Lmst

I do all the pleasing with you #TheBeatles

This might be one of my best stories and I've never told it here, so here comes a slightly re-worked version adopted from a post that originally appeared on my old blog 20+ years ago:

This time of year always reminds me of the night a squad car carrying John Lennon's body sped past me on the streets of New York City. On December 8th of 1980, I was eight years old and in the city with my family for a holiday-related dinner with relatives. We were out late—much later than my parents ever kept me out back home, but I'm sure they'd been drinking and having a grand old time. The relatives we'd dined with were somewhat wealthy, and in fact we had eaten dinner at Tavern on the Green, then regarded as one of the city's more exclusive (albeit touristy) restaurants.

I had only a dim awareness of who the Beatles were back then. In 1980, I was far more interested in reenacting scenes from Star Wars with my friends than I was in any kind of music. But the Beatles' legacy was forever burned into my consciousness after my father jerked me away from the street as that squad car came screaming past, the bloody head of its famous occupant slumped against the rear passenger window. The Dakota apartment building where Lennon was murdered is only a few blocks from Tavern on the Green's old location near Central Park West, and sometime shortly before 11 PM, we were walking back to the garage where our car was parked. But when we crossed 72nd Street and observed the chaos left in the aftermath of the shooting, someone—a tear-streaked woman, by my father's recollection—told us what had happened. We left the city and drove home to the dark suburbs of New Jersey while listening to the breaking news of the events on the radio.

Despite the random chance of having been only blocks away when one of history's most famous murders went down, it took me a few more years to get into the Beatles the way all kids seem to, and I often wonder why that is. Until I started having money with which to buy my own music, the only Beatles record in the house was "Let It Be", which belonged to one of my older siblings. Perhaps Lennon's death coupled with the eulogistic tone of that album's title track is what set my associations with the band on such an uneasy path so early on. When you're a little kid, a song's lyrics are often the first thing that hits you, and lines like "in my hour of darkness / she is standing right in front of me / speaking words of wisdom / let it be" certainly influenced the childhood anxieties I experienced in bed at night. Long after my parents had ordered the lights switched out, the images conjured by that type of poetry were a lot to wrap my head around. It's odd to think about it again so many years later, especially now having watched my teenage daughter's interest in music blossom along a very different path than my own. By anyone's estimation, a long time has passed since then. It's also quite peculiar for a band that broke up two years before I was born to in some way serve as a milemarker by which to observe my own aging. Maybe that's what people mean when they call Lennon's music "timeless". Maybe it's also why that term has always bothered me so much. #johnlennon #thebeatles #nyc

A black and white closeup photo of John Lennon's bespectacled face.

Beatles collaborator hits out at people ‘pretending to be him’ in shocking scam

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/09/beatles-collaborator-hits-people-pretending-him-shocking-scam-25310765/

I break down #TheBeatles

Now she's hit the big time in the U. S. A #TheBeatles

Piggies 🐷
#TheBeatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhY1x8CpWeI

Biding my time #TheBeatles

Paroles de la chanson “Here, There And Everywhere” de The Beatles
#TheBeatles #HereThereAndEverywhere
https://daletra.art/the-beatles/paroles/here-there-and-everywhere.html

I have never known the like of this #TheBeatles

Sehen Sie den Text des Liedes “A Hard Day's Night” von The Beatles
#TheBeatles #AHardDaySNight
https://daletra.top/the-beatles/liedtexte/a-hard-days-night.html

Sie liebt dich yeah yeah yeah #TheBeatles

Any jobber got the sack #TheBeatles

I've waited far too long #TheBeatles

There will be times when all the things she said will fill your head #TheBeatles

45 years ago today.... Monday Night Football's Howard Cosell gave the country news that nobody wanted to hear.
#JohnLennon #MondayNightFootball #TheBeatles #Football

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OZUlxjTKSU

I think I'll love you too #TheBeatles

I will send to you #TheBeatles