You May Say I'm a Dreamer, But I'm Not the Only One

Thursday. It has been a typical Thursday so far. I'm running the website upload and so far so good. I don't know what the weather's like in your part of the world, but here it is FREEZING! It has been below zero the past couple of days with snow to match. No, thank you. I am definitely a "summer" person. The good news is that we should be back up into the 50's by the weekend; so working those long shifts at the tree lot won't be near as bad.

I listened to a collection of John Lennon tunes on the drive in to work this morning. In case you didn't hear on the radio, today marks the 25th anniversary of his untimely death. This day hits me particularly hard. I have been a Beatles fan since I was, oh, about 11 years old. Sure, I listened to music before then, but the Beatles were the first band I really connected with, in fact probably to the point of obsession. By the time I was in about 7th grade I had read probably every book the local library carried on the Beatles, including the controversial Goldman biography. I could list every ”Paul is Dead” clue, name the band Ringo originally played drums for, and I knew the relevancy of Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe, Pete Shotten, Brian Epstein and George Martin in Beatles history. My junior high friends did not fail to point out the apparent conflict of interest of me listening to, say, The Misfits and Dead Kennedys while still maintaining allegiance to the fab four. Eventually my obsession subsided and made way for other fanatical devotions, but I have always remained a fan. Heck, I named my daughter Abbey Road. What does that say?

Anyway, on this day John Lennon died from four gunshot wounds administered by a fan whom Lennon signed an autograph for just a few hours earlier. Mark David Chapman gave two reasons why he conducted pre-meditated murder on Mr. Lennon: First, since he considered himself a "nobody" he wanted to become "somebody." Chapman later admitted that his plan backfired since he actually became somebody everyone hated, instead of a nobody everybody ignored. To this day, Chapman has to be held out of the general prison population for his own safety. Even hardened criminals find his act despicable.

The second reason Chapman gave for murdering John Lennon was because of the alleged anti-religion lyrics in Imagine. Like many deluded souls with extremely low self-esteem, Chapman turned to religious extremism to find his identity. Like other extremists, Chapman believed he would be viewed as a hero for what he planned to do (please see above for actual popular reaction). While it is true, Lennon sang "imagine there's no Heaven," Chapman failed to hear another important line of the song "nothing to kill or die for." The message in Imagine is not anti-religion. The message Lennon tried to convey is that if you reduce the whole world's population to its least common denominator, we are all the same. We are all humans. Everything else such as religion, nationalities, class, etc., is just an abstract concept that we have created ourselves and has been distorted to enforce divisiveness and oppression. If you look past all of these things we are all the same, a "brotherhood of man" as Lennon put it. Recognition of this fact is the cornerstone to building peace and understanding between all peoples. Chapman (and many others) failed to listen past the first line of the song to hear the whole message. In his confusion, he killed the messenger without fully understanding the message. In bitter irony, Lennon died from the very thing he had warned us about.

No, John Lennon was not a perfect man. Yes, he had a history of substance abuse and he engaged in extra-marital affairs. However, he was a vessel of a message that is as relevant today as it was 25 years ago. Mr. Lennon, I am deeply saddened by your death, but today I will rejoice that you had lived. Thank you, sir.