All those years ago

December 8th: I have just been reminded that it was twenty-eight years ago today that John Lennon was murdered. I tend to associate it with 9th December, that being the day I found out back in 1980.

I was in my final year at Wolverhampton Poly, which is now a bloody university; I want to trade in my faded CNAA degree for a new, University of Wolverhampton one. That said, there is probably – just – more cachet in a CNAA degree… or not. Anyway, I digress.

I woke up to the radio alarm and was impressed by the number of Beatles records playing on the Beacon Radio breakfast show. Then I noticed that they were interspersed with Lennon solo songs, but nothing by the other three. I have never been one for overt hero worship, having pooh-poohed the odd reactions of Elvis fans three years earlier (and again, anyone who displayed public “grief” seventeen years later when the Princess of Wales went belly up), but Lennon’s murder did it for me. I didn’t attend lectures that day; I stayed with a couple of friends in the Union Bar at Compton and helped decorate the Christmas tree to the ever present sounds of the Beatles and Lennon. I recall feeling miserable, melancholic and nostalgic all at the same time. It was very odd, but not even remotely like I have felt when a friend or family member has gone.

Saturday was the twentieth anniversary of the death of Roy Orbison, from a heart attack, aged fifty-two. I remember being sad hearing of his death, too, but not to the same extent and sad though it was, he at least died a natural death.

Going back a week earlier, to 29th November, we stumble over the seventh anniversary of the death of George Harrison. It’s a poor time of year to be a rock legend.

I always thought that Lennon’s solo work was and is over rated. Certainly, before he died I don’t recall anything that would even suggest the mythologizing that was to come. For every good track he laid down as a solo performer, there was at least one completely awful effort to balance it. I like Imagine, but it’s not anywhere near deserving of the plaudits heaped upon it. Maybe if he’d written it five years earlier and McCartney could have made a few suggestions on the arrangement, and the Beatles could have built it up in the recording studio, but as it is…

I always preferred Harrison’s solo offerings to Lennon’s, though it is probably best to pretend that the album Dark Horse never happened. Even when George was hitting everyone over the head with his eastern spiritual beliefs, his albums maintained a steadier level of quality.

I think I might dig out the Walkman this afternoon and have a listen while I edit some rather boring documents.

All those years ago

December 8th: I have just been reminded that it was twenty-eight years ago today that John Lennon was murdered. I tend to associate it with 9th December, that being the day I found out back in 1980.

I was in my final year at Wolverhampton Poly, which is now a bloody university; I want to trade in my faded CNAA degree for a new, University of Wolverhampton one. That said, there is probably – just – more cachet in a CNAA degree… or not. Anyway, I digress.

I woke up to the radio alarm and was impressed by the number of Beatles records playing on the Beacon Radio breakfast show. Then I noticed that they were interspersed with Lennon solo songs, but nothing by the other three. I have never been one for overt hero worship, having pooh-poohed the odd reactions of Elvis fans three years earlier (and again, anyone who displayed public “grief” seventeen years later when the Princess of Wales went belly up), but Lennon’s murder did it for me. I didn’t attend lectures that day; I stayed with a couple of friends in the Union Bar at Compton and helped decorate the Christmas tree to the ever present sounds of the Beatles and Lennon. I recall feeling miserable, melancholic and nostalgic all at the same time. It was very odd, but not even remotely like I have felt when a friend or family member has gone.

Saturday was the twentieth anniversary of the death of Roy Orbison, from a heart attack, aged fifty-two. I remember being sad hearing of his death, too, but not to the same extent and sad though it was, he at least died a natural death.

Going back a week earlier, to 29th November, we stumble over the seventh anniversary of the death of George Harrison. It’s a poor time of year to be a rock legend.

I always thought that Lennon’s solo work was and is over rated. Certainly, before he died I don’t recall anything that would even suggest the mythologizing that was to come. For every good track he laid down as a solo performer, there was at least one completely awful effort to balance it. I like Imagine, but it’s not anywhere near deserving of the plaudits heaped upon it. Maybe if he’d written it five years earlier and McCartney could have made a few suggestions on the arrangement, and the Beatles could have built it up in the recording studio, but as it is…

I always preferred Harrison’s solo offerings to Lennon’s, though it is probably best to pretend that the album Dark Horse never happened. Even when George was hitting everyone over the head with his eastern spiritual beliefs, his albums maintained a steadier level of quality.

I think I might dig out the Walkman this afternoon and have a listen while I edit some rather boring documents.