Krause: Remembering the Lennon legend
In December, it will be 38 years since John Lennon was felled by bullets from Mark David Chapman’s gun outside his New York City apartment.
Thirty-eight years is long enough for revisionism to creep in concerning the life of the man who formed the Beatles and led them through the early stages of their career (before a combination of drugs, ennui and sheer exasperation about how mind-numbingly awful Beatlemania had become caused him to lose interest). And there’s been plenty of revisionism.
Tribute bands have tried to capture the essence of what the Beatles meant to our music, our culture, and our national psyche. They may have been from England, but their role in helping the United States heal after John F. Kennedy’s assassination cannot be overlooked. Even among adults to whom rock ‘n’ roll was truly the devil’s music, the Beatles put a smile on faces and elicited a chuckle or two, thanks to their cheekiness and charm. It wasn’t until the middle of the 1960s, when they developed a little more confidence and had a little less fear of what would happen if they spoke out, that their true personalities really began to emerge.
Source: By Steve Krause/itemlive.com
