Remembering The Day John Lennon Died
John Lennon in 1966. Harry Benson/Getty Images hide caption
This essay first appeared in the 2010 book This Is NPR: The First Forty Years, a collection of writing by NPR staff and contributors.
I should have cared more, but I didn't. I should have cried, but I didn't.
He meant so much to me.
But the day John Lennon died, my life and his music were never more distant.
On the night of December 8, 1980, I was soldering circuit boards in my apartment above a bar in downtown Washington, D.C., when I heard the news. I was building a synthesizer; I was in a psychedelic new wave dance band called Tiny Desk Unit.
And yet, on the day John was murdered, I recall feeling how he'd lived a pretty amazing life, and we should all be so fortunate. I was twenty-seven at the time. I remember thinking that at least he didn't die young. Now I see how young forty is, how short his life was, how profoundly sad his death was. He was still coming to terms with his own life.
I grew up with The Beatles. Their arrival in the United States happened when I was eleven. I heard Beatlemania unfold on my transistor radio and black-and-white TV. I still remember how the lights from Shea Stadium lit up the night sky when The Beatles played there in 1965. I still remember wishing I was there. I never did see John Lennon live, but his music had been my life's soundtrack.
John Lennon's songs and poetry still inspire, I still hear his influence not only just on his generation, but on every generation since. I only wish he was around to know that — maybe in his old age he would have cared.
I was inspired by The Beatles to pick up the guitar and play, as were so many kids of the day. I think the words of the guitar teacher to my mom were something like, "He's got no musical ability; don't waste your money." It took fourteen years for me to get over that, and one day I quit my record store job and decided to be an electronic musician, a decision that would eventually lead to my work at NPR.