Thinking the Unthinkable About John Lennon - Lester Bangs

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