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John Lennon was killed 40 years ago today


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I was 16. I heard it on the radio in the morning

 

In those days I was a Beatles obsessive, and I was so upset I didn't go to school that day. Just spent the day listening to the reaction and tributes on the radio and TV

 

The following day I wore a black tie to school. The school I went to had a very strict dress code, but the teachers knew I was a huge fan and didn't say anything

 

40 years ago. Amazing. Time really does fly...

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Lennon's death to me was about a crazy person, and I could accept that there's crazy in the world. I think how we're saddened by loss depends on what happened to them. Some hit me harder than others...I was really distraught when Hachalu Hundessa was killed, solely to silence an inconvenient political voice. Johnny Clegg didn't die violently, but he was such a strong voice for what was right, and he died way too early. Ofra Haza had such a beautiful voice, but died at 42 of AIDS, which her husband believed was acquired because of a blood transfusion she received after a miscarriage. The circumstances surrounding Marvin Gaye's shooting were tragic, to say the least. Selena shot at 23 by her fan club president...Dimebag Darrell shot and killed while performing...Peter Tosh killed at age 42 by robbers...Lenny Breau, found strangled in his swimming pool and the reason why is still unknown...

 

Granted, none of them had the same level of fame as John Lennon, nor the same influence on popular culture. But they all mattered to me...particularly Hachalu Hundessa. When I heard he was killed I couldn't do anything the rest of the day. And I still tear up every time I hear Johnny Clegg's "Dela"...and it wasn't even one of his political songs. Dela has many meanings in Zulu, one of them is "recognition of my heart's home" but also "surrender"...and I truly believed that's what he conveyed in such a beautiful song. I 've always wanted to do a cover of it, but I can't make it all the way through singing a vocal.

 

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Thank you for this Craig! I had never heard of him before?

 

Johnny Clegg was a big deal in South Africa for having an interracial band and being strongly anti-apartheid, neither of which was a safe activity in the late 60s. He was arrested when he was a kid for congregating with non-whites after curfew. He's been compared to Bob Marley but Clegg, although political, was primarily all about the music and it just so happened that a lot of his topics were political.

 

One thing that really stood out to me is how self-righteous people can really screw things up. The worldwide anti-apartheid movement urged musicians to boycott playing in South Africa; Clegg continued to play both there and abroad, and was censured for not honoring the ban. How stupid can people be? Here he was, living in the land of apartheid, singing and speaking passionately against it. It took a hell of a lot more courage, and accomplished a lot more good, than if he had been sitting in London or somewhere else going tsk-tsk.

 

I didn't know the guy, but my sense is that he wasn't in it to make political statements, he was in it because he had a genuine affinity for Zulu music and culture, and couldn't wrap his head around why the people he hung out with were treated the way they were. I think being in an interracial band was because it allowed him to make the music he wanted to play, not because he wanted to make a statement. The very existence of his band during apartheid was a statement in itself - "Hey, we're not having any problems, what's your problem?"

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I read the occasional musician biography. I'm reading the Philip Norman one on Paul at present - Norman is a good writer, but I'm not a McCartney scholar so I can't assess the overall fairness on the topic ('tho I've heard 80% of it all before in one fashion or another.) But I am getting a much clearer picture of McCartney and the consistencies in his character that go far towards explaining his long and varied career.

 

The two other Beatle books I've gotten the most out of were Geoff Emerick's Here, There & Everywhere, and Tony Bramwell's Magical Mystery Tours: My Life With the Beatles. Emerick's book is great for anecdotes and a lot about the technical side of the studio - he was working off old memories and long-standing biases pro-here and con-there, but that doesn't bother me - just adds to the realism if not the absolute veracity. Bramwell is a low-profile guy, but he was around from day 1, and he has a lot of great stories I've never heard before, and not just about the fab four, either. Funny, too, and you can tell, smart and cagey.

 

I've never read a bio of John - any thumbs up for one or another?

 

 

nat

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