War Is Over (If You Want It)

Twenty-nine years ago today John Lennon was shot down like a dog in the street by an obsessive crazy with a hand gun. Odd to write that so much time has passed because it seems like it happened last year, it seems so close, yet there you are, time flies in the blink of an eye.

There are all sorts of elements to the tragedy of someone dying, especially someone so relatively young, at the age of 40. Gun shot or heart attack or addictions, there are layers of sadness to any loss. In the case of Lennon, he was a husband and a father. That's on the more important, personal scale of things. On a grander scale, he was a beloved musician. A Beatle, a solo artist, a composer. But he meant so much more than those things somehow to so many. Lennon stood for something. For peace, for love, for choosing to be yourself, whatever those things may really mean to people. The loss of Lennon, to his fans, was a great loss in a lot of different ways, musically, creatively, spiritually.

When I watched the interviews on this video from "The Beatles TV" blog, I noticed toward the beginning John puts a record on what was then probably a pretty high tech stereo. The thought then occurred to me: what would John Lennon have made of today's technological world. How would he be dealing with the technology we have now, the digital world, the iTunes world, the computer in every home that allows everyone to be an artist in a easier, quicker way.

What he would would have done with this vast world of technology. The fun he would have had. Creating blogs and websites, twittering and tweeting and posting. The chance to create and share his creations with the universe. That's what Lennon lost along with his life, and the chance to experience those creations is what his fans lost.