[Romantic Old Bird]

I just thought I'd like to acknowledge that tonight it is 25 years since John Lennon was murdered.

I still remember waking on December the 9th to hear that he had been shot and killed by a deranged fan outside his home in the Dakota Building, Upper West Side NYC. It was such a significant moment in my life. I woke my children (then aged 6 and 8) and they asked me why I was so upset.

When I told them it was because John Lennon was dead, they gave me a big hug, even though they didn't know then who he was. My 8 year old asked what sort of man he was, and I answered them by playing Imagine. They became great fans.

I know he was a flawed character, but he represented so much to me and so many others of my generation, by coming out of the dark and claustrophobic 50's and early 60's with such a new sound, and a new vision of our troubled world.



Here are a few of his quotes:



I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40.


If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans



RIP John