It was 42 years ago today and it still hurts...

[Simon A]

I cannot help but feel old when I think that we lost John Winston O'Boogie Lennon 42 years ago. I was 11 years old and undergoing my own private Beatlemania having just become obsessed with the group six months before. The radio stations wouldn't stop playing Beatles and Lennon songs. I would go to my local Woolco every week to see if they'd receive anything new by the group. Strange Days indeed! What kind of world would we be living in if he was still with us.

 

[Quad Linda]

Lennon was shot weeks after we opened the Schaumburg, IL store for Pacific Stereo/CBS. We had been spinning new releases Double Fantasy, Gaucho, and the River that evening.

I remember vividly one of our people mentioning "Lennon's been shot." An hour later, turned on the news at home to find he had passed.

Senseless!!

 

[mandrix]

I cannot help but feel old when I think that we lost John Winston O'Boogie Lennon 42 years ago. I was 11 years old and undergoing my own private Beatlemania having just become obsessed with the group six months before. The radio stations wouldn't stop playing Beatles and Lennon songs. I would go to my local Woolco every week to see if they'd receive anything new by the group. Strange Days indeed! What kind of world would we be living in if he was still with us.
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In my home town, Lakeland, Florida, there is a lake roughly in the center of town around which there is a road that follows the perimeter. No parking allowed except at the "Yacht Club" or so it was called then...private.

But there was a massive candlelight vigil with cars and people taking up every available space in mourning for the passing of John. The police were cool about it. Very memorable.

 

[GaryG]

I remember watching the MNF game and Howard Cosell announcing that Lennon had been shot.
That week my roommate and I met a couple of young British women at a local bar. We ended up taking them to Red Rocks amphitheater, the Monday after Lennon was shot, for a vigil.
It was such a solemn occasion. I think everyone was still in shock and disbelief a week later.

 

[JonUrban]

I had the football game on even though I didn't really care about either team. It's what you did on Monday night when there were only 3 channels. When I heard Howard, I was stunned, then began to hope that maybe he would end up being OK and the news was just in error or something. It stung like you would not believe. How could the loss of a life affect people who did not know the person like this did. To me, this was the absolute worst loss of a musician that I have ever dealt with. Even though it was so long ago. And the idiot had to use exploding bullets??
That really ticked me off. John didn't have a chance

 

[Bill B]

One of those deals where I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I can still get weepy if I think about too long. The last time I got weepy was when I watched the movie "Yesterday" and they had alternate history John at 80 years old. His senseless murder was a loss for everyone. What if.....

 

[wavelength]

Damn I miss that guy.

 

[cbmmm3]

I was in college. we were watching the game when Howard Cosell made the announcement. I will never forget.

 

[marpow]

Terrible, outcome for John Lennon. I wonder what he would be like now.
I was sort of asleep laying on the floor in the back bedroom watching MNF.
It was my first house, 3 bedroom, 1 bath, Rancher in Pacifica.
In my haze of falling asleep, I jolted to Howard Cosell and the news. Shocked. Heart broken, for myself, the Beatles, the world.
I think those of us who experienced the news via Cosell and MNF adds to a fond memory, albeit a loss.

 

[Clement]

Thanks for starting this thread, @Simon A . I, too, am still hurting. I am not alone. I was in the basement of my parents' home, spinning vinyl and talking on the phone to the woman i would marry in less than 4 years. I was deeply in love. We were over an hour into our conversation. I had just put Double Fantasy on the deck, thinking of John and Yoko's love and what the future might have in store for me and mine. I settled back into the (stereo) sweet spot, and my girlfriend gasped on the phone. She had MNF on in the background. She told me the news. Devastation. Absolute, mind-numbing devastation. Although we continued to talk, i was disconnected from the conversation. I was 19. The dream was over . . .

 

[ar surround]

I was a young expat at our office in The Netherlands. I was making a few copies at a copier when a Scottish fellow who worked with me gave me the bad news. I just kept mindlessly making copies because I probably was in shock. Still so awful.

 

[Clement]

Just posted this photo over on Listening to Now (in Surround) thread. My favo(u)rite Lennon album. Tearing up listening to it . . .

