Today is the “anniversary” of John Lennon’s murder. I can’t believe it’s been almost 30 years since he was shot down in cold blood outside his apartment building in New York.

I guess you’d have to say that Lennon was my “favorite” Beatle. I tended to like his solo songs more than the others. And as I got to know the Beatles’ catalog a little better, it turned out that I liked his Beatles songs better too. Of course I’m talking about the singles. There were some of his solo songs on his LP’s that were really just awful (and don’t get me started on Yoko’s “singing”).

Back in those days I really wasn’t aware of the politics of the musicians I followed. I figured if they wrote and performed a good song, then it was a good song and that’s all I needed to know. But today I’m more “politically” aware. I’d have to say that I’d have a hard time today being a John Lennon fan, assuming he was as politically active as he was in the early 70′s (and I understand that he had gone or was going to some left-wing political event near the time of his death). His political views do seem a little naive and I think he was duped into supporting some of the causes he was involved in.

I remember where I was when I heard the news that he’d been murdered. I was in the control room of a recording studio helping to engineer a session when the owner called down and told us. Needless to say, we were stunned. And the fact that we were in a studio kind of made it have a little more impact.

Imagine what songs a nearly 70 year old Lennon would be writing and singing these days…