There’s not a lot of Beatlespeak on this blog, so I thought I’d try and bring them into the conversation as I’m sure there a few fans of the Fab Four.
As it is the anniversary of his death, where were you when you found out about it and to what extent did it affect you?
Personally, I was six years away from being born so I can’t say I was affected by it at all. I imagine (pun intended) I was first aware of him and them in about 1993/94 when Britpop was a thing and the Beatles at the BBC albums came out.
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At the end of the seventies I was heavily into The Jam, Blondie and all things punk/new wave. I remember the cover of the NME from the week he died but at that point he was a famous person but a figure very far removed from the stuff I was listening to.
I was fascinated by the BBC’s TOTP tribute from the week after when it got repeated a couple of years ago. Basically Legs & Co doing a dance to ‘Imagine’ around a Xmas Tree in a badly lit studio. And that was largely it. Can you imagine what the reaction would be today?
Was just a normal TOTP and they didn’t have a video. Thought it was for Starting Over though which had gone to nr 1 (soon followed by Imagine).
“There’s not a lot of Beatlespeak on this blog, so I thought I’d try and bring them into the conversation as I’m sure there a few fans of the Fab Four.”
Afterword tsh – wait, what?
I know… this site is pretty much wall-to-wall Skrillex these days.
I was 3 so oddly it didn’t affect me too much. But when I was about 7 I learnt how to use our record player. My parents largely had dreadful records, but I did love ‘With the Beatles’ and ‘Hard Day’s Night’ which my mum had bought as a teenager. I still remember the disappointment when I was told that there wouldn’t be any more records because one of them was dead.
It took another couple of years before I learnt they’d made other records besides those two…
I was halfway through a really bad year, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was living in a bedsit in Muswell hill, where I never saw another tenant for the whole six months I was there.
I was a sales rep for Initial Services, cold-calling businesses all over North London, trying to sell them non-slip water absorbant mats and realising that I was really, really crap at it. In fact, by December I’d more or less admitted defeat and was spending most of my time in greasy spoon cafes, record shops and bookshops around Camden & Kentish Town. I awoke to the news of Lennon’s murder, drove to Camden and spent hours sitting in the car, listening to the radio, completely and utterly miserable. Whatever my state of mind or well being at the time, I would have been very upset by Lennon’s death as the Fabs were a large part of my childhood and youth but at the time it gave me an excuse to be even more miserable, if possible.
Six months later, I walked out of the job and onto the buses, which indirectly led me to the South of France and a life of travel and a much happier state of mind.
Wayfarer, the description of your life back then reminds me of the long forgotten Peter Davison sitcom, ‘Sink or Swim’.
That one passed me by – I was probably feeling too sorry for myself to notice. ‘High Fidelity’ (The book) struck a chord though.
I was born in 1950, so I was 13 when I became a fan. They were so much of my growing up that hearing this on the radio as I woke up was numbing. It was all the more tragic as he had just gone back to recording and there really was the chance that the band might, just might, get back together. I think it was at one of those moments when the Beatles were pretty unfashionable – punk had come along with its stupid year zero approach and we weren’t supposed to like old music – and this event did suddenly seem to make make people reappraise the fabs. I spent the evening with some friends playing records and drinking too much….
I was a massive Beatles fan and living in Liverpool at the time. First had the enormous excitement of the first Lennon album in 5 years, which was something of a disappointment to me when released, but for this to happen so quickly afterwards seemed doubly cruel.
Can still remember my clock radio going off to wake me up and the radio 1 newsreader telling me the news at 730. The DLT breakfast show became something of a tribute. I had an exam in the afternoon but spent the morning listening to Radio 1 and Radio Merseyside instead of revising. Exam didn’t go well. Also recall watching Help! on BBC1 in the evening, again instead of revising. It hit me pretty hard.
Got home on the milk train after going to see Queen at Wembley Arena. We’d missed the midnight train out of Victoria and had a few hours’ kip in a carriage on the platform. (Amazing to think they let you do that then).
As I got in at 6.30am my mum was waiting for me. I thought she’d tell me off for being out all night but she just said “One of your lot’s died”.
I was 14 and just getting more and more into The HJH’s back catalogue. I had a clock radio that went off at 6:30 and got the news then. Then my dad, came and told me. He wasn’t really a fan, being born before WW2, and who was never really a teenager (in the way we think of them), but he was upset about it – more for the senselessness of it than any personal feeling of loss.
Got to school to see my mate Mark Chapman, who definitely didn’t shoot anyone…
I had been staying with my girlfriend in Reading and we woke up to the news, which was pretty depressing.
