The Day the Music Died

Purists will no doubt protest at my use of that quote to talk about John Lennon. I know that the song was written about Buddy Holly, but I do seriously think that the quote is just as applicable to Lennon as it does Holly. For those of you that don't realise, it's 29 years to the day that John Lennon was shot. A sad day for music & humanity in general I think. I remember well what I was doing when it happened. Me & a Fire Brigade buddy, Bernie, were in deepest darkest Otara going about our lawful business in the way of secondary employment namely debt recovery & repossession. I forget exactly what it was that we were chasing. Either bedroom furniture or carpet springs to mind. Bernie & me used to work together evenings for things like that & cars, that need two people to take the stuff.

Anyway, there we were, surrounded by hostile natives, & trust me, NOTHING can be as hostile as Pacific Islanders when you are taking stuff out of their house that they haven't paid for. So Bernie had just taken something out to the wagon, where we had left the radio on. I'll never forget the look on his face when he came back in. He leaned against the hall wall & very softly said to me, "Someones just shot John Lennon." I think my reply mentioned the act of fornication, but I'm not sure. We stopped what we were doing for a few minutes & talked, not necessarily about lennon, but just to ground ourselves out & provide some mutual reassurance. Bernie wandered off outside again with something else that we had recovered leaving me alone with the family. One of the younger ones wandered past me & to make conversation & said, "John Lennons been shot." He looked at me all strange & said, "Who?"

That gave me pause for thought, & I gradually came to the realisation that I was part of a bygone era. Oh, at that stage most of the young ones knew of Paul Mc Cartney. It was after all, the heyday of Wings, but John Lennon ? The Beatles? Sorry, who are they ? I was there, musically speaking. At the time, music was stagnating somewhat, so it was utterly mindblowing when the Beatles started being played. Part of their success was the fact that they appealed to a broad spectrum of listeners. Grannies were quite happy to sit & rock to their music along with teenagers.

After they split & went their own ways, I must admit that I much preferred the harsher sound of Lennon. Goody Twoshoes Mc Cartney still appealed across the board. Yeah, I do enjoy the music of Wings, but Lennon singing "Stand By Me," still puts shivers in my spine & tears in my eyes. I missed a lot of the music of the early 70's. I was busy trying to build a career & a family. (Cue tears & violins) In my dotage, I seem to have grown out of the mid to late 60's music. In later years, I have developed a fondness for the more urgent sounds of bands like Led Zeppelin & others that I missed first time round. I do own Beatles albums. One of the most prized of my albums is a mint copy of The Beatles "White" album. I haven't played it it yet, & I may never do so. Its worth far too much money. I also have a fair collection of their other works as well that I very rarely play. They just don't have the substance that I need any more. They didn't last all that long anyway. The archetypical bad boys of rock, The Rolling Stones, are still basically doing it, with more or less still the original line up, only missing one of the original lineup. OK, so the packaging is showing a lot of wear, but they can still turn out a damn good concert. Surely far more successful than the Beatles ever were.

My taste in music is fairly variable, depending on my mood of the day, but I can still listen to Lennon no matter what. Sit down & listen to "Working Class Hero" sometime. I mean sit down & REALLY listen to it. We miss you John..