John Lennon and Crimes Against Humanity

Lots on the news about an ex president getting sentenced at the Hague.

These cases always make me think that the miscreant ( the name is unspeakable) who murdered John , commited a crime against humanity.... on a world scale.

Maybe its just cos I'm old, but some wounds never heal.

Can't write anymore.....

DaveP

DaveP said:

Lots on the news about an ex president getting sentenced at the Hague.

These cases always make me think that the miscreant ( the name is unspeakable) who murdered John , commited a crime against humanity.... on a world scale.

Click to expand...

You mean the Chapman guy.

You got it.

Certainly challenges the art of forgiveness

DaveP

Yup the campaign has formally started. Looks somewhat like a re-run of '08. We'll see if it works this time.

Yes John Lennon was a good soul, be we didn't collectively own him to lose him... Murdering any one person is crime enough. All life is precious.

The international morality police should be pursuing bad actors in power right now. How many people were killed today?  Should I make a list? There seems to be some serious lapses in judgement from my perspective.

JR

PS For more entertainment the UN is investigating the US treatment of native american indians.  Again, is that the best use of their time and money (that we provide too much of)?  Maybe we could take Spain to task for their dealings in South America over the centuries, but Argentine government just grabbed some payback from Spanish oil industry.  ;D

JohnRoberts said:

Yes John Lennon was a good soul, be we didn't collectively own him to lose him... Murdering any one person is crime enough. All life is precious.

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Maybe I should qualify..

Of course we didn't own him, it is our collective memory that we own, and that is what was murdered along with him.

I don't know for sure, but I get the feeling you were born a bit later.  My generation was affected at a very impressionable age (12~13) by the Beatles, I can't expect you to have the same reaction.

best
DaveP

I remember just fine  ..  8)    Was just a kid, real young like. 

All you need is love. Was true then and is true now.
Along with a whole boat load of sub quantum mechanics.

So, some 40 years on and I still never heard anything that moved me like them.

John L was a long way ahead of his time.

And so was 'Magic Alex'  ! The 'father of wacked out electronics'

I've been playing the guitar and doing electronics ever since.
Lots of little speakers all over the place

alexc said:

...way ahead of his time.

And so was 'Magic Alex'  ! The 'father of wacked out electronics'

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I brought up the subject of Alex in conversation with George Harrison once...  Mistake! 
I think George would have agreed with the whacked-out bit though. 

He was supposed to kit out the studio at Apple as I recall, but never got it together.

They had to get Geoff Emerick in to sort it out afterwards.

best
DaveP

DaveP said:

He was supposed to kit out the studio at Apple as I recall, but never got it together.

Click to expand...

Yes that's right.
He had all sorts of ideas which he pitched (generally to John and George) and got funding for. 
One of them which George went on about involved taking the engines out of John's and George's expensive new cars so he could build some sort of invisibility force field!  George was still pissed off about it years later.  I don't think his car ever got put back together again.   

> He had all sorts of ideas which he pitched (generally to John and George) and got funding for. 

Life can be  very sweet with some *good* friends!

Ah, George.  Everyone loved George.  So very ... also great.

I have an 80s Rick reissue of his 12str. What a guitar! Tough but fair, I like to say.
Try playing 'And Your Bird Can Sing' on it -  very real sounding! And very challenging!

And Geoff. What's to say? The 'other' fifth Beatle.

God they were good. It was all so good.

And I mean Dylan too!
And Elvis, of course.

And invisibility force fields are a commonplace item, nowadays.

Just not in the car.

(yet)

Actually, if I could ask Mr M.Alex a question about 'his time',  I would ask what he thought about Erik.V.D
Must have been a real blast of a topic in those beautiful agean islands late 60s    ???

And ask George what he thought about fairchild limiters  :-*

Mmm. Late 60s.

DaveP said:

JohnRoberts said:

Yes John Lennon was a good soul, be we didn't collectively own him to lose him... Murdering any one person is crime enough. All life is precious.

Click to expand...

Maybe I should qualify..

Of course we didn't own him, it is our collective memory that we own, and that is what was murdered along with him.

I don't know for sure, but I get the feeling you were born a bit later.  My generation was affected at a very impressionable age (12~13) by the Beatles, I can't expect you to have the same reaction.

best
DaveP

Click to expand...

I am old enough to recall watching the Beatles introduced to the US on Ed Sullivan's Show one sunday night, but my younger sister was much more of a Beatles fan than I... It is hard for anybody to not be a fan after Sgt. Pepper hit a little later in the '60s. While there was a good boys/bad boys tension between them and the Stones (perhaps marketing related).  I also recall when Lennon was assassinated in NYC. It was a sad day indeed.

Thank You I haven't been accused of being  too young to understand something for a long ass time. Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood. I appreciate the sentiment of "Imagine" but fear the world is not remotely close, and I am suspicious of the internationalists. While I am suspicious of many more than just them. Follow the money. 

JR

I remember the 8th of December 1980 VERY well.  Actually, by the time we got the news, it was the ninth in the UK.  I'm still sad at the pointlessness of it...

George was the only Beatle I met but I know people who were fairly close to Lennon.  By all accounts, John was no angel (he would no doubt agree) but he was a dichotomy and certainly believed in his own Mantra's of peace and Love.  Possibly naively so but who cares?  Anyway, the things he sang about and said on our T.V.'s and radio's are probably the reasons why we can forgive him for the other stuff.

It's stange how there's often been some nutjob who didn't  take too kindly to the folks who where mostly talking about Love and Peace.  Don't forget Martin Luther King, Mohandas K. Ghandi et al. 

JohnRoberts said:

Thank You I haven't been accused of being  too young to understand something for a long ass time. Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood. I appreciate the sentiment of "Imagine" but fear the world is not remotely close, and I am suspicious of the internationalists. While I am suspicious of many more than just them. Follow the money. 

