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5.42pm
4 December 2010
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Today really is the worst day ever. Reading about him or listening to his songs only makes me wanna start crying. I was listening to Pandora radio last night and at exactly 12 midnight and Watching The Wheels started playing. I started tearing. Awfully sad. I wish I could go to Central Park today but my finals got in the way of my memorial.
Love you John. May you rest in peace and continue to play songs up in heaven with George.
Well we all shine on like the moon, the stars, and the sun.
5.45pm
4 December 2010
Offline I told her I didn’t
8.52pm
1 May 2010
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My feelings and thoughts are with Julian and Sean. Yoko and Cyn. Paul and Ringo. John's siblings, especially Julia and Jackie. I know what's losing someone because of violence. So today, I just stop and say a prayer for them.
John, you have NO IDEA how much we need you. In this insane world where I live, the only thing that keeps me sane is to truly believe that All You Need Is Love . So, I sing this song, even if sometimes it doesn't ring true.
So thanks for your music, and for Julian. 
Here comes the sun….. Scoobie-doobie……
Something in the way she moves…..attracts me like a cauliflower…
Bop. Bop, cat bop. Go, Johnny, Go.
Beware of Darkness…
9.05pm
Reviewers
14 April 2010
Offline Nice post mith.
To the fountain of perpetual mirth, let it roll for all its worth. And all the children boogie.
10.44pm
19 September 2010
Offline mithveaen said:
My feelings and thoughts are with Julian and Sean. Yoko and Cyn. Paul and Ringo. John's siblings, especially Julia and Jackie. I know what's losing someone because of violence. So today, I just stop and say a prayer for them.
John, you have NO IDEA how much we need you. In this insane world where I live, the only thing that keeps me sane is to truly believe that All You Need Is Love . So, I sing this song, even if sometimes it doesn't ring true.
So thanks for your music, and for Julian.
Nothing More needs to be added
Great Post
As if it matters how a man falls down.'
'When the fall's all that's left, it matters a great deal.
10.48pm
1 May 2010
Offline Beautiful post mith!
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine
12.25am
30 October 2010
Offline GniknuS said:
Beautiful post mith!
I have to agree
Today in school when i realized that it was december 8, i was sad and me having to write it down about 8 times didn`t help a lot either, each time i remember what happened that day it`s sad, if he had only went another way and to think probably a Beatles Reunion could have happened.
Probably John and George are Free As A Bird right now.
John, Paul, George and Ringo= The Beatles
And i buried Tulio!
12.48am
18 March 2010
Offline I was out of college, at my first post-college job in Miami. I didn't get the news until the morning after. Like I did every morning, I switched on the radio while I got ready for work. They were playing a Beatles song. Then another. “Cool”, I thought. Then another. Then the deejay said that John Lennon had been murdered and they were only going to be playing his music.
I was stunned. I sat on the edge of the bed and just stared at nothing for awhile. Then I finished getting ready and cried all the way to work. I had lost a friend I'd never met. A friend I first met in 1964 at the age of six.
1.19am
1 May 2010
Offline Wow, nice story. As someone who was born a few years after John was killed, I almost don't even think of him as a real person, or that he really existed because I can't imagine him being a real person. It was surreal when I saw Paul in concert a few months back because it was like, wow there he is, Paul McCartney is literally 200 feet from me! But with John, I don't know, it's just an odd feeling of loving this man and his music so much, but at the same time not being able to picture him in real life.
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine
1.29am
1 May 2010
Offline Celebrated_Mr_K said:
I was stunned. I sat on the edge of the bed and just stared at nothing for awhile. Then I finished getting ready and cried all the way to work. I had lost a friend I'd never met. A friend I first met in 1964 at the age of six.
Actually although it was surreal to be in Paul's concert (OMG I'm in the same place as a Beatle), to me they were like friends. When I was a kid they were sometimes my imaginary friends. I remember I used to say “When I grow up, I'll get married with George Harrison ” or something like that.
Here comes the sun….. Scoobie-doobie……
Something in the way she moves…..attracts me like a cauliflower…
Bop. Bop, cat bop. Go, Johnny, Go.
Beware of Darkness…
1.33am
25 November 2010
Offline Celebrated_Mr_K said:
I had lost a friend I'd never met. A friend I first met in 1964 at the age of six.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. I discovered The Beatles in 1987 or so, really started paying attention to them. And it was so weird to see John in A Hard Day's Night and Help ! being so wildly smart and funny, and know that later, some crazy guy would kill him.
4.31am
4 November 2010
Offline Getting Better said:
I have to agree
Today in school when i realized that it was december 8, i was sad and
me having to write it down about 8 times didn`t help a lot either, each
time i remember what happened that day it`s sad, if he had only went
another way and to think probably a Beatles Reunion could have happened.
Probably John and George are Free As A Bird right now.
Yeah, school was miserable for me today as well. And it was raining throughout the day, which fit my mood.
Right before lunch, the music class performed a concert, and the guitar students made a little speech about peace and then started playing/singing Imagine – it was a beautiful tribute, and I'll admit I was getting a bit emotional. It's just so good to know that he's remembered by so many, including my classmates.
To John
5.57pm
28 November 2010
Offline I teach American Studies at the University of Kansas and yesterday was my last day of teaching for the semester.
American Studies isn't a good field if you want to get rich or even stay middle-class–I'm what they call an adjunct lecturer, which means my employment is always uncertain. But there are priceless benefits to doing what I do. I can teach about any aspect of American culture and society that fits my purposes. So, yesterday, when my students and I were wrapping up our class called American Identities, I talked a bit about John Lennon , his death, and my memories of being a 17 year old JL fan at that awful moment.
I made my outrage, which is still very strong, crystal clear. But I made sure to emphasize the man's enormously positive legacy and to suggest that, with all respect to their generation's differing experiences and perspectives, there ain't nobody like John anymore.
Part of that has to do with the transformed music industry and a host of other cultural and social changes. JL didn't do it all. But he shaped his times while they shaped him and our perceptions of him and his times. The man was larger than life but at the same time he was the most vulnerable superstar I can think of–and that vulnerability takes on such awful dimensions because of 12.8.80. Not so awful that they overwhelm the good and the great.
There are always a few students in each of my classes who identify themselves as Beatles fans. That band, that cultural phenomenon, picks up new followers each year. It's important they know about The Beatles and about John Lennon . It's important they know about him from someone like me, which I hope you all won't see as a pompous statement.
Here's why–right now on TV as I type this, one of those bullshit entertainment celebrity tabloid shows is on. A report on JL's death is mixed in with stuff on Celine Dion and Kim Kardashian. In fact, immediately after the JL seriousness the host is all smiles as the subject changes to Kim Kardashian.
That's an occasion to go to the music. That is where it's at with JL. That's where it's always been, when all's said and done. Back to the music.
Love and respect to you all, as a kindred spirit and Beatles Bible contributor.
Long live the Lennon legacy
9.19pm
1 May 2010
Offline Awesome post.
I love what you said about the vulnerability of John, and I think that's what makes him so easy to relate to. He didn't hide his true thoughts about anything and he said what he really felt about himself. It still shocks me that he came out with a song like I'm A Loser after the mammoth success that was A Hard Days Night that was largely due to John's brilliance both in the movie and on the album. He didn't try and mask who he was, no bullshit, and that's what I think is the biggest problem with our culture nowadays, people seem to be scared to be themselves and break from the mold. They try to project an image of what they want to be or more likely what they want others to see them as, and, I don't know, that just sounds like an awful way to live. So that's what I respect most about John, he was just himself, take it or leave it.
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine
9.22pm
19 September 2010
Offline Both You Two (parco63 and GniknuS) Are Spot On in Every way
Nothing can be added
*9*
As if it matters how a man falls down.'
'When the fall's all that's left, it matters a great deal.
9.29pm
9 June 2010
Offline 
mr. Sun king coming together said:
Both you two (parco63 and GniknuS) are spot on in every way.
Nothing can be added.
*9*
*laughs*
I love this forum! It's brilliant how we can, in one post, go from super-serious to “oh, by the way, I got a 9” without looking like total idiots.
If I seem to act unkind, it's only me, it's not my mind that is confusing things.
12.17am
15 May 2014
Offline Hello everybody.
After reading several threads and posting in some of them I thought I’d start a new one about a painful topic: John’s murder, where we were at that time, what we were doing, how we reacted. It’s probably a topic for the not-so-young among us. Let me tell you about myself first.
