Come together, right now, over me

And so today, December 8th, Beatles fans all over the world mourned the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's assassination. I joined them, inwardly, because in the real world my life had to go on.

It's odd to think he would be 70 now, were he still here. A hard thing to - pardon the pun - imagine. I grew up with the Beatles' music, but the mega fan thing didn't start till I was about eight or nine. I didn't find out Lennon was dead until the Beatles Anthology was broadcast on ITV when I was seven and they didn't have new interview footage of him like with the other Beatles. I had a much harder time accepting George Harrison's death, to be honest. No disrespect to Lennon, he was amazing too. But by the time I was born, he'd been dead eight years. George died when I was 13, and only a couple of months after I'd lost my maternal grandmother. Nine years on I still struggle to accept both of those deaths.

No matter what you do, you can't deny the Beatles' influence on popular culture. Lennon was always the funny one in the early days. I was recently shown this video via Twitter:



They did this sketch in honour of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birthday, and I won't lie, I think it's so funny. I love Shakespeare (well, most of his that I've read) as well as the Beatles. It's the perfect sketch for them because in the original text (it's the play-within-a-play from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', in case you weren't aware) it's supposed to be badly acted, and they really have a field day with it. It suits their style of humour.

Funny, then, that Lennon went from being clownish to a campaigner for peace responsible for some pretty profound statements ("If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace"). 'Imagine' is too often quoted and covered, as it has been for about forty years. Same with 'Working Class Hero', because so many folk out there identify with that song. It's gutting, then, to think of the difficult early life he had, and the nasty end he came to.

Physically, John Lennon's no longer here, but at least there are those still alive today who value his influence.