Thinking the Unthinkable About John Lennon - Lester Bangs

He'd have said, "Why the fuck are they singing a song by that cunt McCartney?"

haha OTM!

Weirder still that people like me who never knew him can feel sad about this. Bangs is right - its feeling sad for something I never even experienced... but then the things we never experienced are quite often the things we feel saddest about.

And, yes, he probably would have said that.

four days after john lennon was shot, when i woke up to find beatle music off the radio and the story off the front page, that process by which the mind struggles with a fact it will not accept was still working. i scanned the front page again, to see if i'd missed anything; i ran the radio dial across the stations. nothing. does this mean, i thought, that it's over? that he's not dead anymore?

I don't think McLuhan would have said that there was anything wrong with the Lennon murder as a galvanizing media event. So what if people romanticized the sixties? So what if people never knew John Lennon personally?

And so fucking what if people wanted to go into the streets and sing fucking "Hey Jude?"

Because it gets annoying.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), December 8th, 2005.

I've yet to see anyone do this in Birmingham, but if they did, I don't think it would make me too angry.

Wait – scratch that. I shudder at what evil was unleashed when thousands of people sang "Hey Jude" outside the Dakota. Pipes of Peace and "We All Stand Together," perhaps?

Well, he admits as much in the piece.

Lennon's death was a public event; in that sense, it belongs to everybody. Bangs' reaction is rational, clear-eyed, and refreshing.

So what if people romanticized the sixties?

People should view things with a little objective clarity. The magical thinking that permeates our culture is bad enough as it is.

Well, OF COURSE, but you can have a little objecitve clarity on romanticizations without just suggesting that they're all a bunch of crap and people should just GET FUCKING REAL.

YACHT ROCK, BABY

The Beatles may still be revered, but is John Lennon's music and message of peace resonating with young people today - 25 years after his death?

YAWN.

They're.

Learn how to write, asshole.

"If you talk to anybody in a proper band now they will count Lennon as an influence - or at the very least as someone they respect"
Q editor Paul Rees

If you don't like Lennon you ain't proper!

Also:

"When you look at Lennon, especially in the later years of his life, he was as famous for his campaigning as he was for his music.

"This generation of musicians are angry about different issues, but they've carried on that aspect of his personality" sez Julian Marshall, news editor, NME.

-- Tim Ellison (thefriendlyfriendlybubbl...), December 8th, 2005.

I'd say the Bangs piece is a bit more eloquent and thoughtful than that.

I wasn't suggesting that it isn't. I like Lester a lot. But there was a galvanizing moment when Lennon was killed and I don't understand the IMMEDIATE inclination to calling people singing "Hey Jude" in the streets lame.

I wish some psycho would have put on a Beach Boys shirt and suicide-bombed the whole thing.

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of Elvis Presley fans swarmed outside Graceland overnight for a candlelight vigil to mark the 20th anniversary of his death and celebrate the growing legacy of the "king of rock 'n' roll."

After a brief silent prayer, the crowd locked hands and swayed in unison as they sang "Can't Help Falling in Love." A sea of candles lit up the Memphis boulevard named after the singing legend. Impersonators dressed in glittering jumpsuits with slick-backed hair wept, as did countless others.

???? does that mean that because i hate 'the scientist' by coldplay i'm being 'ironic'? maybe i'm missing the point i dunno.

john and yoko = chris and gwynnie

that's progress folks. musicians are little more than the sum of their neuroses. it's all dick. all of us, all of you. nothing means nothing. ppl blubbing over some right place/right time mediocrity (sorry, Cultural Icon) is as sick as this ch4 documentary lionizing Mark Chapman. is this jaded enough for you?

*runs for cover*

No. The equation was: cheap cynicism decrying what is perceived to be cheap sentiment = ironic.

People, I agree that the stuff gets tiring. But when John Lennon is murdered somewhere across town I understand the impetus to run there - as though you could somehow change it.

ha ha!

