Intuitive Music

25 years ago today, on the 8th of December 1980, John Lennon was murdered in New York City at age 40.

Songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist John Lennon was founding member in 1960 of the most popular and influential band in the history of pop music, The Beatles. Born in Liverpool on October 9th 1940, Lennon recorded 13 studio albums with the Beatles until the band’s split in 1970. He then recorded 9 solo studio albums, many of them along with Yoko Ono. They also formed the groups Plastic Ono Band in 1970, and Elephant Memory in 1972.

The murder of John Lennon happened in the entrance hallway of historical Dakota apartment building in New York’s Central Park West, where Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono kept their residency since 1973. The couple were coming home from the studio on West 44th Street, where they were with the chief of the label David Geffen and producer Jack Douglas supervising the production of the singles for their recently released album “Double Fantasy”. That evening they had just received the good news that “Double Fantasy” had become a Golden Album after selling more than 700,000 copies.

That evening when the couple was leaving home for the studio at 5 p.m., a man who would be later identified as Mark David Chapman was standing by the entrance of the building with a copy of “Double Fantasy”. Lennon stopped and autographed the album for a silent Chapman. The scene was captured by freelance photographer Paul Goresh who was there after the infamous photo session with the couple for Rolling Stone Magazine. Ironically, Goresh took the last picture of Lennon alive. After Lennon left to the studio in his limousine, Chapman approached the photographer and said: “I wouldn’t leave if I were you. You might not see him again.

When Lennon and Ono got back home around 10:50 p.m. they decided to stop their limousine on the 72nd Street curb instead of driving it through the entrance to the courtyard as usual. Three people, including the building’s doorman, an elevator operator and a cab driver who had just dropped off a passenger, were witnesses of seeing Mark Chapman standing in the shadows inside the entrance arch of the building.

As they walked by, Yoko One passed by the young man first and said hello. Then Chapman called, “Mr. Lennon”. Lennon looked and the gunman fired four pistol shots at Lennon, striking him in the left side of his back and twice in his left shoulder. John Lennon managed to walk up six steps to the room at the end of the entrance and said, “I’m shot” and then collapsed on the floor as the shots caused internal damage and bleeding. The Dakota doorman, who was witness of the crime, shouted at the shooter, “Do you know what you’ve done?”. Chapman replied, “I just shot John Lennon,”

The first policemen to come to the crime scene were police officers Steven Spiro and Peter Cullen, who found Chapman standing very calmly. He had dropped the revolver after firing it, and he was standing up with his hands up, carrying a paperback copy of the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger and a cassette recorder with 14 hours of Beatles tapes.

John Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital by policemen, who was stretched out on the back seat moaning. He was asked, “Are you John Lennon?” and he moaned, “Yeah.”
Dr. Stephen Lyman of Roosevelt Hospital said Lennon was dead when he arrived to the hospital. He was later pronounced dead at 11:15 p.m. from shock and loss of blood.

At the hospital, Yoko Ono was in shock and couldn’t accept his death. David Geffen carried her home and Yoko decided to hold the announcement of the death and tell to 5 year old son Sean about his father’s death herself before he would watch the news on TV.

The news about the tragedy was aired by ABC during the celebration of an American Football match. A few minutes later hundreds of people started gathering at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota singing Lennon’s songs and burning candles.

Mark David Chapman was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of John Lennon. The tragic murder of John Lennon was followed by a never ending supply of urban legends. After the murder numerous conspiracy theories popped up in all directions, including the FBI. There is also a legend about the Dakota building being a cursed place. Apart from John Lennon’s murder, the French style Victorian building built from 1880 to 1884 has been associated with other turbulent stories. It was the scenario for the shooting of Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” in 1968, which tells the story of a woman who is carrying a baby that happens to be the devil’s child. Roman Polanski’s wife, actress Sharon Tate, was protagonist of one of the most horrible stories when she and her carrying baby were brutally murdered in 1969 in their 10050 Cielo Drive house in Benedict Canyon (CA) by Charles Manson and his sect followers. Other famous residents at the hotel were actors Boris Karlof and Jose Ferrer, composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein, playwright William Inge, singer Judy Garland, and actresses Judy Holliday and Lauren Bacall. There is also a legend about the presence of the ghost of a walking child in room 77 . Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon still maintain a residence in the building and the Strawberry Fields Memorial was laid out right across Central Park West in memory of Lennon.

John Lennon is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of music. He wrote and recorded some of the most brilliant and everlasting songs ever. He was also one of the most sociological and cultural and philosophical influential figures for the young generations of the last decades of the 20th century who fought for the ideals of peace, love, and freedom.