Earlier today, marked the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, while tomorrow marks the 26th anniversary of the murder of musician John Lennon. In light of these two tragic events, I’d like to share something positive that occurred while I was in New York City back in October.
It was a relatively warm day in Central Park, as I walked briskly to Strawberry Fields, specifically to a spot I call Imagine Circle, a site that was dedicated several years ago by Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, which has turned into a memorial where fans of Lennon can gather and assemble peaceably in quiet reflection.
It was sometime after 10 am, on Monday, October 9, 2006, when I watched the day slowly unfold. Self-designated Unofficial John Lennon Celebration Day organizers had already begun setting up shop and I snapped a few photos, as the organizers were confronted by Central Park Rangers & representatives from the New York City mayor’s office, explaining to the organizers that on no uncertain terms would they allow, according to the mayor’s office, “no electric or acoustic guitars or any other instruments,” still the Rangers and the mayor’s office said, “a capella music would be allowed.”
After the Rangers departed, the organizers made a quick plan, whereas one man acted as lookout scout for signs of the cops in case trouble brewed, while the other men began to set up shop.
Not a moment was wasted as musicians with acoustic guitars began arriving in droves, as well as people came trickling in little by little, until a small crowd gathered to celebrate the birth of one of the greatest men to ever step in front of a microphone with a guitar in his hands and a song in his breath, but would often yell gibberish into a microphone, yet the whole world listened.
The songs were all familiar; they were his songs, along with his writing partner’s songs and sometimes his band mates’ songs, plus the songs he wrote and recorded after he split on a permanent basis with his band mates.
Those songs were written for pure enjoyment, but as you listened to each song, they expressed compassion, love, pain, happiness, hilarity, sadness, depression, silliness, innocence, color and finality.
Wherever he and his band mates went, so did the overabundance of the screaming girls and cops and never enough time to enjoy their privacy. Ah, such was the life of a musician who wanted to be heard and listened to differently than all the rest. He most certainly was, as fans would hang onto his every word and every breath he omitted from his lips.
Sometimes, his words got to the best of him, taken out of context and then he’d have to apologize to everybody saying that wasn’t what he meant. He was so used to it back then. After him and his band mates split, he and wife kept on making statements, whether they were appropriate or not and took the consequences of his words in stride and didn’t care what the critics though, just as long as they heard the message loud and clear.
The crowd kept on growing all afternoon, swelling to almost 600 people, 10 deep within the Imagine Circle, as I stood on my feet singing for nearly seven hours, throat dry, while sucking on slippery elm, but it was those words and his music that kept me fueled. I even saw my old friend the Howard Stern impersonator within the crowd.
At approximately 3:30 Eastern Standard Time, the song Strawberry Fields Forever, started to be strummed by at least one dozen guitarists, accompanied by a portable keyboard, light drumming and over 550 voices.
As the vocals grew louder and more distinct, without warning the sunshine that we felt on our faces all morning and afternoon was suddenly blotted out for the entirety of the song and the whole of Central Park. Oohs and ahs echoed throughout the crowd when that occurred and just as the song wound down to the final chords, the sun had mysteriously came back from whence it disappeared.
Stranger still, was that the 3:30 time factor, for it was also the approximate age (33) that Jesus Christ had died. Could John Lennon have indeed predicted the truth that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus and proved his point by blotting out the sun?
A lot of us in the crowd wondered aloud and to ourselves as to what had just happened, but all in all, we knew that indeed someone was listening to us, listening to our message of love and appreciation of the man and his music.And the man, whomever he was, had definitely approved.
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