Gimme Some Truth - 40 years after John Lennon was shot on a New York street

I couldn't let the day pass without writing a post on John Lennon. He was shot and killed outside The Dakota building in New York on 8th December 1980. 

His murderer wanted to go down in history as the Man Who Shot John Lennon. Well, I won't name him. It was a cruel and selfish act, and made so very easily possible by the stupidly lax American attitude to carrying guns. This is what you get when almost anyone can have retail access to a lethal weapon. Mind you, I don't know why I bother to complain. Nothing will ever change over there. If I ever travel to the States, I shall walk around in fear of casual assassination, of being a collateral casualty in some shoot-out. It seems that no particular reason is required to shoot a person, although people - like John Lennon - who become 'public property' are obviously prime targets. So it will help to go there as a nonentity. And not stay for too long.

John Lennon was twelve years older than me, and would now have been aged eighty. I can't help thinking he would still be campaigning against something. He was very quick to see the absurdities and dishonesties of life, and to pounce on the attitudes and lies that did harm. He would have become an acidic old guru, unassailable, a thorn in the side of all politicians of whatever colour. Musically he would have outlasted and outshone all the other Beatles, and would have stood above Bowie and Dylan. Most importantly, he would still have Yoko Ono as his fount of inspiration. 

I do not mean to be as worshipful as I sound. Back in the 1960s and 1970s I thought John Lennon was rude and irritating. I couldn't relate to his 'Working Class Hero' image, however ironic the autobiographical lyrics in the song of that title (never think it's a blithe anthem that hails the Noble Proletariat). And the in-your-face nudity was off-putting. Nor did I cry when he died, though I was immediately sad for Yoko and little boy Sean, and felt that part of my growing-up background had been deleted forever. 

But I now see more. 

In 1980 John Lennon was just emerging from a voluntary five-year break from the music machine. And from being the global celebrity. Yoko had given birth to their son, and John was determined to put family life first. In any case, the world had moved on. The revolution had petered out. Musically speaking, Glam Rock, Disco, Punk and New Wave had taken over from the primal screams, the love songs to Yoko, and the peace chants characteristic of his output in the early 1970s. In fact, when John and Yoko returned to the recording studio in 1980 - with Geffen Records, not Apple - their new album Double Fantasy, though it was well produced, and included some memorable songs, sounded a little passé. I suspect it was a toe in the water, a pause for breath, an explanation for the last five years, and a prelude to fresh stuff to come - the new revolution to be unleashed. But the shooting in December 1980 stopped all of that in its tracks.  

So what worthy memorials exist in 2020? 

There is The Dakota itself. This remains an iconic residential building, full of very expensive apartments. It lies on the west side of Central Park in New York, facing the park. Here are two maps from Google Maps, and some Street View shots, to show the building and its vicinity. A very pleasant place to live, I'd say.

Slightly Gothic in design, I'd say. It isn't the only residential building on Central Park West that looks a bit spooky from some angles. Only five blocks to the south, the monumental building at number 55 Central Park West was used in the 1984 film Ghostbusters. 

How nice to have Central Park just across from the entrance to their home in The Dakota! A good choice if bringing children up in the city.

Not far away, in Central Park, is New York's memorial - a mosaic on the ground, in the design of a wheel around the word 'Imagine'. These are not my shots, of course - the actual photographers are identified at the top. 

Other memorials exist. One I personally visited in 2019 was at Durness, in the far north-west of Scotland, where John Lennon spent time on holiday as a youngster. Here are my pictures of the rather spartan collection of stones and beach objects that constitute this particular memorial. 

I found it underwhelming. On the other hand, I was the only person there, and I had a chance to reflect in peace on John Lennon's life and music. That wouldn't have been possible in Central Park.  

Of course, there are the records. I have four LPs in my vinyl collection. Yesterday I got up into my attic and fetched them down. They had been in a big box with the rest, untouched since they went up there fifteen years ago, in 2005, when I sold a previous home and Mum and Dad let me store some things in their loft. Here, for instance, is my copy of the Imagine album, complete with poster. Amazing to see that the little Leica has picked up the grooves of the record so clearly.

This was an oddity on sale in 1976, when John Lennon had retreated into home life, an album called Shaved Fish - effectively a 'Best of Lennon' collection. They must have written him off as a mere Golden Oldie.

This is that 1980 first flowering, Double Fantasy. Sweet, mature, wistful, mellow, with just a hint of the old anguish and pain. I bought it on 1st December 1980. A week later John Lennon was shot dead. 

Surely they are standing outside The Dakota? Was that a mistake?

What is my favourite John Lennon song? Well, actually, it's Woman Is The Nigger Of The World. It was a track on the 1972 album Some Time in New York City. Even then, in 1972, the N word was very, very provocative. But John Lennon explained that it was deliberately intended, to draw a shocking comparison. The song is a defence of all women and castigates their brainwashing and ill-treatment by men. I think it's just as relevant to hear now, in 2020. For very little has changed. The kind of men who took women for granted and treated them as second-class people, or sex toys, in 1972 are still around, often in powerful positions - naming no names. Here are the words that go with the massed sax intro, the howling guitars, the strident strings, and John Lennon's accusing voice. 

Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is...think about it
Woman is the nigger of the world
Think about it...do something about it

We make her paint her face and dance
If she won't be a slave we say that she don't love us
If she's real, we say she's trying to be a man
While putting her down we pretend that she's above us

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with
Woman is the slave of the slaves
Ah yeah...better scream about it

We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen
We tell her home is the only place she should be 
Then we complain that she's too unworldly to be our friend

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yeah, think about it

We insult her every day on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she's young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yes she is...if you believe me, you better scream about it

We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance 
We make her paint her face and dance
(And repeat to fade)

Wow, that still strikes a chord! Maybe women are more independent nowadays, and not inevitably housebound, but they still get groped by predatory men if the said men think they can get away with it. It's still easy to undermine a woman and make her feel unsure and unsafe. And somehow all the freedoms we have in 2020 still feel rather brittle and illusory.

Classic Lennon, though.