I was 14 when Lennon was shot, and pretty extremely bummed out. But even though I had a lot of Beatles albums at the time, I still hadn't figured out that different guys wrote different songs. So go easy on the "Hey Jude" singers, music geeks. I doubt many of them were the types to read songwriting credits.

take that, catholicism!

i'm pretty much with tim on this whole thread.

Okay first off, fuckface, should Rosa have stood up and taken a seat in the back to appease your idea of what political action is cuz you go to college with guys who have Bob Marley posters on their wall and it totally pisses you off that they think they know what "standing up for your rights" is all about but you're smarter than them because you read a Neitzche book once?

You don't really care about politics, you just care that other people say they do. Oh, and the last part you said was outright racist.

In conclusion, you make me tired.

Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus because she was part of a massive well organized civil rights campaign. Maybe you should read a book once.

yesterday on WNYC a news report about the lennon anniversary said that "dozens" of tribute-payers had gathered in central park. sorta sad in a way but fitting too. time passes despite our best efforts.

New Musical Express, 5 December, 1981

So how do you commemorate the anniversary of Lennon’s death?

TWIST! AND SHOUT!

John Lennon anniversary tribute: Dig out your yellowing copies of the Liverpool Echo, Tuesday December 9, 1980 (JOHN LENNON SHOT DEAD), Manchester Evening News (BEATLE LENNON SHOT DEAD) or local evening paper of your choice, Daily Mirror dated December 10 (DEATH OF A HERO), your souvenir commemorative tie, badge, bust and ashtray, your copies of ‘Double Fantasy’, ‘Imagine’, ‘Plastic Ono Band’, etc.; even your John Lennon, the Life and Death of a Legend and John Lennon, the Life and Legend, Sunday Times special tribute, and situate all these in appropriately reverential position around your room. Place copy of ‘Beatles for Sale’, on turntable, turn volume control to the highest level you can get away with and lower stylus onto track four, side one: ‘Rock And Roll Music’. Forget that “rock” is “dead”. Listen.

Der-dang-a-dang!

“JUST LET ME HEAR SOME OF THAT ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC,
ANY OLD WAY YOU CHOOSE IT,
IT’S GOT A BACK BEAT YOU CAN’T BLUES IT
ANY OLD TIME YOU USE IT,
GOTTA BE ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC
IF YOU WANNA DANCE WITH ME!
IF YOU WANNA DANCE WITH ME!”

If you are not totally convinced, this far into the track, that this is the most exciting, the greatest recorded performance you have ever heard in your life, then I would venture to suggest that your aesthetic criteria are sadly in need of a good kick in the ass. Of course, there are plenty other Greatest Recorded Performances, but we’re considering John Lennon here tonight, y’hear?

Play the track again. If you’re not feeling good by now, go and see a doctor. Play it one more time. If you’re not grinning stupidly by now and walking into walls, it’s too late for the doctor to help you; go and see an undertaker. Wash your hands and face while considering the following:

“I GOT NO KICK AGAINST MODERN JAZZ,
UNLESS THEY TRY TO PLAY IT TOO DARN FAST,
AND LOST THE BEAUTY OF THE MELODY,
UNTIL IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE A SYMPHONY,
THAT’S WHY I GO FOR THAT ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC!”

Comb your hair, or spray with tangerine-flake and oven cleaner or fix with Araldite and fuse wire should you desire – whenever you do to make yourself (un)presentable to the outside world. Get inside of the nearest public house stocking bottled Carlsberg beverages. Drink a lot of these in rapid succession until you start listing floorwards. Rush home before oblivion intrudes. Fumble ‘Beatles for Sale’, track four, side one, back onto turntable and play continuously until the neighbours cut up rough, the fire brigade calls, or sleep descends – having trashed all newspapers, tributes, souvenir tie, badges, ashtrays, pipes and slippers immediately on your return home. Notice that a great distance away, someone is singing:

“I TOOK MY LOVED ONE OVER CROSS THE TRACKS,
SO SHE COULD HEAR MY MAN A WAILING SAX,
I MUST ADMIT THEY HAD A ROCKIN’ BAND,
MAN, THEY WERE BLOWIN’ LIKE A HURRICANE!”

