On A Cold December Evening
By Mitch Berg
It was seventh-hour “Living Sports” class, the end of a long winter day in the middle of my senior year of high school. We were doing ice skating. Lesa MacEwan was showing me how to skate…well, I already knew how, more or less, but if you had a chance to have Lesa MacEwan tow you around the ice by the hand, ethics came in a distant second.
But I digress.
The radio was playing on the house speakers, tuned to KFYR in Bismark (at the time a Top40 AM station – a virtually forgotten specimen these days). “Hungry Heart” by Springsteen played.
And ended.
And the jock came on after the song and said that John Lennon had been shot and killed.
I’d never been much of a Lennon fan. And I never became one; genius doesn’t necessarily imply likeability. And I always found Double Fantasy a completely awful album; Lennon’s death didn’t make it any better.
But I could see why, for so many people not much older than I, December 8 1980 was the day the music died.
December 9th, 2006 at 9:06 am
I was derided on another blog for saying the Lennon got killed because he was a fool. Some people were seriously pissed at me. My point? When you make yourself a pre-eminent anti-war activist, a major public figure you should know better than to go strolling around Central Park without some security.
But John was bigger than Jesus.
December 9th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I agree Kermit. Never thought about it in great detail, but it may well be that Lennons murder may have been the ‘straw that broke the camels back’ in regards to celebrities being able to have a private and a public life.
Much like Mitch, I didn’t have much use for Lennon post Beatles work musically and politically. The way that he and Yoko traded on the Beatles Mega-stardom to advance their ‘peace agenda’ may well have been another tipping point. Prior to that did anyone take the political and policy opinions of any pop star seriously?
December 9th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
kermit said,
“When you make yourself a pre-eminent anti-war activist, a major public figure you should know better than to go strolling around Central Park without some security”
Yes. Of course. When preaching a doctrine of peace, it’s always a good idea to have security with you.
What a world.
December 9th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Tell it to Gandhi, Doug.