Lennon

If a musician first learns to play guitar, is it then impossible to learn to play the piano?

Six/twelve strings vs. 88 daunting keys.

I took piano lessons when I was 17, from a fellow who had married a dancer who owned the studio where my younger sister took tap dancing lessons. He was kinda goofy, this piano chap, who realized I simply didn't have the apptitude to handle 88 keys, but took the lesson money 'cause he needed it. Except, I did, on my own, figure out one song.

Imagine.

John Lennon was murdered 25 years ago. How is it possible so much time has passed, and that it happened in the first place?

News of his death came on a cold, damp December morning when the clock radio went off and I woke to hear the DJ crying. I lived alone then, in a top floor apartment of an old Victorian house in Rockville, Maryland. The fellow downstairs played jazz guitar; Linda, across the hall, became a good friend, married a wonderful Brit, moved overseas, and was soon gone due to breast cancer at the age of 48.

I sat in bed that morning, looking out at the grey rain through the window and thought about John Lennon, about what his life contributed to the world. He and McCartney made a good songwriting team, but it felt to me that Lennon was always on his own. Being a Beatle woke him up to what that really meant, with its pressures and confinements, and that discovery made him walk away.

In this month's Rolling Stone, there is an article about Lennon, tucked quietly in the middle of the Hip Hop Now issue. It's written by Mikal Gilmore, brother of the infamous Gary who was the subject of Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song. Mikal, who has written for Rolling Stone for more than 25 years, wrote about his brother in Shot in the Heart, a tale "from inside the house where murder is born... a house that, in some ways, [he has] never been able to leave."

And now he writes about Lennon, about John's life before, during and after the Beatles. Mikal Gilmore quotes Lennon, "I didn't become something when the Beatles made it. I've been like this all my life." The story is really about a life transformed to a different kind of meaning. There's the wonderful photo taken by Annie Leibovitz in New York on the day he died. Lennon's eyes are closed. Is he dreaming? I think he looks peaceful, a man who is content because he is making the music he likes with a woman he loves, and he will soon go home to see his five-year old son.

Imagine is still played on the piano, and the radio. And sometimes it still rains. Lennon said, "I sincerely believe in love and peace. I'm a violent man who's learned not to be violent."

Comments

[Pen]

Heard a Lennon quote on NPR the anniversary of his death. He said, "I must be either a genius or insane. Since they haven't locked me away yet..."

Love the logic. I think I'll use it!!!