The Last Days of John Lennon

Jesus, murdered. Ghandi, murdered. Martin Luther King, murdered. John and Robert Kennedy, murdered. John Lennon, murdered. Donald Trump, walks the earth. Where’s the justice?

“If you’re going to murder someone, have some f…n’ taste! I’ll drive you to Kenny Roger’s house and I know where Wham lives!”  Bill Hicks

I’m not saying John Lennon was a saint, in fact he was deeply flawed. He was however, not just a brilliant musician but he was at the forefront of peace activism throughout the world during his 40 years on the planet. 

James Patterson has been a prolific writer for decades selling 400 million copies of mostly fiction novels. In this terrifically insightful non-fiction book he has teamed up with 2 x award winning journalists Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge to inaugurate what would have been Lennon’s 80^th birthday. 

For most of us we can remember the morning of 9/11/2001 and the repeated footage of the World Trade Centre under attack. Perhaps some of the more refined in age can remember the JFK assassination or the moon landing like it was yesterday. For me it was December 8, 1980 and the news being spread around the army base I was stationed at in Qld, that John Lennon had been shot. It was so incredulous that someone so committed to peace could be gunned down in New York where he had moved to avail himself of the anonymity that the Big Apple provides celebrities.

Added to the confusion was that he had just released his long awaited album in conjunction with his wife Yoko Ono called Double Fantasy. This was a return to the Lennon we had been waiting for. Free of drugs and alcohol, in a happy relationship after a number of years of discontent and engaged in his new role as house husband to their 5YO son, Sean. The album beamed with positivity and sounded fresh and original. We were back in love with the man.

Why this book is so easy to read and so enjoyable is because of the way it’s structured, coupled with the level of research that has been dedicated to it. I’ve never seen a bibliography so comprehensive, other than for a major hard cover biography or educational text. It contains 100 x pages of references which is outstanding. There are 68 short, succinct chapters within the book,  each enthralling. Patterson takes us back to the very start of the Beatles and the meeting of Lennon and McCartney as well as the evolution of the band. The detail is astounding and you very much feel like you are Merseyside in the 60’s. 

For Lynda and I we were fortunate to experience the joy of Liverpool and the Beatles legacy on a trip 10 years go. Here’s a blog if you’re interested. I’ll never forget “losing our blob” going into the Cavern and witnessing 2 x brothers on stage doing pitch-perfect Lennon & McCartney!

The chapters  accurately trace the history of Lennon from the Beatles through to his solo career and life in general, with all the controversies that it entailed. His abandonment by his parents and subsequent raising by his aunty, marriage breakup, drugs, Yoko, first son Julian, his and Paul’s relationship, handing back the MBE, bed for peace, being refused entry into the US, all the juicy bits that we heard of over the years but much, much more. I was always curious as to what happened when Yoko kicked him out in NYC and sent him packing to LA with their personal assistant, May Pang which Lennon described as his “lost weekend.”  Now I know. 

The chapters are interspersed with thin chapters where Patterson gets inside the mind of Mark Chapman, the murderer and sociopath responsible for shooting Lennon 4 x times in the back with a .38 pistol using hollow point bullets for that extra “oomph”. Fortunately Patterson doesn’t give too much credence to this degenerate’s  motive but the killing was certainly pre-meditated and creepy in it’s execution. Chapman has tried a dozen times for parole and has been refused on every occasion. For his own safety he is better off where he is because there would be a long queue looking for redemption.

We visited New York for 3 x weeks in 2014 and loved it. One of the highlights of course is Central Park where Yoko has the memorial for John which is only metres away from the Dakota Building where the Lennon’s lived and where John was shot. In 1980 NYC was a dangerous place and Central Park was a haven for drugs and crime. Since Yoko bought and cleaned up a large portion of Central Park, the city finally responded and restored it to what it is now, New Yorker’s beautiful back yard. 

On December 8, 1980 I rang my big sister, Pam in Melbourne who is a Beatles tragic. We both cried in sheer frustration at what had happened. I have read and heard many conflicting opinions on John Lennon over the years. He could be quite sarcastic and cruel as well as generous and loving. This book has in a strange way, given me some closure on just who this legend really was after all these years. If you’re a Beatles/Lennon fan you will love this deep dive into one of the great artists of the 20th century. This is one of my all time favourite Lennon songs Mind Games. I love the clip because it’s the clean and healthy John with Yoko in Central park just prior to his death. Just how I like to remember him.