I was hitch-hiking back to Chester (hitch-hiking – an almost extinct method of travelling today) and it was a journey of lots of shortish rides.
There was only one topic of conversation with each ride and by the time I got my last ride, from the M6 to Chester, which was about the eighth or ninth of the day, I was thoroughly bored with talking about him, as each conversation tended to be much the same as the first one.
I was seven years old. Came downstairs for my Ready Brek to hear Strawberry Fields on the radio and my mum told me what had happened. The Beatles were a big deal in my house and I was really upset, but my mum made me go to school all the same. Somewhere I’ve got a copy of the local newspaper from that day.
I actually remember the day very well – I was only 13 years old and had a morning paper round that went past my gran’s house and she used to make me a cup of tea at 7am or so in the morning. She told me the news, which did not have a great impact on me, but I did rush home to wake my mum up and tell her.
Was working as a teacher but at a Corresponsence school. We were all gobsmacked. Went home and got stoned. Well, ok , I did most days anyway.
I held the shallow view that he was the creative edgy one so it was more of a blow.
I remember glueing the Melbourne Sun headline poster “ Lennon dead”or similar onto a poster board. Bit morbid in hindsight. Wonder where it is now.
My parents were teens in the late 50s and early 60s, so The Fabs were a big deal for them – and subsequently for me and my brother who were both born at the end of the 60s.
My folks talked about The Beatles as though they were sort of extended family They would say that I would get on with John as he had a similar snarky sense of humour to me.
I was 12 when Lennon was killed – heard the news on the radio as I was getting ready for school.
Mt dad was already at work but when he came home that evening he was so deflated – ‘They’ve killed John’ he said. Must have been like losing a mate.
When did he die? Honestly. I remember being shocked and appalled by the story, but as to which anniversary it is, who can say?
1980
I was soon to be three in 1980 and seven years away from my Beatle obsession.
Aged ten, when I learned he got murdered, forty seemed
pretty old. Now, needless to say, it doesn’t.
It still breaks my heart he’s no longer with us. He should have grown old with Yoko.
Hard to tell how much he had left to give musically, but his mind was usually fascinating whenever he shared his thoughts and ideas. Imagine him on Twitter.
Anyway. His music means a lot to me. I go through different phases with different artists and groups. But The Beatles are a phase that’s lasted for thirty years.
They came into my life when I needed them and they still make my life brighter. The power of their music still amazes me. Beautiful.
Thanks, @Neela, sort of explains my black hole. 1980 December was my first house job post qualification and thus the fact I even registered it somewhere showed it to have had impact.I remember being upset and astonished, albeit without the underpinning and overwriting of when or where I was. Sidcup, in a grotty hospital flat was the answer.
My memory is cloudy but I think the night before I had been to see Dire Straits (before they were massive). I remember my fiancé at the time was very upset and came round to my house. I played working class hero over and over – it is still the song I most associate with him. Later Happy xmas war is over took on a far more poignant reminder of the person we had lost as much as the musician.
Two years ago we took our then 16 year old daughter to Strawberry Fields in Central Park and there was a group of people singing Lennon songs that emphasised exactly what he still means to a lot of people.
Serendipitously, without having realised the relevance of the date, I bought a book, The John Lennon Letters, in Fopp, Byres Road, Glasgow this morning as part of my brother’s crimbo gift. I also bought a Paul McCartney biography by Philip Norman.
Back in 1980, I heard the news in the morning and was quite shocked. I was on holiday from work. I popped into my local for a beer at lunchtime. There were only a couple of customers in the bar. One of these was a guy whose name I didn’t know. However, we had a nodding acquaintance in the pub as we had a few mutual friends, mostly musicians. I always thought he looked like Lol Creme. Anyway, he was standing at the bar and I took a seat at the bar a couple of feet away and ordered a beer. It soon became apparent to me that he was somewhat distressed. I asked him if he was OK. He said ‘haven’t you heard? John Lennon is dead’. I confirmed that I had heard earlier that day and that it was pretty shocking. We got chatting and he explained that he was a massive fan of JL. It transpired that he had gone to work that morning not having heard the news. His place of work was one where workmates were merciless with each other when it came to banter and so, when they realised that he was still unaware, his chums made the most of letting him know what had happened. So shocked was he that he was sent to the works nurse who decided that he was not fit for work. A couple of hours later he and I are sharing John Lennon and Beatles stories and realising that we were both big music fans. We remain great friends to this day and still meet at various gigs. He still looks like Lol Creme (80’s style).
