I was 14 at the time. Muizenberg. South Africa. With my parents on our annual family vacation. I had no idea what death was, how it worked, its consequences. And - its finality.
It was actually December 9th when I found out --- about John Lennon's death. Gunned down outside his brownstone in New York City at 10:49pm (New York Time) on the 8th - 5:49am on Dec 9th (Cape Town time). I was at the corner store, getting a chocolate bar, when I saw the headline. It stopped me. It seemed like time froze - and in what seemed like an eternity, this 14 year-old naive and innocent, John Sacke realized the world had lost a musical icon - John Lennon.
Murdered by Mark David Chapman. A lunatic. A deranged security guard from Hawaii, he had been a fan of the Beatles and would later claim he had been enraged by Lennon's now infamous 1966 remark about the group being "more popular than Jesus." You'd gun down a guy for that?
Some say John's last words were, "I'm shot". Other reliable sources they were "Yes", in response to the officers' question, "Are you John Lennon". Whatever they were, the tragedy remains.
For the most part, the Beatles were before my time. I was in diapers when they released what is perhaps the greatest album of all time, "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" . Released in May 1967, it would go on to spend 15 weeks as the Top Album in the United States - a record at that time.
I never really internalized John Lennon's death until about 25 years ago - when acts of terror and hate really began to penetrate the mainstream. And sadly today, heinous acts of terror are an almost daily occurrence somewhere in the world. The acts are too numerous to mention, and with each one, the world becomes a little, no, make that a lot darker.
And there is no question at all, that the Beatles are as relevant today as they have ever been. According to Forbes Magazine the Beatles' songs were streamed more than 1.5 billion times last year - and that almost half of the people streaming them, were under 30. Wow! Can you imagine being highly relevant for 50 years and counting? What a musical force, indeed.
I listen to John and the Beatles iconoclastic musical masterpieces all the time and so thankful for it. It's music I never tire of. Never seems to go stale - and the more I listen, the more I appreciate its brilliance --
Even during this pandemic, there are memorial ceremonies being held. At Strawberry Fields in New York. Outside the Capitol Records Building on Vine Street in Los Angeles - and in front of Lennon's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star. There is also a memorial being held inside this little heart of John Sacke.
"You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one"
