Recordando a John Lennon

El lunes se cumplían 28 años de la muerte del ex-beatle John Lennon. Yo siempre he recordado esa fecha, y más desde que tuve la oportunidad de estar frente a ese mosaico de Imagine en el pequeño Strawberry Fields del Central Park neoyorquino por estas fechas, hace ya 5 años.

Pero esta vez, la fiebre producto de una "bonita" gripe me tuvo atontada todo el día festivo... lo cierto es que la televisión fue mi única distracción y si no recuerdo mal, no vi ni oi nada sobre el aniversario. Que me corrija quien viera una noticia o reportaje al respecto...

Esto me ha dado que pensar, me ha entristecido que no se recordara a este personaje, que murió en manos de lo que él detestaba: la violencia. Otro gaje del oficio, poder crear uan obsesión tal en una persona que puede ser capaz de atentar contra tu vida. Mark Chapman lo consiguió (filmografía dedicada a su "hazaña" The killing of John Lennon producción inglesa de 2007 y Chapter 27, independiente americana de 2008 con jared leto...¿ y Lindsay Lohan?)

Aunque con cierto retraso, quería recordarle desde mi humilde rincón recuperando un artículo que escribí para la revista del colegio en 2000. Es un poco largo, y está en inglés... gracias a quienes lo leáis.

IMAGINE: REMEMBERING JOHN LENNON

Maybe there’s a lot of people who don’t like The Beatles’ music or just they don’t like it as much as I do. People who know me might think I’m a pain with the subject; I’m concerned about this but I still think that people can read this. It’s not about The Beatles, but about its leader, John Lennon, and you might find it interesting. You might be thinking: Why about him? Well, that’s easy to answer.Last week, the 8th December,it was 20 years since John Lennon died. I found this event a good way of remembering him by sharing my knowledge and my thoughts about him with all of you who want to read this.

John Winston Lennon was born the 9th October 1940 in Liverpool, England while the Germans threw bombs over the city because it was war time, the II World War had started the year before. His mother, Julia Stanley, was patriotic and for that his second name, Winston, for the English Prime Minister at the time, Winston Churchill. John lived with his parents until in 1945, his father, Alfred Lennon,disappeared and later his mother left her sister in charge of her five-year-old son and also disappeared. John hardly ever saw her, he didn’t get to know her and his aunt Mimi really was his substitute mother. Julia visited him sometimes and when it seemed that she was staying definitively, life took her from him:she was run down by a policeman who was off duty and as John said in an interview, the man was drunk. This was a hard experience for him, but he had something he could shelter in:music. He had a great passion for music and had a band when he was at the Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool called “The Quarrymen” . But the band had problems and experienced many changes:John met Paul McCartney and he joined, then George Harrison and after Pete Best left the drums(he was really kicked out from the band), they found Ringo Starr. These last four were The Beatles that revolutionised the musical panorama in the sixties. They became extremely popular and for this reason, personal differences and ambitions and the strain of so many years, in 1970 The Beatles broke up.In John’s words, it had been a dream and it was over. I think he was wrong. There are people who are still dreaming.

John had been married to Cynthia Powell, his girlfriend from university, but the Beatlemania ruined the marriage. It ended up in divorce in 1968. He had a son called Julian, who hardly ever saw his father and John always felt bad about this. In 1969, he married Yoko Ono, the Japanese artist eight years older than him, who didn’t treat him like a myth, but as a normal person. With Yoko, John changed completely. Many people think she was the cause of the band’s split. I think a bit of the same.

He continued with his insistence in peace(which he had started when he was still a Beatle) and during the Vietnam war, he filled up New York city with large banners that said: WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT. If the people wanted, the war could get to an end. His song “Let’s give peace a chance” reflected just what he wanted:peace. John was totally against violence.

During that period with Yoko, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon and he recorded some albums (famous “Imagine” and “Double Fantasy”). But, when in 1975 his son Sean was born, he said he wouldn’t have a new album until he had finished with Sean’s education. Exactly in 1980 he came back with the “Double Fantasy” album. At the time Sean Lennon was five and John asked for the American nationality, though it wasn’t given to him mainly for his political ideas.At the time it was said that there was a probability that The Beatles would get back together.

The 8th December 1980, John came back to his apartment in the Dakota building in New York, at 11pm approximately. A 25-year-old man named Mark David Chapman, a Beatles’ fan, approached him and asked him for an autograph; then he took out his gun and shot him dead. Some bullets were enough to kill the man who had defended peace and non-violence with heart and soul. He died on his way to the Roosevelt Hospital in the backseat of a police car. When he got there, nothing could be done for him.

With John’s death, millions of dreams were broken and hopes for The Beatles to get back together disappeared. That night, people all around the world gathered to remember him, standing in silence for ten minutes, something never done for a singer before. For a lot of people now the dream was over, though John would never die in their hearts.

This happened 20 years ago, but people still remember John. Last week, people gathered in Central Park, in the “Strawberry Fields” corner, where IMAGINE can be read on the floor, to remember him. If I had had the chance, I would have gone there.

I’m one of those people who are still dreaming.

BCS News, Diciembre 2000