Today, I flew into Liverpool John Lennon Airport from Spain, with the family. Explained to the kids the significance of the date. Thirty seven years ago I was doing a paper round in south Manchester, reading the news headlines. Lennon died on December 8th, but because of the time, and time difference, the story didn’t really make the headlines of the UK papers until the 10th.On the morning of the 9th, I remember waking up, in the freezing dark, to the sombre tones of DLT.
When Lennon died I was a teen YOPS trainee working for a shed and fencing company.
I remember the news being read over the radio on my cheapie walk man during my daily trudge to work.
Being in a Cockney Rejects, Sham69 phase it meant nothing to me but I nearly cried later that day.
Not because the news hit me, but because the Wellingtons I was made to wear while assembling a huge shed in a muddy farmers field made my feet almost fall off from the cold.
The Beatles have been a part of my life since the mid 80s (when I finally grew up) but I never worked outdoors after that godawful scheme.
I was 14 and considering a divorce from my group of friends. It would be a risky manoeuvre and would doubtless lead to a couple of years of bullying, which it duly did.
There were three guys in the class that I’d only met the year before who seemed relaxed, clever and funny. Yet I was in the crap rebellious group, and I had known them for four years. In that world, the latest craze was sniffing glue in graveyards with the tough actually-rebellious local kids who had entered into truancy as a lifestyle choice some years earlier. I hadn’t moved across just yet – but when one of them (the tallest one) wouldn’t respond to my morning banter with anything like the usual vim, I asked someone else what was wrong with him – he was very pale and his eyes fixed in a middle-distance stare. One of the other kids said “John Lennon died”. I immediately went over and talked about it to him, almost offering condolences. Shortly after, we bonded over other music – Remain in Light an early one. He’s still my best mate now.
David Byrne -> Influence on Paul McCartney on McCartney 2 -> Coming Up -> John Lennon is scared out of retirement -> John Lennon’s increased public profile -> Mark David Chapman.
Sorry, but I think David Byrne killed John lennon.
What a mean spirited post.
He was excellent in Twin Peaks.
I remember a teacher telling me the news as I was standing in a queue about to do a mock O level paper (Geography I think).
As the 5th form music Nerd people asked what I thought.
I said nothing.
I was on tour with a band in NZ. We were waiting for the limo* to take us to the venue and the news came on the TV. It was just unbelievable, shocking, pointless. We dedicated She’s A Woman to Yoko and I rather awkwardly segued the Imagine intro into another song
*aka Toyota Hiace
I was just turned 11, but I don’t think I really knew who he was. I was aware he had a song in the charts and I was aware of The Beatles, as we had one of their singles (I Want To Hold Your Hand) in my parents’ modest pile of records. I knew Paul McCartney was a Beatle, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t aware Lennon was. I was in the kitchen, just getting my breakfast when my dad popped back in from work, which he didn’t really do, but he was driving a lorry somewhere and came back to collect his sandwiches my mum had made. It was then that my dad told my mum and I guessed by how shocked they were that this was a big thing, but I guessed it wasn’t as bad as when Elvis died cos my dad wasn’t crying.
A year or so later, after taking more of an interest in the records in the house and after finding the Red album at my Nan’s, in amongst all the easy listening and classical (to this day I can’t imagine how it ended up in her house, as she hated pop music), a full on Beatles obsession commenced, which got me quite ridiculed at school for being different. Oh how I remembered that 10 years later when the same lads were into Oasis and buying their Beatles records. But 1982-1984 were good years to be looking backwards for decent music (I also got into Dylan and all sorts of 50s-60s music at that time), cos the stuff in the charts was pretty dire. In fact, until Stephen Duffy, The Dream Academy and Pet Shop Boys came along and dragged me back into 1985 the only current band I liked was Frankie.
I had actually got over the obsession part of Beatles fandom a few years later when fate took me to live in Liverpool for 6 years, where I ended up in a lengthy relationship with a lass that went to Quarrybank and lived round the corner from Mendips. If you’d have told me that was going to happen when I was 13 I would have wet myself.
I was fourteen at the time and a big Beatles fan by then. These days not so much. Bummer and all,but it’s just so long ago now to hold any meaning for me.