. . . I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
That's reality
Dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the dreamweaver
But now I'm reborn
I was the walrus
But now I'm John
And so dear friends
You just have to carry on
The dream is over

 

[Mesozoic Mike]

I had just started my job at NBC in Burbank, CA. the previous May. I was part of a crew that stood by for West Coast news updates. ( Yes. They actually did that back then.)
Upon getting the information regarding John, we prepared to do a live break-in to network programming for the West Coast. We never did because New York took control and did a national News Break-in for all NBC affiliates. I'm not sure I could have pulled it off. Deeply disturbed and upset. 42 years later, I still am.

 

[4-earredwonder]

JOHN LENNON: ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE'S NORTH STAR

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...nnons-long-history-with-rolling-stone-252894/

 

[tarkusnj]

Such a sad day. I was outside the Dakota within an hour of hearing the news. I stayed there until 6am singing Beatles songs as the crowd grew. I went home and slept until early afternoon and woke thinking it was a nightmare...

 

[par4ken]

I was sitting in the basement listening to CITI-FM. They were exclusively playing Beatles and John Lennon songs. When the next DJ came on he stated that on his way to work he wondering what was going on with all this Beatles music being played on the radio. Needless to say that he was as shocked as everyone else to learn that John Lennon had been murdered.

Days latter while driving around I was listening to my once go to AM rock station, now converted to country. They were talking a lot about John Lennon but as a country station did not play any of his music. Being close to Christmas I was fondly remembering when "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" was a hit on that same station, it had been played heavily well into January of 1972. I thought that it would have been fitting for them to play it as a tribute to John, but it was not to be. Just another of my pet peeves, even more true today is how radio station playlists never deviate from a very strict format.

John's death permanently killed any remote possibility of a Beatles reunion. Although It entered my mind that John's son Julian could perhaps fill in for him if they ever decided to do a reunion concert. George Harrison's death was yet another nail in that coffin.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Unlike others I don't have a distinct remembrance of the day John Lennon died. I remember JFK being killed when I was in the 7th grade because it was over the schools PA speakers. But for John, before cellphones & FOMO, I think it was the next day, radio in my car or certainly at work.

For most of us we have a John is gone moment & for me that was just prior to the pandemic at a family wedding at the NY Botanical Gardens which I think is in the Bronx. . After the wedding we stayed a few days in Manhattan . Part of it was a walk thru Central Park, starting from the south side. Midway we entered an area called Strawberry Fields. Now I had read about this but a guy living in the middle of the middle doesn't study CP geography.. but suddenly Strawberry Fields was beneath my feet. It was much different from the rest of the park, rather hippy trippy & quite well populated by people. I loved the feel and visuals.

Eventually we exited on to I don't know what street. Only a block down was a building I had only seen in Life & Look magazines: the Dakota. I recognized it immediately & was frozen. The gates were open & in my minds eye I could see John & Yoko traversing the courtyard for a peaceful evening at home that did not happen.

My wife & other family couple did not recognize or share my emotion. Then we went off elsewhere I think for NY corner pizza...

 

[jefe1]

My mother had recently died no illness no warning just dropped dead at work from a cerebral hemorrhage.
I was just about to interview for a teaching English in Japan job as I finished college. Instead I flew to the Boston area for my Mother's funeral.
Shortly afterwards I came back to Los Angeles packed up and drove cross country to live on the east coast for awhile.
About 2 am driving across upstate New York started hearing a bunch of Beatles songs and the news that John Lennon had been shot.....
Because of the timing his death and my Mother's are linked together in my mind.

 

[Marcsten]

I was in college. I did not hear about his death the night it happened as I was not watching TV or listening to the news. But the next morning, I went to my political science class and one of my classmates was distraught. He looked at me and said , 'yesterday we lost a true icon of our time the likes of which will never come again.' When he told me I was heartbroken. As a youth, I and a group of my friends all pretended to be the Beatles. Of course, I was John. For me, it was always John. I loved John. HIs songs, his activism, his unwavering love for Yoko. So many parallels in my own life. But he was gone. And as my friend observed, we will never see his like again.

 

[barfle]

Not sure what we were watching, but of course it was broadcast TV. The news broke in with an announcement that he had been shot, but no information on his condition. I wondered how that could happen.