John

He was not my favorite Beatle.  Initially it was Paul.  (He was everybody's favorite then.)  Being a fickle 13-year-old, I claimed George as my favorite once I heard Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret?  That song allowed me to create an entire fantasy world involving an imaginary British transplant named Nigel who fell head over heels in love with my 13-year-old self.  Ah, Beatlemania!  How you fit so timely into my sexual awakening!

And then there was a period in my mid-teens (pre-Sgt. Pepper) when I strayed from the general fanaticism over The Beatles.  When I returned, during those heady late-60s days, it was John who inspired and intrigued me.  (And to those of you who have insisted on dissing Yoko, get over it.  He loved her, you know.)

And then the band broke up, breaking a lot of hearts in the process.  I remember well the freaked-out mood of the Paul Is Dead mania, and I recall following their individual careers as well as I could in those post-Beatle years.  John recorded Imagine in 1971, and it remains, in my mind, one of the most evocative songs I have ever heard.  (I can still feel my anger rising when I recall how Clear Channel wanted to ban the playing of Imagine immediately following the 9/11 tragedies.)  In 1974, #9 Dream moved me in a very deep way.  But it was the Double Fantasy album that really captured my attention in 1980.

And then, with the Double Fantasy soundtrack playing in the background, he was gone.  For some of us, that horrible injustice wounded us in a profound way.  If the most peace-loving human being we knew could be taken down by an assassin's bullet, what hope was there for the world?  A sorrow and a cynicism was born that day, and I don't think anything has come close to dispelling it.  It has become the way we live.

I do not remember the exact date, but a NYC radio station (WNEW, 102.7) sponsored a moment of silence shortly after John's death.  I will never forget sitting in the living room of the house that I lived in at the time and watching a snow squall rise up out of nowhere outside my window.  And as suddenly as it appeared, it stopped.  It was hard not to believe that John had something to do with that.

A friend posted a meme about John today.  In honor of him and with deep love to those of us who believed in him, I share it with you here.