I’d have been 7 but I remember it. I remember my folks being very upset and explaining that they’d “grown up with his music” (I wasn’t sure what that meant but I understood later in life). I’d never seen a Beatle before so I remember being quite grabbed by the Beatles footage on TV, and I’d heard very little of their music before then. I have a memory of watching ‘Help’ – was it shown that night? I’d shown enough of an interest that I’m pretty sure I was bought the Mfp Beatles ‘Rock and Roll Music Vol.1’ tape for Xmas (a very uneven collection of early stuff with none of the singles) which I nevertheless played over and over, and later got Vol.2 for my birthday which has all sorts of mad stuff like Helter Skelter and Hey Bulldog on it – heady stuff for an 8 year old and I think probably set the tone for my tastes to this day.
What I can remember from that night was that the BBC or ITV showed a performance of John singing Imagine in front of a studio audience from maybe 1975 and there front row in full view was his killer. I remember jumping up and saying look! Its him! In the front row! I was beside myself with this information but in those days unless you witnessed it how could you prove it? Same as the Coconuts showing us their snatch on the tube circa 1982 which I know I have on VHS video somewhere in my vault at my brothers house in Arbroath.
I had booked the morning of the 9th off work, since I had correctly anticipated that the previous evening’s dinner to celebrate my 23rd birthday with – NAME DROP KLAXON! – Eno’s sister would culminate in our spending our first night together. (“How fast can you get those boots off?” she asked. Very fast indeed 😀 )
She went off to work in Colchester, and I wandered into Ipswich, calling in to Parrot Records for a browse. There were no other customers, and the staff were all gathered behind the counter, speaking in hushed tones. It became clear that someone famous had died, but several minutes of ear-wigging didn’t reveal who.
I had to ask in the end. It rather took the gloss off my day.
Doing the math(s) so you don’t have to:
Yes, I’m 60 now. How did that happen?
Great story, Nigel, and happy birthday!
Thank you, Martin! I had a lovely day.
By some striking coincidence, Eno’s new one, with Tom Rogerson, was released yesterday! I really like the bits I’ve heard.
There are no coincidences 😉
Eno’s sister!
Did you try any….oblique strategies?
Actually I kind of did, @sniffity
I had known Arlette by sight for some while – she was the rather younger girl who used to smile shyly at me on her way to (another) school, while I was hanging around waiting for Julia, who was on her way to the one we attended.. Nothing came of it at the time, because Julia.
I knew Arlette’s other brother, Roger, and began hanging out with him a few years later, to get to her. Things went swimmingly for a while, but foundered on the fact that Arlette was engaged to someone else.
Fast forward a year or two, and she was no longer engaged. The rest is very pleasant history, until the point when it was less so.
(Thirty-seven years on from JL’s passing, I am still in touch with both Julia and Arlette.)
I was at college at Kingston Polytechnic. Heard at lunchtime in the Union bar. As I was into punk & new wave I made a big point of stating that it meant nothing to me, the old farts dead, so what. Wasn’t popular that day…..and for a lot longer it has to be said!
I arrived late to school for the first lesson, A level English. Walked into the room to be greeted with near-silence and everyone looking as miserable as sin (Cyn?). I said something typically witty like “Hey, I know I’m late but it can’t be that bad”. The teacher said “Haven’t you heard?” and then told me the news. I think it was too unbelievable for me to register any immediate sense of grief, but I was aware of how big a fan a female friend in that English group was, and she was visibly very upset. What makes the memory acutely poignant was that having both gone to the same poly for our degree and becoming the very closest of friends, Jayne went to live and work in Scotland and was tragically drowned whilst swimming outdoors, incredibly 23 years ago. So John and Jayne remain very much entwined in my well of piquant remembrance.
Was the news broken in the morning?
I knew nothing about it until the evening – then again I was 10 and had no real idea who John Lennon was (and only a very vague grasp of who The Beatles were).
That evening I was in the school nativity play, and the TV that was wheeled into one of the classrooms to entertain us whilst waiting to go on stage (stage? a stack of wooden pallets with a tablecloth over it) was showing wall to wall John Lennon, music and reactions.
One of the teachers explained who he, and The Beatles were, and I think I understood why it might be important.
It was another 2 years before I discovered The Beatles via the Movie Medley single. And even then after listening and reading as much Beatle-y stuff as I could, I still never understood the mass out-pouring of grief for a singer and guitarist from Liverpool.
Did his assassination somehow raise him to the level of a Saint?
The thing with Lennon was that he put himself out there as a counter-cultural figure in the tail end of the ’60s and the early ’70s. He joined causes and rode on bandwagons, provoked the news media and complained when they mocked him, then alternately sucked up to and provoked them again. He was hero-worshipped, in a rather unthinking way, by longhairs and unsophisticated leftists throughout the world.
