• Main
  • Fiction
    • Going Back
      • One Hour Before
      • One week before
      • June 1978 – an extract from Going Back
    • Shore Leave
      • Shore Leave – an extract
    • A Little Bird Told Me
    • The Tip Run
    • Damnation’s Cellar
    • Tender Blue
    • The Flyer
    • Middletown Dreams
    • Morningside Crescent – an extract
  • Non Fiction
    • Dear Friends
    • 50 Musical Memories
    • Rediscovering Rush Intro
      • Rediscovering Rush
    • Left-handed under the Iron Curtain
    • Let’s do the show right here…
    • Home away from home – Alba
  • About
  • Blog
  • The 60at60 index
  • Mastodon
Richard Watt

50MM: 32: John Lennon

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Richard

What I said back then:

I’m not going to link anything here – if you can’t find Lennon material online, you’re really not trying.

I’ve done a fictionalised version of this already, but it will bear a little repetition. One early December morning in 1980, I awake as usual in my spartan room in Cowan House (You’ll notice, if you follow the link, that it’s recently been demolished. I managed not to shed a tear…) I turn on the radio, and am surprised to hear two Lennon tracks in a row, followed by the kind of silence which tells you everything you need to know. The subsequent news bulletin is still a little sketchy in the details, but there’s no doubt about what has happened. It’s the first time I have been affected so strongly by something since I left home; indeed, it’s probably the first time I have been affected so powerfully by anything. I can’t claim that he was one of my heroes, or that I had any particular link to him or his music, but this was a seismic event nevertheless. The conversation and the news bulletins were dominated by it for what seemed like weks afterwards – probably only a few days, in reality, and the music charts were full of Lennon for months.

And that’s what I really remember, I suppose – that Christmas period full of ‘Imagine’ and ‘Happy Xmas, War is Over’; Bryan Ferry crooning ‘Jealous Guy’ and those wire rimmed glasses staring out from every record shopfront. I suppose that in some strange way, the 8th of December 1980 marked an end to my innocence – it’s glib to say that nothing was the same again, but nothing really was, after that.

What I think now:

It’s a little overblown, but I stand by how I felt at the time.  I was still a teenager, and it felt momentous.  I also apologise for the abruptly dismissive first line – not sure what that was about!

I’m also not sure what John Lennon means to me now.  As I already noted, I have a child who is partial to The Beatles, but I don’t think that extends beyond the end of the Sixties – I know he’s heard solo Lennon material, but I don’t think he’s as captivated by it.  I come and go – mainly, I find myself wondering what might have been.  More than for any of the other deceased artists in this list, there is a real sense that he might yet have produced something extraordinary or at worst unusual.  I’d have liked to have heard that.

Oh, and the fictionalised version?  It’s a long story, but not one I’m pursuing particularly.  I’ll leave that extract there, but there’s not a lot else I’d want to do with it right now.

Since then:

Not a huge amount, to be honest.  I did go and visit the Beatles museum the last time I was in Liverpool, and found myself more moved by images and sounds of Lennon than I would have expected – I did draw the line at visiting his house, however.  I also belatedly watched the ‘Anthology’ series, but enjoyed Scorsese’s George Harrison biopic much more.  In the end, I suppose, Lennon affected my life, but more in the manner of his death than by anything he did while he was alive.  I was born 10 years too late, I suppose.

Posted in 50 Musical Memories, Writing |
« 50MM: 33: Saxon
50MM: 31: Aztec Camera »

Richard Watt

  • About
  • Home page

Archives

  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • December 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • December 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • March 2009
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005

Categories

  • 50 Musical Memories
  • 60at60
  • Beatles
  • Book Reviews
  • Dear Friends
  • Music
  • Pink Floyd
  • Rediscovering Rush
  • Shore Leave
  • Tangents
  • Work in Progress
  • Writing

Categories

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© Richard Watt