John Lennon, who rose to unimaginable fame first as one of the Beatles, then as a songwriter and an activist, was shot and killed outside of his home in New York City 35 years ago today.
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For many people, the news that John Lennon had been gunned down outside his NY apartment building on December 8th 1980, came from an unlikely source.
His killer, Mark David Chapman, is still in prison, after being sentenced to 20 years to life.
John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono at the Bed-in in Montreal on May 26 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Beatle John Lennon and his entourage left Montreal for Ottawa in June 1969. On the red carpet before the show, a few of the participants shared with reporters their recollections of Lennon’s death. Opposite the residence (where his widow, Yoko Ono, still lives) sits Strawberry Fields, a permanent tribute to the musician and campaigner on the west side of Central Park.
Sato says, “When Dr. Halleran had pronounced him and the ER gets very quiet, we have to have music in the emergency room always and they were playing “imagine” and we were like, ohhh”. “At Roosevelt Hospital, Dr. Lynn announced that Lennon was dead shortly after midnight”. “He said others told him the assailant had been “crouching in the archway of the Dakota”.
“This was no robbery”, the spokesman said, adding that Mr Lennon was probably shot by a “deranged” person. “Significant damage was done to the major vessel in the chest”, Dr. Lynn said.
After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon continued writing songs and recording, but in 1975 he dropped out for five years, saying he wanted to be with Yoko Ono and their son, Sean.
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In a poignant message to her followers (complete with a graphic photo of her late husband’s bloodied sunglasses), Ono writes that there have been more than one million victims of gun violence in the U.S. since Lennon’s murder. Stunned fans eventually sent the new Double Fantasy studio project to triple-platinum sales, even as former collaborators like Steve Cropper recalled treasured musical intersections.
