STARTING OVER

As John Lennon’s 80th birthday approaches, Nigel Williamson pays tribute to the much missed Beatle cut short before his prime

- Nigel Williamson

On 8 December, 1980 at around 10.50pm, John Lennon and Yoko Ono arrived back at their home in New York’s Dakota building from a recording session at the Record Plant. As they walked through the archway of the building a demented fan named Mark David Chapman – who earlier in the day had asked Lennon to autograph his copy of the Double Fantasy album – stepped from the shadows and shot him four times in the back from close range. Lennon was rushed to the Roosevelt Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Had he lived he would have turned 80 on 9 October this year and as we prepare to mark the 40th anniversary of his premature death, it’s indicative of his enduring influence that Lennon has become a touchstone in the so-called ‘culture war’ currently convulsing our political discourse.

In the run-up to the anniversary of his death we can expect everyone from Boris Johnson to Black Lives Matter to claim him for their side. There have always been those utopian dreamers who have claimed Lennon as a philosopher king on the strength of Imagine. Others have made him a poster boy for their revolts and revolutions, a socio-political avatar only rivalled by Bob Marley in the pantheon of rock’s radicals.

Then there are those who would blunt his radicalism by co-opting Lennon to the establishment. Lennon and The Beatles were, “never the counter-culture,” according to Daniel Finkelstein, a huge Beatles fan who also happens to be a Tory grandee in the House of Lords and was a senior aide to David Cameron in Downing Street. In Finkelstein’s world view, Lennon was an agent for capitalism for: “Commerce is and always has been the engine of rock music.”