John Winston Lennon

John Lennon died 30 years ago today.

Here's a song which, to me, is representative of his ouevre. People always complain that a millionaire wrote the line, "imagine no possessions". Well, bollocks to that. Just because someone elevates themselves to a station of great prosperity due to their talents in no way infers that they lose touch with their roots.

Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson...John Lennon. They all may have become very wealthy as singers and writers but their artistic integrity cannot be questioned. John knew of the pain that everyone feels and shared that gift regardless of his own personal gain. He was a working class hero.

In 1980, I had my very first visit to NYC two weeks before Lennon was shot. We saw David Bowie in the Elephant Man, went to the Macy's Day Parade and took the IRT #6 to the Upper West Side to stand in front of the Dakota to perhaps catch a legendary glimpse of John and Yoko. Two weeks later, back in Bowling Green, I heard Howard Cosell tell the world that John had been shot and killed mere footsteps from where we had been standing.

Heartbreaking.

I'm now 11 years older than John was when he was assassinated. The work and music he might of created will never be known, but I'm grateful for what he did leave behind. These last 30 years have gone by very quickly but there is hardly a week which passes that I don't think of John Lennon and what he meant to me and to the entire planet.

All you need is love. Indeed.