The Day the Music Died
December 8, 1980.
I was home for the holidays and, since my parents had never in my lifetime dared to bring a real Christmas tree into the house, I had taken it upon myself to do so.
I was driving my dad’s spiffy 1972 El Camino back from a Christmas tree farm somewhere on the outskirts of Fresno. It was, as usual, a gray December with the dreaded Valley (or Tule) fog hugging the ground. With a visibility of about 200 feet it made driving quite challenging, so I was cheered when I turned on the car and I Am the Walrus was playing on the radio. You remember those right? Little things with dials and knobs, plus an array of seemingly arbitrary numbers laid out on a tiny screen with a vertical red bar helping you tune in to the station of your choice?
The Beatles had long been my go-to, number one favorite band of all time (spoiler alert: they still are). I remember, and it may or may not be accurate, my cool bell-bottomed sister telling me when I was about ten or so that I could like either the Beach Boys or the Beatles but not both. It was an easy choice and to this day I feel a faint pang of guilt when a Beach Boy song comes on the radio (old habits die hard) and I sing along to it.
So there I was tooling down Shaw Avenue, radio cranked up, screaming along with I Am the Walrus when what should follow but Strawberry Fields Forever! Man, a Beatles double play in early December! Christmas had indeed come early.
I thought nothing of it until those two songs were followed by Imagine.
Now things were getting weird. Something, I can't exactly describe what, but something crawled up my slowly chilling spine and whispered into my subconscious, “something is wrong, Steven.”
This became soul crushingly clear when the DJ came on after Imagine and spoke the unthinkable:
“Our tribute to John Lennon continues as we get more details of his murder tonight in New York City. A suspect is in custody but there are conflicting reports …”
That’s about all I remember.
I drove home in a daze, dumbfounded, listening to more Beatles music and trying to process what I had just heard. I got home, I think I spoke to my parents but I’m not sure, I brought in the tree and called my best pal and fellow Beatles nut, Bob, and we made plans to meet at a local bar.
I don’t remember driving there but somehow I made it. I don’t even remember the bar. I do remember us sitting at a table, drinking beer … slowly … and trying to piece it all together.
Our Beatles love was a bit obsessive at times. We would regularly challenge each other with bits of trivia – What was the original title of the movie Help!? (Eight Arms to Hold You), which Beatles real first name is James ?(Paul); on what Beatles song do none of them play an instrument? (Eleanor Rigby). And so on. I don’t think we dated much.
We bonded over our love of the Liverpool lads and their incredible catalog of music. We pored over the clues to Paul’s supposed death, we scoured lyrics for hidden meanings, we played the records backward for secret messages. I collected rare LPs (Beatles Christmas Album, anyone?), we tracked down memorabilia. I owned Beatles dolls and the Beatle board game Flip Your Wig. We had almost complete sets of Beatles bubble gum cards. We rented the Hard Day’s Night, Help! and Yellow Submarine movies ad nauseum. And of course we had our favorites. Bob’s was George, mine was John.
John.
He first captivated me with his signature wit and amazing ability to come up with a pithy zinger seemingly at will. He was brash, he was bold, he was uncompromising, and he was as passionate as they come. Was he as talented a musician as Paul? No way. But I was always drawn to his songs just a titch more than Paul’s because they seemed a little messier, a little more frayed at the edges, a little more brittle, a little more dangerous. A Day in the Life remains my favorite pop song of all time. A true Lennon-McCartney collaboration, but it is John’s eerie vocal and sharp lyrics that make that song a masterpiece. It is haunting, witty, scathing, ominous, and beautiful.
So John’s death hit me hard. To say the least. Bob and I discussed how bitterly cruel it was that he was struck down just as he had reappeared in public after a five-year musical hiatus with an album filled with joy, light and hope. Indeed, my second favorite solo John song, Beautiful Boy, is on that LP. A song I loved from the first moment I heard it; and a song that buried itself deep in my soul when I became father to my two beautiful boys. I still can’t listen to it without crying.
So, today, 40 years after John was ripped from this world and our lives, I take a moment to reflect on everything he gave to the world, to his fans, to his bandmates, to his family, to me. The man had – and still has – a tremendous influence on me. He really did change my life. I’m sorry I never got the chance to let him know.
As I do every December 8th, I say a silent goodbye and a heartfelt thank you to a cultural icon, a fearless artist, a staunch advocate for peace, a person not afraid to look foolish fighting for what he believed was right. A person who, in the end, despite – or because of – the unbelievable burdens global fame heaped upon him kept his belief that love is all you need, that fatherhood was the best thing to happen to a man, that the world really could be a better place if we could just imagine all the people living life in peace.
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 be as one