Dec. 8, 1980

9 thoughts on “Dec. 8, 1980”

1. Dharmagaian –
   it was my pleasure. i heard a local dj play it a couple days ago in anticipation of the anniversary and knew it would be a fitting tribute. i’ve always liked the song a lot but didn’t realize till now how soon after its release john was killed.

   carrie — i can totally understand your empathy for julian; even so, i still find this fottage of john and sean to be quite touching. i’d say both boys had/have a lot to deal with surrounding their dad’s leaving this world. and it can’t have been easy for sean to feel the widespread animosity toward his mom. certainly her actions were not his fault.

   — amanda

2. Thank you for posting this video/song, Eric. I’ve never heard it before. Considering how soon John was killed after he recorded the song, it’s very poignant. It also expresses how I feel right now, knowing what I know about how the world is unraveling, knowing I/we may not have much time….

3. Having children *should* be honoured a great deal more than it generally is, I agree with you Carrie. It is so heartbreaking to see children suffer through various forms of dysfunctionality and not receive the experience of unconditional love they deserve, in order to grow into their potential. I hold the notion that it not only takes a village to raise a child but a village to raise each and everyone of us, as cycles of destructive behaviour affect so many and continue unabated generation after generation, until someone is brave enough to break them.

   My own son has experienced my martial difficulties, with both parents struggling in a difficult marriage burdened by too much emotional baggage and through several periods of difficult separations. Now that he’s in his mid teens I was able to leave once and for all this past summer and feel that it was for the best. Before that time, I worked very hard to keep the family together and keep his needs and emotional development front and centre. Now he has grown into the preferred living arrangement; one week on and one week off, with the apartments of Mum and Dad just three blocks away and his school the central focus for now. This was never my first choice, but it is what it is, a fate thrust upon me that I have come to accept. We have *all* learned to grow into this new arrangement and are adapting accordingly with some measure of happiness surfacing finally.

   Thank the goddess that he is in an excellent school, founded by one of my heroes, Ursula (yep, same name as me!) Franklin, a humanist. When she spoke at my son’s first year at high school last summer, she ended her speech by emphasizing to us that the one most important thing we can give to our children today, is to teach them how to *cope* in the world. I held myself from jumping to my feet to laud her when I heard this, and I have carried that philosophy around with me ever since.

   Its when the children are young and vulnerable that adults need to muster whatever it takes to make their children’s world safe and trustworthy, but the community has to waken up to giving greater support. We have so much work to do, right; bettering ourselves and keeping our children on track?

4. shebear,

   I would like to think that too but when I volunteered at the local schools for seven years, I didn’t see that at all. I saw so many acrimonious divorces that a kindergardener threw a chair at his teacher in rage and little kids acted out so bad that they needed therapy at 4 and 5 years old. Third graders so messed up over their parents’ divorce or re-marriages were common. Every class had over 70% of the kids dealing with divorce and hating every moment of it. They used to talk to me about it (and talk to my kids because we are not divorced so they wanted to know how that felt). I don’t think it has changed as much as we would like to think it has and that is not a good statement of how we value (or don’t) our children in our rush for self-actualization or fulfullment. They are the collateral damage that is too often ignored.

   I don’t advocate staying in an acrimonious marriage. I have read (in my studies and research) that kids really are not upset if Mom and Dad are not in love with each other; it is when they are so angry and fighting either as they stay together or as they divorce, that it damages the kids. Yet even friendly divorces rock children very badly. The truth is, people had better be really sure of their relationship before they “have kids” like having “the house” or “the career.” Kids are not something to hang on the walls of our minds and changing that ideology about them (even if it is a subconscious one that will never be admitted to openly) would help.

5. I remember very much how when I first heard news of his assassination, that same feeling I felt as a child when Kennedy was shot. Someone had dared to kill a dream. It was a dagger in the heart of our culture.

   Remembering that art is powerful makes you want to make sure, if you are an artist that your work will touch the hearts of others. That is a lesson from John Lennon’s life. May we all reach for that light in ourselves to give to others.

6. I thought of both Yoko and Julian (John’s first son) as I watched the video. I couldn’t help but sense Julian’s pain of losing his father and what must he feel when he sees footage of Lennon with his half brother Sean. Definitely a deep wounding for him to deal. I know he experienced a lot of anguish over his Dad leaving him.

   I’d not really given a lot of thought to Ono before, to be honest, but was struck by their little family unit in the video and I saw their interactions in a different light this time around. I felt a deep pang for the suffering of that day which she, as you rightly put it Eric, has borne with dignity and honour, no matter how one may feel about her.

   Carrie, I empathize a lot with what you say grieves you about Lennon’s behaviour re. his first marriage and your protective feelings of his first born, especially in light of your own experience. Marriages that bear children need special efforts, hopefully from *both* parents, in raising their off-spring. That said, I would like to think we have evolved some as a society, and have learned how to incorporate significant changes that allow for the child’s pain of abandonment and rejection to be honoured and expressed and healed, in tandem with allowing for parents who no longer love each other to be free to find ways of stepping out of the marriage and begin other relationships. Unhappy marriages that choose to continue rather than split, often in the name of keeping it together for the child, have their own painful legacies for children to work out and that’s been my experience. It’s not so much keeping the institution intact for the sake of the child, as much as allowing for freedom of interpretation, all the while balancing the health of the child with the health of the parents to find something that works for the family overall.

   John Lennon, much like Julian Assange, certainly had genius but also possessed feet of clay. I don’t think too many of us have yet mastered being actualized enough to live our truth in ways that don’t hurt others but I sense we are learning to revise our institutions so that peace and harmony can exist.

   Imagine…….

7. I hate to say it in this Lennon love-fest but though I liked his lyrics, I never liked his solo songs (post Beatles) much. I have more of an ear for the music than for the lyrics of a song. This means I preferred McCartney’s music writing. It is why they made such a great team with the other Beatles; Lennon’s lyrics with the other guys’ music. I also dislike it that Lennon left his wife and son for another woman which left his young son without him.

   I never much liked Yoko Ono either, particularly after she refused to allow Paul McCartney to have some ownership of the songs he and Lennon collaborated on. I also dislike any woman who breaks up a marriage because the child of Lennon’s first marriage probably suffered from the loss of his father.

   Call me old fashioned (or the product of a broken marriage) but there you have it.

8. One of my favorites off of my favorite Lenono album. It’s as fresh as the first time every time. It reminds me of how good it felt to grow up in New York City in the 1970s. My dad lived about a mile uptown from the Dakota and we drove past that building many times — it gave me the feeling that John and Yoko were our neighbors. And they were; they lived like regular New Yorkers, going out to eat and walking around and doing things that the rest of us do.

   I absolutely love some of Yoko’s songs on this record — Kiss Kiss Kiss being my favorite, where she treats us to her orgasm at the end of the song. I mean, that’s sweet. Yes, I am a Yoko Ono fan. She’s a hot artist and has borne this weight laid on her with dignity and honor.

9. Yes, thank you John and thank you Amanda for this tribute and choice of song.

   I don’t often appreciate seeing the lyrics on the screen but I liked them on this occasion (plus the video footage was precious). What better words to live by if you are trying to buck the trend and create a better living:

   I hope Julian Assnange is feeling some John Lennon spirit today, holed up in his prison cell. He needs it. Heck, we all need it.

   We just had to let you go John, oh too soon, but you’ll live on forever in our hearts.