John Lennon Remembered 43 Years After His Murder In New York, The World Still Mourns

The world seemed to come to a momentary halt on December 8, 1980, when news that John Lennon was shot and killed as he approached his apartment building in New York City came out.

Lennon’s untimely death sent shockwaves around the world. His contributions to music, activism and peace continue to inspire generations.

His murderer, Mark David Chapman, was waiting outside of Lennon’s apartment house, the Dakota, across from Central Park. Wearing a black raincoat, Chapman stepped out of the shadows, asked Lennon for an autograph and then shot Lennon five times as his wife, Yoko Ono, looked on in horror. Lennon was rushed to nearby Roosevelt Hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

John Lennon was 40 -years old.

A worldwide outpouring of grief ensued. In New York City, crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota. The next day, Lennon was cremated. Instead of a funeral, Yoko Ono requested ten minutes of silence around the world.

“Even decades later, few deaths in the history of Western music have evoked such a global response of mourning and appreciation for one of rock’s most influential songwriters and poets,” wrote Live for Live Music.

“The Beatles united a generation of young people with their songs, their attitudes and their sense of style, and John Lennon was the thinking man’s Beatle…who embraced the poetic innovations of Bob Dylan in the mid-1960′s and shocked Beatles fans by jumping into performance art, happenings and political protests in the late 60′s and early 70′s,” wrote the New York Times.

Noting what Lennon said following the breakup of The Beatles, the “dream is over,” the NY Times noted that Lennon never lost sight of “the dream of community through peace, love, mysticism and psychedelic drugs that the Beatles had encouraged and advertised.”

Shortly after his death, which Yoko Ono asked not to be announced until she was able to tell her five-year-old son Sean, New York rock station WNEW-FM 102.7 immediately suspended all programming and opened its lines to calls from listeners. Stations throughout the country switched to special programming devoted to Lennon and/or The Beatles music.

Lennon was born on October 9th, 1940, into a working-class family in Liverpool, England. His father abandoned the family, leaving his young mother to raise her son alone. When he was a teenager, Lennon’s mother was killed in a car accident. From then on, Lennon had a troubled adolescence, reportedly prone to rage and anger until he eventually began to channel his anger into a passion for art school and music.

We All Shine On

"Yeah, we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun." John Lennon, from his third single, "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)," which was written and recorded on 27th January 1970 and released just ten days later on February 6th.

Photo: John Lennon in NYC courtesy of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame