IMAGINE JOHN LENNON AT AGE 70...

...that's how old he'd be, today, 10/9/2010...

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When the Beatles were doing interviews and question/answer sessions, there would invariably be one reporter who would ask them, "Do you have any plans to record separately?", and then during the years they went Solo, a question that came up in interviews was, "Is there any chance of you getting back together in the future?" Ain't that crazy? There's always someone you can't please, no matter how hard you try.

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I don't have to buy a luxury box set of out-takes and audio tidbits to remember John Lennon, though. Although I'd be the first on my block to buy any all-new collections with songs I've never heard before. There've been times I've gotten in my car to go somewhere, but right then a Beatles song came over the radio, and I've paused, engine idling or not, to spend some time absorbing their music. I heard "Strawberry Fields Forever" on the radio a couple of weeks ago, and the song is so bombastic, so weary, so dragged-out; it's a song that seems to acquire more power with each play. It's one of the wildest pieces of music I've Ever Heard. Or ever will hear.

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Lennon once commented that (paraphrasing here), 'If everyone wants the Beatles so badly, all they have to do is buy our solo records, and make a tape of John's, Paul's, George's and Ringo's songs'. I've done that, with some fairly interesting results, especially among their earlier solo songs where Paul was griping about John, or John was slugging away at Paul, with George above it all,and Ringo saying, can't we all just get along?' Many of those Beatles-solo albums are really great, and many are not. Perhaps the reason the Beatles kept things going for so long was that the group, collectively, counted for more than the individuals in it. I think music has an aura. It's alive. And the Fabs' musical growth between 1963 and 1970 is just staggering. "I Saw Her Standing There." "Day Tripper". "A Day In The Life". "All You Need Is Love". "Dear Prudence". "Helter Skelter." "Across The Universe". And so on, and so forth.

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I remember the first time I ever heard John's "Instant Karma". It was played on an 'all-Beatles-weekend' back when the Beatles had just broken up. "Instant Karma" was so new that I'd never heard it before; later on I found a copy, and just about wore it out. The immediacy of that record still sounds so compelling. Lennon composed it one day, recorded it the next day and within a week, it was 'in the shops' . I think Lennon brought a creative, restless 'edge' to Beatles' music; an intangible ingredient that makes those old Beatles recordings sound fresh and current, decades after they came out. In John's best songs, that 'edge' manifested itself in such reactionary songs as "Instant Karma", "Power To The People", even "Woman Is The (n-word) Of The World". And in the midst of all that rabble-rousing, he recorded the Perfect Song: "Imagine".

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So what am I missing here? Yearning for the good old days? That's part of it. I think a lot of it has to do with the music itself. Music from the 1960's up thru the early seventies reaches a part of me that nothing else can. I can't take those guitar-buzzing speed-metal blitzes of songs that Hard Rock stations play. A lot of today's more mainstream rock music sounds very detached and weary, and I find myself listening, really trying to figure it all out. And some of the 1970's music I played on the radio way back when is just awful. Think of "Little Willy", "Get Up And Boogie", "Smoke Of A Distant Fire", "Heaven On The 7th Floor", "Disco Lady", or Blue Swede's version of "Hooked On A Feeling", the one that starts out with a hearty "ooga-chukka-ooga-chukka". What could they have been thinking?

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I've heard newer songs that appeal to me, but I think that's because those songs remind me of music that came out many years ago. An example of a fairly current song that grabbed my attention is "One Headlight", by the Wallflowers. But even that song's old; it came out in the mid-1990's. But the flavor of that song really appeals to me on some sort of subconscious level. A great backbeat, murky lyrical imagery, and just the way the tune sounded. The night that John Lennon was shot, I remember going into my music room and looking at my album collection, which took up several shelves, and what I remember thinking was something along the lines of, "if it hadn't been for Lennon, none of this music would exist." Why is all this so important to me? There's no real reason, except that the music is a part of me. I don't really know how else to explain it.

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The Beatles were more than just John Lennon, obviously. I think the group was truly cosmic sometimes. (Oh no, I'm sounding like a psyched-out cream puff here...) I've heard so many songs by so many people, and for whatever reason, the Beatles' music is on a whole 'nother level. We were so lucky to have them. I believe the Beatles sowed musical seeds all over the place; touching off pop-rock, using symphonic elements, 'getting back' to that good ol' Rock and Roll, and other groups took note and developed their own sounds. As an example, Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra has said that his group's music was based around the Cellos found in the Beatles' more psychedelic offerings.

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I think that when John Lennon was gunned down, a part of us all who were around back then died. We all lost something. It's still sad, 30 years on down the line. It's something the endless Beatles and Beatles-solo reissue projects can't change. From "I Saw Her Standing There" (leadoff track from "Introducing The Beatles", their first USA album, to "Carry That Weight/The End", from their last album, "Abbey Road", that's where it starts, that's where it ends. But there's a lot of good music in-between. The Beatles are still important to me. I feel good when I hear their music. I've tried to explain it (in vain, probably), so I'll just close things here. But before I go, here's a little something I found on the internet...

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At left, John Lennon in the early 70s. At right, John Lennon in his '70s. Trying to depict how he'd look if he were still alive obviously took some Imagine-ation...