Remembering John Lennon
you wanted," in the beautiful Christmas song that makes me cry to this day. And then, even more simply, even more poignantly, he challenged us to "imagine."
Bruce Springsteen, whose music was certainly influenced by that of John and the Beatles, has been one rocker to rise to that challenge, mirroring John's social conscience, political activism, and desire to make the world a better place for all of us. Springsteen just happened to be playing Philadelphia at the time of Lennon's murder - it was the first leg of the River tour - and a somber Springsteen acknowledged the event during the opening of his December 9 show.
"If it wasn't for John Lennon, a lot of us would be some place much different tonight," the Boss told the faithful. "It's a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it's hard to come out here and play tonight, but there's nothing else to do."
Then, according to Jay Cock's article, THE LAST DAY IN THE LIFE, Bruce and the E Street Band tore into Springsteen's own anthem, Born to Run,making it clear that playing was the best thing to do. Guitarist Steve Van Zandt lettears roll down his face, and organist Danny Federici hit the board so hard he broke a key."I wanna know love is wild, I wanna know love is real," yelled Springsteen, and the audience yelled back into the December night that, at that moment, seemed just a little bit darker.
Twenty years have passed since a deranged fan stood outside the Dakota and shot John Lennon in the back as he entered his home. Ironic, though, the timing - Mark David Chapman didn't kill the superstar, the anti-religious youth, the heroin-addicted has-been, the anti-war rebel. No, instead he killed the househusband, husband to Yoko, father to Sean, the musician who, at forty, blessed us and made us believe with his "starting over."
In one of his last and most beautiful lyrics, Lennon wrote to his young son that "life was what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." The lyrics touched me then, but they mean even more now, twenty years later, when so much of my life is behind me, when I'm so far from where I hoped to be, when even - already - I'm older than Lennon ever was.
Can it really be twenty years? The opening notes to a song come through the speakers in
Latest Articles