Instant Karma
Thirty-six years ago today I didn’t hear the news. It wasn’t until a little after 10 the next morning. I can take you to within 10 feet of where I was when I heard…heading to the Student Union via the bookstore entrance in Corvallis, Orygun.
I don’t remember the guy’s name who came up to me and asked “what do you think?” I had no idea WTF he was asking me about?!? We’d had a group project together once, but never hung out. He knew how much music I listened to and was surprised that I didn’t know that John Lennon was dead.
I assume I heard the name Mark David Chapman later that day. I don’t remember the first time I heard it. I wish I never had.
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I can only Imagine how NYC would be different in 2016, if some nutjob hadn’t had a gun.
This is NOT about the 2nd amendment. That’s for another day. (BTW…“well regulated” are the 2nd and 3rd words.)
This is about what might have been. There is this: Double Fantasy was released less than a month before John was gunned down. Maybe he woulda never written another dozen great songs, or even one more great song. Maybe he woulda lived 30 more years and Double Fantasy would be the last album he would ever release. He coulda holed up forever in The Dakota and dried up musically. I’m doubting it.
We’ll never know….but I’m betting that millions of us would be singing along to great songs he woulda written after 12/8/80.
But instead of killing himself, a religious fanatic with a Charter Arms .38-caliber pistol killed a Beatle…the first person on a lengthy hit list. Reportedly he also wanted to kill David Bowie, Johnny Carson, Jackie O, Walter Cronkite and Liz Taylor….and others.
Chapman was one angry Presbyterian!!!
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John Lennon is still shining on….like the moon, and the stars and the sun.
Surely someone will play this song 44 hours from now at Springfield, MO’s 31st Imagine Concert. It’ll be my first time at the traditional event…really. My first-ever Imagine Concert…12/10/16. It’s gonna be killer.
“Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin’ to do…”
I’ve never liked the sound of “instant Karma” more in my life.