On December 8th 1980 I was sitting in my living room listening to The Beatles when I turned on the TV set and managed to hear the last sentences of the news report: “John Lennon is finally free” –that’s what they said. I didn’t want to believe what the words implied. I switched channels and confirmed the news. I was sixteen at that time, and had been listening to The Beatles for two years. Everybody else was listening to The Wall or Air Supply; high-school time, in my class I was the weirdo that listened to “old music”. I was utterly unhappy, as many teenagers are. I was a bit of a nerd, in love with a classmate, but she didn’t even know I existed. For two years The Beatles had been my spiritual nourishment, for two years their music was what gave joy to my life. I had been waiting for John’s comeback…
As I said I was sixteen, but had access to alcohol…; I cried for several minutes and then realized I just couldn’t cope with it. I must have drunk two pints of beer, roughly one liter, in less than twenty minutes. I got drunk and slowly fell asleep; it was the first time I drank alcohol in my whole life. When I woke up maybe thirty minutes later I cried again.
I stayed in my room, feeling empty. My mum wasn’t around and my dad had died years before. Then my uncle arrived –my uncle, who had studied in London in the ’60s and had given me my first Beatles LPs. Only several years later did I realize that he was checking whether I was alright. Neither of us mentioned John. After chatting for a while he left. He was such a sensitive, caring gentleman; I wish I were half the man he was.
The whole following year was dark, gloomy. I had Double Fantasy but couldn’t listen to it. Slowly I began to… forget? Not forget, I still haven’t forgotten. I learnt how to live with it, how to bury the pain.
I know this is a very personal thread, but I thought some of you might like to talk about yourselves. To those of you who choose to post, despite the fact that it might be rather hard, thanks for sharing. As ever,
Oudis.
“Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit” (“Perhaps one day it will be a pleasure to look back on even this”; Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 1, line 203, where Aeneas says this to his men after the shipwreck that put them on the shores of Africa)
1.41am
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline I wasn’t born at the time of his death so i grew up with it as a part of life (so maybe i shouldn’t be posting here). When younger i avidly read a murder case book on the events over and over (still have it), its as i’ve grown up and learned more about it all and John’s came to mean more to me that its become incredibly difficult to read or watch documantaries about it all. Its like a very close friends death even tho i was never alive at the same as John. I try not to think about it.
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
2.16am
Reviewers
14 April 2010
Offline This came up in different thread a while back. It was a thread that did not address this specific topic to begin with, so I’m glad @Ahhh Girl found this one in which to place the post from @Oudis .
Anyway, Howard Cosell was the one that told me. I had just come home late from my after school part-time job and decided to unwind by watching the rest of Monday Night Football. Not long after turning on the TV…
I did not take it well. At the school bus stop the next morning, I saw my best friend who also loved the Beatles – especially John. When I saw his eyes were red, it really hit me. This really happened. Without a word we hugged each other and bawled our eyes out. The rest of the day at school was surreal. Teachers and students alike walking the hallways stunned. Moments like the one I mentioned at the bus stop breaking out everywhere. It was a really BFDay.
The following people thank Zig for this post:
C.R.A., Ahhh Girl, Matt Busby, Oudis, meanmistermustardTo the fountain of perpetual mirth, let it roll for all its worth. And all the children boogie.
3.01am
5 February 2014
Offline
I also heard it from Howard, watching the same game as Zig. I was 19 then and working full-time building pinball machines (it was the craze!). I was a Beatles fan when I was much younger, and am again now, but during those years… meh… not so much. The news was shocking as news of that sort can be, especially when it involves such an important figure in music. I blurted out a few expletives and raised my bottle. Other than that, there was no immediate impact for me.
What I won’t forget is the next day at work. Most of the people I worked with were several years older and they were greatly affected by the news. There was a distinct air of sadness in the factory and it was apparent quite a few folks were actually devastated. A couple of older guys spent the day consoling each other and even the foreman gave them some slack.
As the years have gone by, my appreciation for the Beatles has returned. I have never held any one of them with any higher regard than the others, mostly as I was unaware of their personal lives and contributions, knowing them only them by their songs. Recently, I decided to rectify that and have gone headlong into discovering who they were, both as a group and as individuals and have gained new perspectives. While I still intend to avoid developing any sort of affinity for one over the others, it’s becoming a difficult thing to do. The trick is to know that they’ve all had exceptional lives and each deserves equal measures of regard.
I do not hold Lennon foremost, but it must be said that his life was quite remarkable; not only for his accomplishments but also for his weaknesses and most especially for his failings. He was someone I think all of us wanted to see shine brighter than he already had, to become the man that we all thought he wanted to be, and we harbor a deep resentment for him being denied that opportunity.
The following people thank C.R.A. for this post:
parlance, Beatlebug
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