes Woman, about his love for Yoko. He writes Beautiful Boy for his son. He records the songs for Double Fantasy. After 40 years, the most amazing artist of our time is ready to live his life. He is finally free and happy and creative. And then, in the blink of an eye, his life is over. His message is finished. We'll have no more of his music and perspective and comment. We'll have nothing but the tragic irony of his sad life to look to in figuring out what lesson we should take.
So, what should we learn from the life of John Lennon? The same one I try to exhibit in all my writing... live your life while you have it. I was listening to Barbara Sher the other day and she says she does not understand people who, at 40, say their life is half over. For the first twenty years you have to ask your mother to borrow the car, the second twenty, you're basically just working your brains out. At forty, you are just beginning to live. Your life isn't half over, your life is just starting.
The saddest ones, to me, aren't the ones who think it's half over at forty, it's the ones who think it's all over at forty. Just break out the granny sweater and wait for death.... But, really, if you've lived your life fully and deeply, the best stuff happens after forty. John was cut down right as he was, at long last, ready to reap the hard fought fruits of happiness. And this is why I cry, even today, in thinking about how much he gave us and how little time he got to appreciate his life here on earth.
All I can say is, if there's a rock and roll heaven, and there is.... you know they've got a hell of a band.
