There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
From “In My Life”
Fans remember John Lennon, left, as the political Beatle. His rebel image remains, 40 years after his murder. Photo by Kevin S. Giles
By Kevin S. Giles
Think of it, murder of a Beatle. Hard to imagine John Lennon growing old. Think of him, wrinkled at 80. The rebel Beatle. Still working, kicking out chart-topping tunes? Or, retired at an American-style Penny Lane built for octogenarians?
December brought us the 40th anniversary of Lennon’s murder. If we carry any significant burden from that sad night in New York City, it’s knowing that a psychopath with a beef and gun consigned us to yet another ugly “what I remember about the moment I heard” conversation.
murder of a beatle after dark
It was eight days into December 1980. I was one of the night editors putting together the morning Helena Independent Record. The news of the death by shooting came across the clattering Associated Press teletype machine in a flash bulletin. I recall sitting there in disbelief. I grew up with the Beatles. As a boy I had played my first 45-rpm record, Please Please Me, a thousand times. We listened to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album in my high school senior English class. Now, John was dead.
That night, the first AP bulletins told of Lennon fans gathering with candles outside Lennon’s home at The Dakota, where the assassin fired point-blank, and at Roosevelt Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.
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The novel ‘Summer of the Black Chevy’ by Kevin S. Giles grew from memories of his hometown. The novel also takes place there, in Deer Lodge, Montana.
“People act like John Lennon was God himself,” said a disgusted older editor working with me that night. I thought of the wave of negative reaction in 1966 when Lennon commented to a London newspaper that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus. You see, not everyone believed in the magic of the Fab Four and of Lennon as a cultural icon.
“He was a Beatle. He was John Lennon,” I told my co-worker, seeing no need to say more.
Now, What people remember 40 years later
And so, December 2020 brought a round of testimonials – the “what I remember about the moment I heard” reflections that forever linger after a famous person’s assassination.
NBC anchor Jane Pauley: “The day John died, I felt my youth had been put in a box and that box was closed. The generational attachment was that profound.” Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone magazine: “… John was the brains, the political heart, the conscience of a generation that wanted peace and love …. He combined all the elements of a superman for people my age: humor, wisdom, ambition, strength, talent. And he was a great rock ‘n’ roller.”
And from actor Patrick Duffy: “Every year there is that gathering in Central Park, and the annual mourning is now really a celebration. You don’t think about how John died. You think about the wonder of who he was.” (Quotes courtesy of AARP magazine)
My generation took Lennon’s murder hard. We already had witnessed a dizzying parade of assassinations in our young lives. First came President Kennedy in 1963, then Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy two months apart in 1968.
One murderer causes untold grief
These days I often reflect on how a single deranged gunman, unable to restrain irrational impulses, executes the murderous act in a blink. The snuffing of a life alters history like a dam changes the flow of a river.
Imagine if those bright smiling kindergartners at Sandy Hook Elementary School had lived. We still debate the causes and effects of President Lincoln’s assassination, 155 years after a single shot to the head in the Ford Theatre. The gunshot death of an unpopular and esoteric (to Americans) Austrian duke, Franz Ferdinand, set off a bizarre chain of events that led to World War I. Ferdinand’s assassination in an open touring car eventually led to 8.5 million military deaths from 18 warring countries, including 116,516 from the United States.
We have learned that assassinations represent more than cultural and historical diversions, beckoning their what ifs. They become touchstones for shock and outrage. Shooting a president attacks the institution of our presidency and the stability of our nation. Shooting a rock star, a Beatle, felt like a punch to the gut to millions of fans who embraced Beatles music as the teddy bear of their youth.
And, What if the murder of a Beatle never happened?
I believe some people were born to die young. People who are prominent in our lives arrive and record their history and disappear before we witness how old age steals their magic. What if Lennon had lived? Would he have consented to a Beatles reunion? Doubtful, as that day was done. More music, yes. More biting commentary from a rebel voice, yes. But what else? Possibly we would have learned no more about John Lennon than what he already delivered.
Finally, I think often of how the arresting trauma of an intentional killing differs from death by disease. What if Lennon had died from cancer like his fellow Beatle, George Harrison? Would we feel as much shock at his passing? Or, what if he had lived? What if?
Still we wonder, 40 years later.
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
From “Imagine”
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Western Montana native Kevin S. Giles wrote the popular prison nonfiction work Jerry’s Riot, the coming-of-age novel Summer of the Black Chevy, and a biography of Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, One Woman Against War, which is an expanded version of his earlier work, “Flight of the Dove.” His new novel, Headline: FIRE! is the third in the Red Maguire series. Masks, Mayhem and Murder is the second. The first is “Mystery of the Purple Roses.” More information is available at https://kevinsgiles.com.