He wasn’t really up to the job of revolutionary kingpin. He got himself into a bit of a mess with drink, drugs and obnoxious behaviour and then pulled down the shutters and effectively retired for a few years.
His sudden death, just as he was emerging from seclusion and resurrecting his career, raised him straight back to hero status from being almost a forgotten man. His many past sins were forgotten and for a while he was indeed revered like a saint in certain quarters.
I had been exiled to one of the storerooms at work and was able to listen to the radio all day. The day before I had been on a high because Andy Peebles announced his scoop of getting an interview with Lennon.
Next morning I was brought a cup of tea in bed by my brother as usual. He didn’t say anything. So when the 7.30 news came on during the DLT Breakfast Show that was the first I heard it. I woke up and jumped out of bed hoping I’d misheard it. I hadn’t. I stood there stunned. Lennon was my favourite Fab. It had all been going so well since the announcement of his re-emergence. There was a promise of live gigs. I was going to get to see him live.
I was aware I was shivering I jumped back into bed and continued to shiver. I realise now I had gone into shock. Not severe but the shivering was a reaction. I had a heater on in the room.
I went to work and didn’t really talk to anybody all day. I had the radio on and of course it was non -stop Lennon tribute. Andy Peebles’s team were able to produce some extracts from the interview and get them on the air. I had a video recorder so was able to tape the tribute programmes on tv later. BBC of course featured Gambaccini, ITV with Tony Wilson.
It was Thursday when the music papers came out. My low opinion of those writers continued when some had to write a tribute but couldn’t resist saying that “they always preferred the Stones” something which sadly was repeated on the internet forums when George died. Why do people have to be so disrespectful so they can look cool?
My consolation is that almost 15 years to the day earlier on 10 December 1965 I had seen them at Hammersmith Odeon. I thank my dad that he was brave enough to take a six year old to a pop concert.
I was working at the Hafod Arms hotel in Devil’s Bridge, Dyfed (the one featured in the Welsh TV crime series “Y Gwyll” (Hinterland) not so long ago.
The hotel was closed for the winter at the time, as it usually was, and just myself, the former receptionist (whose name I’ve completely forgotten) and Ray the barman (the public bar remained open) were there. I was living about a mile up the road and had been working in the tourist café there throughout the season. I was employed to do some painting around the kitchen and back-of-house areas during the off-season. I arrived about 9:30 or so on December 9th having not heard the news yet. It was bitterly cold in the unheated back-of-house area, as usual, that morning.
At about 10:30 the ex-receptionist (who was staying there as a sort of caretaker) came back to where I was working and excitedly told me all about it.
I was not a great Lennon fan really, and his recently-released single “(Just Like) Starting Over” and the “Double Fantasy” album had been a bit disappointing, I thought, after all the hype beforehand about him coming out of retirement. Sort of OK but not all that, was the consensus among us ex-hippie bumpkin types.
Nonetheless, his death and the manner in which it occurred in particular, was an enormous shock.
I somehow managed to avoid the news in the morning – I used to drive to work and was probably blasting out Dire Straits. But I’ve absolutely no idea why I heard nothing at work. I had a lunch date with a literary agent and we went all the way through lunch without her mentioning it. It was only when we were leaving the restaurant that I spotted the front page of the Evening Standard. I rounded on the agent and she said, I didn’t think it was very interesting, or words to that effect. Jeez…I drove home that evening listening to the radio with tears streaming down my face.
I think I too must have got the news from an Evening Standard headline and remember being profoundly shocked. I was with a Swedish friend and I remember taking a bus with her and talking to fellow passengers who were also in a state of shock.
She was baffled by it all. “You are all behaving as though you have just lost a close family member.” Which actually summed it up rather well.
I am sure that there were tears shed in Stockholm that day too, but obviously Beatlemania had not reached the farms of Dalsland where she had grown up.
I remember seeing ‘Help’ that night on the BBC. I also remember my junior school headmaster ( a lovely young Welsh guy) gave a eulogy in the school assembly. A year earlier, the previous headmaster ( a rather stern old war veteran) had given a eulogy after the murder of Lord Mountbatten. I can appreciate now that a generational change was going on among the adults teaching me.
I don’t remember it, to be honest. My parents were both born in the late 1940s, so were absolutely the right age to be Beatles fans, but I don’t remember them making a big deal of it. The funny thing is, I have a vivid memory of being in a Saltash newsagent and seeing a newspaper headline about Bob Marley’s death, only six months or so later. I’ve often wondered since if Marley would really have been front page news, and perhaps I’ve conflated the two in my mind – can anybody recall what the reaction to Bob’s passing was like at the time?