John Lennon: 1940-1980

I can't believe that today is the 25th anniversary of Lennon's death.

The picture is from the Virgin Megastore in London, commemorating the anniversary.

I was in high school here in New York when he was shot. It was a month after my 16th birthday, his latest album Double Fantasy had come out with that cover of him and Yoko Ono had just come out, and the airwaves were filled with his latest single. It seemed as if there was going to be a renaissance of his music. If I remember correctly, he hadn't put an album out for awhile, perferring to stay home and spend time with his son Sean.

I didn't know anything about the lost years, or his leaving Yoko for another woman briefly. I was more interested during that time in Abba, disco, and other pop stars. Lennon and the Beatles seemed old to me.

It was in homeroom when we heard that he'd died. I remember sitting in the classroom with my boyfriend at the time, and feeling just inexplicably sad. Chris kissed me on the cheek as we sat there, it was the closest I'd ever felt to him. Even though the Beatles broke up when I was six, it seemed as if they had always been a part of my life. They came to America a month before I was born in 1964. Everyone used to talk about whether or not there would ever be a Beatles reunion. I used to watch the Saturday afternoon cartoon, I listened to the Beatles compilation albums. Anyone have the Beatles Love Songs?

It was the first rock star that I can remember dying, apart from Elvis, and Elvis' death had a different sadness to it. More the road less traveled kind of thing. It sort of felt like what it must have been like for an earlier generation when the Big Bopper and Richie Valens died in that plane crash. It was sad and inexplicable that someone would just shoot him for no apparent reason. I'd never even heard of the Dakota before Lennon was killed (I led a pretty sheltered life when I was younger).

Now everyone is weighing in on what may or may not have been Lennon's legacy.

The Independent takes a more standard, positive look at Lennon's life. The UK newspaper gathers a few of Lennon's celebrity friends to tell anecdotes of their times with John. Sir Elton John, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carly Simon, David Geffen, and others paint a cheeky, fun-loving portrait of the man.

Geoff Edgers at the Boston Globe laments the commodification of Lennon, writing:
"I miss the human soap opera that Lennon lived, and seemed to thrive on. He was a master manipulator of the press, staging bed-ins as his agit-rock adaptation of the 1960s ''be-in." Rather than make nice, he attacked other musicians. He called Mick Jagger "a joke" and slammed McCartney, his onetime musical brother, in song and print. [In] "How Do You Sleep," [he] taunted Paul with lines like ''The only thing you did was yesterday." Did Tupac ever make Notorious B.I.G. feel so small?"

Where were you when you heard John Lennon had died? What's your favorite John Lennon song?