BREAKING: John Lennon is DEAD to me

Has Jodie Foster commented?

Too bad it isn't Sean.

Good.

No loss.

Why didn't he take his asshole, no talent wife with him?

So is Darby Crash

And yet Keanu Reeves still walks among us

"Let It Be"

I still remember hearing breaking news during the WNBC 11:00 news. The first report came through that he had been shot. Johnny Carson aired after the news and they broke in to announce his death. It was very jolting the way that it evolved news-wise back in 1980.

I've been playing his songs this evening. RIP John.

I heard it from Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football. This isn't the entire clip, as if I recall correctly he had initially announced that Lennon was shot and taken to the hospital - then the news was updated that he died.

John's Aunt Mimi also heard it on the news. Yoko didn't bother to call her.

This is a very clear memory - we didn’t hear the news until the next morning. I was in HS and my mother told me when she woke me up. At that point The Beatles were just old music to me, so I was rather indifferent, but during breakfast I realized my mother was deeply upset.

At the time it really surprised me. I didn’t connect she was the same age as they all were; and I later learned she was a big fan. My father hated The Beatles, so she had never played their music as I was growing up.

He sho was ugly!

This was devastating

I was 9 and although I knew and liked the Beatles (my dad was a fan and had several albums; my favorite was Revolver), our teachers at school were far more upset than we kids were. Devasted, actually. It's weird when you're 9 to see your teacher's face and know she'd just been crying and was struggling to keep her composure in front of us. That's what I remember most about John Lennon's death: the reactions of the adults around me.

Only in America..

On his iPod.

Yep. Still remember the moment when I found out. If you didn't grow up in the sixties you can't know what it meant. I hadn't listened to the news the night before or the next morning. I was walking to work in SF when I saw the headline on a newspaper. I just stood there in shock, gaping. A woman walking by stopped and said, "I know." She understood the shock. I was a kid in the early sixties but my older sister was a teenager and I remember she had our bedroom walls covered with Beatles pics. Grew up with the music.

mark david chapman was a patsy, the fbi ordered lennon's death.

Not true, R19.

Chapman was no patsy. He was upset his sister Tracy was having a tough time landing a recording contract so he took matters into his own hands.

Here's a movie that never needed to make and Jared Leto got fat for.

Chapman went to New York City in late October 1980 intending to kill Lennon but left to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend Dana Reeves in Atlanta before returning in November. While in New York City, Chapman was inspired by the film Ordinary People to stop his plans.

I remember when MTV became huge, so many DJs and rock critics used Lennon's death as an example of its limited video selection pre-1980s. They asked what would MTV have played after the announcement of his death.

They were very much against the shift towards video and away from radio. Of course when you launch your new channel with a video called Video Killed the Radio Star, I suppose they fired the first shot (no pun intended.)

Now reality tv killed the MTV

He was a schizophrenic.

Chapman had also been influenced by Anthony Fawcett's John Lennon: One Day at a Time about Lennon's lifestyle in New York. According to Gloria, "He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions." Chapman later said: "He told us to imagine no possessions and there he was, with millions of dollars and yachts and farms and country estates, laughing at people like me who had believed the lies and bought the records and built a big part of their lives around his music."[2] He also recalled having listened to Lennon's solo albums in the weeks before the murder:[16]

I would listen to this music and I would get angry at him, for saying [in the song "God"] that he didn't believe in God, that he just believed in him and Yoko, and that he didn't believe in the Beatles. This was another thing that angered me, even though this record had been done at least ten years previously. I just wanted to scream out loud, "Who does he think he is, saying these things about God and heaven and the Beatles?" Saying that he doesn't believe in Jesus and things like that. At that point, my mind was going through a total blackness of anger and rage. So I brought the Lennon book home, into this The Catcher in the Rye milieu where my mindset is Holden Caulfield and anti-phoniness.[17]

Chapman's planning has been described as "muddled."[18] Over the years, Chapman has both supported and denied whether he felt justified by his spiritual beliefs at the time or had the intention of acquiring notoriety.[1] The only time he made a public statement before his sentencing — and for several years afterward — was during a brief psychotic episode in which he was convinced that the meaning of his actions was to promote The Catcher in the Rye, which amounted to a single letter mailed to The New York Times asking the public to read the novel

My dad regularly serviced the elevator and John Lennon's building and met him several times in passing.

[quote]Chapman went to New York City in late October 1980 intending to kill Lennon but left to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend Dana Reeves in Atlanta before returning in November.

I wonder if her husband, Christopher Reeves, had any clue. By this point Superman 2 was released and you'd think his experience playing a Daily Planet reporter may have clued him in.

Geez. John was kind of gruff with this guy, but weirdly invited him into his home.

This was so shocking when it happened. I Remember it. And that was before internet, social media, etc. Now we have the ability to find out where celebrities live, and even when they're out of town They help us through posts on instagram or Facebook, or whatever. It has become even more dangerous than it was back then.

Thankfully more celebrities haven't been shot like that.

It was because the right accused him of glorifying communism. Duh. There will be more shot in the years to come.

[quote]Thankfully more celebrities haven't been shot like that.

Rebecca Schaeffer (1989; killed by a stalker) would beg to differ.

[quote]While in New York City, Chapman was inspired by the film Ordinary People to stop his plans.

I hadn't heard this before, R22.

[quote]“Well, I saw a movie,” he said. “I can’t remember the title of it, it was an important movie” — he has identified the movie as “Ordinary People” in the past — “and I came out of the movie theater and called my wife and for the first time, I told her,” he said. “I told her what I was going to do, and I was crying. And I said I thought about life and thought about my grandmother, and I told her, I said: ‘Your love has saved me. I’m coming home.’ And she said, ‘Just come home. Please, come home.’ ”

[quote]“So at that point, I had abandoned all of the plans and was going to throw the gun in the river and that type of thing and come back and everything was going to be O.K. Of course, that didn’t happen.”