John Lennon is not dead

Some people do not die. Martin Luther King is not dead. Thomas Paine is not dead. William Shakespeare is not dead. And John Lennon is not dead.

Abraham Lincoln said, upon the death of his beloved son Willy, "Our poor boy. He was too good for this world." Contemplating the demise of certain persons, the world understands. Like all parents, the Lincolns could never really let go of their son; and for 29 years as of tonight, the world has refused to let go of John Lennon. In life, his impact was massive, inescapable, relentless. In death, he has become a secular, omnipresent Saint of the World, with more authority in more places with more people than any other artist, living or dead. But his is not top-down authority; it is the authority of the sincerely angry and affronted rebel of intellect and integrity, demanding that all tyrants and brutes, of the world and of the soul, be denounced and dethroned. He was always insistent that he and Yoko were artists first, not revolutionaries; but to him, that made his obligations -- to tell the truth, to live the truth, and to take the next step that truth required -- greater, not lesser. Feeling stuck in the fishbowl of Beatle-era publicity, he turned his honeymoon into an attention-getting gimmick for peace. The first years of his post-Beatle career produced as many, if not more, memorable interviews as songs -- all straightforward and earnest discussions of his views on war and peace, women's equality, art in politics, and drug culture. The charm of those interviews is the undeniable openness and spontaneity he displays, and it seems entirely plausible that his series of interviews --particularly those with Mike Douglass and Dick Cavett -- were so different from everything before, so off the cuff, so obviously -- forgive me -- live, that they led inexorably to what we now think of as Phil Donahue and Oprah. Media to the People, Right On!!!!!

Those interviews in particular display what gives him his continuing power and stature as an artist and a human being. He never, even before the Beatles, pretended to feel what he didn't feel, to want what he didn't want, to see what he didn't see. He called it as he saw it and damn the consequences, but more often than not his good nature made him think that the Truth -- his Truth, your Truth, any Truth -- could, in the long run, only set you Free, and the more Free, the better. He would put on a suit and tie for more money, and then tell the audience at the Royal Command Performance "Those of you in the cheap seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." The audience laughed politely enough, but everyone in the room suddenly knew where the real power was. That was a truthful joke, and a profoundly rebellious one. His emotional letdown and weight gain after the first huge wave of Beatlemania became the muse for the profoundly personal and moving "Help!" Hating himself for backtracking after the "Bigger than Jesus" episode, he let it all hang out and was perhaps a little too public about drugs, sex, nudity. The lyrics of his best work dwell on his inner state and betray a martyr complex: "I'm so tired," "they're gonna crucify me," "I'm only sleeping," and the longing for redemption of the Two Virgins concept and "Starting Over." To him, the blunt Truth about his life, as he found it on whatever Day in the Life he found it, was always the best fodder for his art and explains the personal power his persona and his work contains. He was never into silly love songs (to coin a phrase) for their own sake. The truthfulness of his art is the source of its power and immediacy, and it keeps him alive today.

He did not think of Art as a hammer with which to shape society, but he found himself an an accomplished artist who wanted change in the world, and he communicated that if he were a dentist or a landscaper or a waiter he would be equally obligated to try, and since he was an artist he would do what he could with his art, but all the people who were not artists had an obligation as well to do what they could, and if enough people saw through the lies and the brutality and the dull stupid worship of useless petty authority figures that there was a chance that the world could save itself and create the paradise it naturally deserved.

Like the man said.: Imagine.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

There's nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

There's nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is love......