In this enormous, young voice that sounds like it knows everything it will ever need to know. Exuberantly and enthusiastically throw ‘Double Fantasy’, ‘Imagine’, small items of furniture and animal life around the room. Kick in television screen. Fall catatonic to the floor.

Wake at 4am to harsh electric light and the muffled sound of your stylus thudding monotonously into the spinout groove of ‘Beatles for Sale’. Crawl upstairs to bed with nauseous headache. Wake again, much later the following afternoon, feeling hideous. Take ‘Beatles for Sale’ out of sleeve once again and drop stylus onto track four, side one:

“JUST LET ME HEAR SOME OF THAT ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC!”

John Lennon lives.

-- ‘MAD’ RAY LOWRY

Haven't heard most of George Harrison's work, have you?

When I was in college, a few friends and I cynically sneered at all the kids mourning Cobain's death during candlelight vigils. I thought they were deluded sheep. I look back, and realize we were a bunch of fucking assholes saying some pretty hurtful things. We were/are sheep, too. Sure mass media allows people to think they "know" people they never met, but at the same time, that bond is "real". The tears are "real". The pain is "real". Those sad faces are "real". No?

If those folks particpating in that vigil are really mourning themselves then those sneering at those folks are really just sneering at their own insensitivty and inability to participate and to feel loss. Sorry to sound goofy and overly dramatic, but I feel torn because I don't think I could ever stand among a bunch of strangers and mourn anything, but sometimes I really want to. I shun crowds and mass demonstrations but that doesn't mean these things are cheap and invalid. Maybe, I'm the one who is invalid? Maybe, Bangs is the one who is invalid? Maybe we have defects that we cover up by sneering at those who are capable of participating?

I was 5 in '80. I was headed into the family basement, into the laundry room, and all I could hear was my mom crying, crying, and crying. There was a little red radio on the dryer, and the DJ was broadcasting the news of Lennon's death.

I think it's ironic that Bangs said he couldn't mourn Lennon because he didn't know the guy, but he felt perfectly comfortable telling his readers that he knew what all those folks were really mourning for even thought he didn't know them, either. All he did was sit on his couch, watch television, and judge a bunch of strangers.

Okay, everyone roast me...

I am he as you are he as you are me...

This is one of the most profound sentences in rock critic history. It's something I've always tried to keep in mind on those occasions I dabble in the form.

i've heard a lot of it. most of it is bad but innocuous. i think what bugs me so much about "ram" is the fact that mccartney feels the need to keep throwing in these random little "do-do-do-do-do-dos" on every fucking song! horrible.

"It is for that moment--not for John Lennon the man---that you are mourning, if you are mourning. Ultimately you are mourning for yourself."

My problem comes in that I don't think any of this is special about Lennon's case. Whenever you mourn ANYONE, you mourn the passing of someone who affected you personally and profoundly, that's how you're going to mourn them. Mourning is a selfish process; it's the way we heal with wounds. So, yes, of course you're going to be mourning for yourself. I don't think that there was a difference between the people mourning Lennon and the people that mourn the deaths of friends and loved ones every day. In each case, you're mourning the passing of another human being that made you feel happy, optimistic, perhaps loved. And in each case, it's utterly selfish and all about the hole missing in your life that the other person used to fill. And that's perfectly fine.

I agree with Tim Ellison on his points. People needed to mourn Lennon. Bangs was just living up his persona of Bangs. But I think that, down somewhere inside of him, he was just as sad as anyone around him was. Maybe that was his way of dealing with it.

also a hilariously smug dave marsh piece on neil young which sadly got kicked out of the most recent edition.

need a library of ROCK here in london we really do.

That piece actually made it into later editions (maybe because it's referenced in Marcus' terrific Beatles essay.)

J.D. OTM about the old Stone book. I also dig the Marcus "Rock Film" essay and Janet Maslin's piece on Dylan (both of which got dropped from later editions).

NOOOOOOOOOOOO we must live in an endless 1975.

agreed the RS piece is better but the "teen" of the title isn't about Spector's age, it's about his constituency