Former Beatle John Lennon was murdered 45 years ago today, on November 8th, 1980. The world was shocked! It happened in broad daylight outside the apartment block in New York where Lennon lived with his second wife, the Japanese multimedia artist Yoko Ono.
Last known photo of Lennon in 1980 [Daily Mail]
The perpetrator was Mark Chapman, allegedly a huge fan of the singer, composer, guitarist, pianist, actor, poet, who had moved to the USA in 1971 following his rancorous departure from The Beatles a year earlier.
Lennon formed "The Plastic Ono Band", which made just one eponymous album. I bought it, but soon sold it to a friend. I couldn't stand Yoko's wailing and shrieking.
He made solo music too. "Imagine" is a classic and "Double Fantasy", his second-best-selling non-Beatles album, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and in 1982 the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.
[Toppermost] [eBay UK] [eBay UK]
Posthumously Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC history poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked him the fifth-greatest singer and 38th-greatest artist of all time.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (in 1997) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994).
He famously married Yoko in Gibraltar in 1969, just down the road from where I live in Andalucia.
Their "Bed-in" in their honeymoon hotel on the Rock was a Peace Protest.
The Press were invited to their suite where the couple were nearly naked in bed.
[Wikipedia]
A complex man
Lennon had issues. He disappeared from Yoko and from the music scene for two years in the mid-70s, during which time he had several affairs.
He and Paul McCartney, the prolific composing duo at the heart of the phenomenal success of the Liverpool band, didn't speak for years.
Lennon took to trying to belittle McCartney through his song lyrics, but Paul and his American wife Linda Eastman (1941 - 1998) ploughed their own furrow, literally when they moved to Mull, a small island in Scotland, where they took up farming.
McCartney's new band "Wings" were hugely successful, after a quiet start.
With former "Moody Blues" singer Denny Laine (d. 2023), and Linda on keyboards and harmony vocals, they scored an immense hit with their third studio album "Band on the Run" (1973).
Linda and Paul [Wikpedia]
It was McCartney's fifth album after leaving The Beatles in April 1970 and his final album on the Apple Records label. Although sales were modest initially, its commercial performance was aided by two hit singles – "Jet" and "Band on the Run" – such that it became the top-selling studio album of 1974 in the United Kingdom and Australia, in addition to revitalising McCartney's critical standing. It remains McCartney's most successful album and the most celebrated of his post-Beatles works.
Back to Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and activist.
He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of The Beatles.
Lennon's songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.
[The Guardian]
Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed The Quarrymen, which evolved into The Beatles in 1960. He initially was the group's de facto leader, a role he gradually seemed to cede to McCartney, writing and co-writing songs with increasing innovation, including "Strawberry Fields Forever", which he later cited as his finest work with the band.
Ed Sullivan Show [1974] [1994] Last known photo [Daily Mail]
Lennon soon expanded his work into other media by acting in numerous films, including "How I Won the War" (1967), and authoring "In His Own Write" (1964) and "A Spaniard in the Works" (1965), both collections of nonsense writings and line drawings.
Starting with "All You Need Is Love", his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the counter-culture of the 1960s.
In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with Yoko Ono, held the "Bed-in" for peace, and left The Beatles to embark on a solo career.
Lennon and Ono collaborated on many works, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums and several more films. After the Beatles disbanded, Lennon released his solo debut "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" and the international top-10 singles "Give Peace a Chance", "Instant Karma!", "Imagine", and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".
Moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year deportation attempt by the Nixon administration.
During their separation from 1973 to 1975, Lennon produced Harry Nilsson's album "Pussy Cats". He also had chart-topping collaborations with Elton John ("Whatever Gets You thru the Night") and David Bowie ("Fame").
Following a five-year hiatus, Lennon returned to music in 1980 with the Ono collaboration "Double Fantasy". He was shot and killed three weeks after the album's release.
Aftermath
In line with Yoko Ono's wishes, on 14 December, millions of people around the world paused for 10 minutes of silence to remember Lennon, including 30,000 people gathered in Lennon's birthplace Liverpool and over 225,000 people in Central Park, near the scene of the shooting. During this period, all radio stations in New York City ceased broadcasting.
Chapman was charged with the second-degree murder of Lennon, as premeditation in New York State was not sufficient to warrant a charge of first-degree murder. Despite advice by his lawyers to plead insanity, Chapman pleaded guilty to the murder, saying that it was the "will of God".
Under the terms of his plea, Chapman was sentenced to 20-years-to-life with eligibility for parole in 2000.
Before his sentencing, Chapman was given the opportunity to address the court, at which point he read a passage from "The Catcher in the Rye" by J D Salinger.
As of September 2025, Chapman has been denied parole 14 times and remains incarcerated.
Links:
All You Need Is Love - The Beatles (1967)
Imagine - John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band (w The Flux Fiddlers) (Ultimate Mix 2018) - 4K REMASTER
Paul McCartney & Wings - Band On The Run (Official Music Video)
Plastic Ono Band - Give Peace A Chance (1969)
THE BEATLES : Rooftop Concert : "Get back" "Don't Let Me Down" "Dig a Pony" - YouTube - last ever live performance
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
© The Culture Vulture (Paul Whitelock)
Pictures:
Daily Mail, eBay UK, The Guardian, Toppermost, Wikipedia
Thanks:
Apple Corps, Bing, Brian Epstein, EMI, Northern Songs, Parlophone, Paul Whitelock, Wikipedia, YouTube
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