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JR,

If you weren't so disgustingly old I'd accuse you of being just a tad cynical.  No you're not in a bad mood, you're just your normal cheerful self.  But there we are, you were old enough to see them, but not old enough to blow you away, so you were born in 1956 on my reckoning.

best
DaveP

DaveP said:

JohnRoberts said:

Thank You I haven't been accused of being  too young to understand something for a long ass time. Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood. I appreciate the sentiment of "Imagine" but fear the world is not remotely close, and I am suspicious of the internationalists. While I am suspicious of many more than just them. Follow the money. 

Click to expand...

JR,

If you weren't so disgustingly old I'd accuse you of being just a tad cynical.  No you're not in a bad mood, you're just your normal cheerful self.  But there we are, you were old enough to see them, but not old enough to blow you away, so you were born in 1956 on my reckoning.

best
DaveP

Click to expand...

Once again thank you...  I was born in 1948 and I am extremely cynical.

I generally try not to argue with success, and who was more successful selling records than the Beatles (rhetorical).

While I loved Sgt. Pepper like the rest of the world, there were lots of self indulgent tracks on later Beatles albums that might have been better left on the Ashram floor. Likewise the early Beatles albums were IMO underestimated for their pop craftsmanship. Tight singles that rocked, and you could tap your foot to. 

That said my personal taste when paying for tickets with my own money leaned toward going to Doors concerts, while there was lots of good free music in Boston in the '60s. i recall the Who as an opening act for the Doors one time on Long Island back then..  it was a little bizarre to run into Entwistle decades later standing outside the Peavey main headquarters office (late '90s) stealing a smoke. Apparently he made a personal side trip to Peavey, to secure some bass rig equipment, while on his one man tour.

I was surprised to see an artist of his legacy standing around alone outside our front door. I wasn't sure if the kinder thing was to recognize him or not... I did recognize him and gave him a short "I saw you perform back in the day" thank you,  then went in to work.   

JR

DaveP said:

Lots on the news about an ex president getting sentenced at the Hague.

These cases always make me think that the miscreant ( the name is unspeakable) who murdered John , commited a crime against humanity.... on a world scale.

Maybe its just cos I'm old, but some wounds never heal.

Can't write anymore.....

DaveP

Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiment... however, if I was someone who's life was touched by one of these massive slaughters, I might wonder what it's like to have the luxury of worrying over the fate of one  wealthy and successful entertainer, no matter how pure his heart seemed to be.

I cry every time I hear Imagine  :'(

My mum flies in from John Lennon airport tomorrow for a visit.

She saw the Beatles before they were famous; knew Ringo before he joined the band (He dated her roommate while she was at L'pool university).

My first day at work, Paul McCartney's brother came in to record a session.

I remember waking up to the news in 1980. Being stunned and in a vague daze all day long.

I still see my mum's university friends, though nowadays they're getting on somewhat. I usually ask each of them to tell me what they felt at the time. Most often they tell me that they thoroughly enjoyed it, and they KNEW that the band was fantastic (this was the 'toe-tapping-tune' era), but they still would never have imagined that they could have grown to be the stunningly creative phenomenon that they were.

I still have a couple of mutual friends with the surviving Beatle members... funny to think of it sometimes. -I grew up with the history happening all around me, and it seemed so 'usual', so 'normal'. -My son thinks that's the coolest, but it was so 'ordinary', even AFTER they'd been so successful.

I get the arguments about 'everyone should be able to defend themselves with a gun'... I really do...But unfortunately there are just too many dîckhéads out there, and the price we pay is that idiots own guns and do stupid things.

To the Trayvon Martin family (My mum is flying into Sanford, FL as it happens) I wonder which was the more significant tragedy: Chapman feeling like he could do as he pleased, or Zimmerman thinking that it's okay to arm himself and challenge someone who he thinks 'doesn't fit'?

The gun lobby in the US falls back on fear, and uses oversimplified rabble-rousing chants aimed at simple minds, and the anti-gun lobby falls back on fear and uses pollyanna idealism. -Neither of them is actually right... but you'll never convince them.

WTMNMF,

You make a good point, there can be no comparison with a personal tragedy, I was thinking more of the cumulative loss of small parts of millions of lives.  The US felt it with JFK and MLK and the UK with Princess Diana I guess.

JR,
Ok, 1948, so you really have no excuse at all!
However, I agree entirely about the Beatles later output (Abbey Road excepted).
For me the best album was Revolver, the later stuff was self indulgent and they were never as good alone as they were together.

I used to be quite cynical myself once (I may have a touch of Asperger's) but this forum does tend to restore one's faith in human nature, there's not much money to follow here is there?

best
DaveP

  Grew up as an American and really enjoyed the Beatles. Gun violence took away the promise of my generation. JFK, RFK, MLK, John Lennon, Malcolm X, all the victims of the Vietnam War, etc...
  John Lennon (despite his personal demons) was absolutely correct when he implied that war and violence got free advertising every night on the TV. He was brave and brilliant to do the seemingly inane things he and Yoko did to try to sway the balance, and in some sense he succeeded.
  But let's face it, peace is not interesting as a dramatic device, and it didn't take long before Elvis Costello had to write, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding".
  I really enjoy the comments from the European members of this forum, and wish there was more of that in the public discussion we have here in the US about our political/social issues.
  Thanks to all for the interesting discussion.

Man, just read through this thread and for the first time in ages I feel young! x
Rubber Soul and Revolver are the albums I always return to, just the right blend of pop songs and 'edgy' sounds. I'm always staggered by the amount of musical output the bands from this time produced....from my perspective it seems like it would have been an exciting time to be producing and recording given the pace of how the creativity and technology of the time moved along...
Jay