Oddly I do not remember where I was when I heard. I remember the sense of gloom. It lasted for days.
I was watching Monday Night Football with my Dad when Howard Cosell made the announcement. It was a very dark day indeed and that entire week was tough.
My brother actually went up with friends to the vigil at Strawberry Fields in Central Park.
I remember my listening to a lot of Beatles and Lennon music that week.
I remember, weeks later, how impressed I was that the widow donated a large sum of money for bulletproof vests for the NYPD.
Rest in peace, John. To his widow, Yoko, and to his sons, Julian and Sean, my sympathies for this tragic day.
Imagine there’s no heaven.
I was watching the same football game with my dad and he commented on why they had to interrupt an important football game to announce that a drug addict was dead. I called him an asshole and walked out of the house. I held that against him for years.
Wow, 40 years. I remember it like it was yesterday still. 
Wow, that is quite the reaction. My father didn’t seem broken up by the news, but no insensitive comments thankfully.
Wow!
I remember being really shocked. I mean, who murders a singer? I grew up in an era of politicians being assassinated, and while I found it upsetting, I at least understood why someone would want to do that. But John Lennon?
I think I was in a class when I learned the news.
I was ten. When my mom told me “John Lennon was shot and killed in New York,” I asked, “But…did they know it was him?” That question did not go over too well with my mom. But it made sense to me. All I knew about John Lennon was that he had been a Beatle, and the Beatles were super rich. (Well, Paul was, so the others had to be, too, right?) And New York City was a place where people got robbed at gunpoint, as well as other terrible things. So what I thought must have happened was that Lennon had gotten out of his expensive car, wearing an expensive suit, and someone hadn’t given him a choice between his money or his life. Of course I found out otherwise before long, but I still think it was a reasonable question.
Also, I think people have finally stopped giving McCartney a hard time for his immediate reaction. Allegedly, he said “It’s a drag,” offhandedly, as if it meant nothing to him. But I’ve seen the video of him being surrounded by news vultures, and his sorrow and bewilderment are clear from his tone and body language. He did say “It’s a drag,” but it was hardly the only thing he said. And it was not said flippantly.
I can’t believe it’s been that long. I was 32. I had been (and still am) a Beatlemaniac. I remember that a friend of mine called that night and wanted to talk for a long time, just processing the event. The Beatles shaped our young adult years.
After my husband died in 2000, I played Abbey Road over and over and over… A friend had given it to me for my 21st birthday in 1969.
I think the fact that MNF is how the country learned of the killing in real time is what strikes me to this day. The flower child world of John Lennon intersecting with the Joe Sixpack world of Monday Night Football, which turned out to be one of the most powerful moments in prime time TV history.
Astute observation, @asahi.
I try to be astute. 
Lennon had been a guest in the MNF booth a few years prior, and I guess Cosell knew him from that.
I had brought a portable TV into my bedroom to watch the game, and dozed off, waking to the news. I was in 10th grade, and the next day was pretty somber - I distinctly remember “so this is Christmas” playing on the cafeteria sound system.
My cousin was born later that day. His parents gave him the middle name Lennon, which my grandpa was concerned would be misheard as a com-symp tribute (not out of the question given his view of my uncle’s politics).
The world needs more stutes.
I was in eighth grade. My best friend called and gave me the news. I had just bought the new single “(Just Like) Starting Over,” John’s first release in five years. I went into my room and put it on the turntable. I remember the senselessness of the crime – a stellar life snuffed out, a joyous comeback cruelly thwarted.
Soon after his death, I bought the recently released John/Yoko LP Double Fantasy. On line in the record store, I remember watching an old guy in a cowboy hat buy four copies – presumably not to listen to but because he thought they’d increase in value as collectors’ items. What a vulture, I thought.
Pretty cynical for an eighth-grader. 
And only a few years later, vinyl records became obsolete. Take that cowboy hat guy!
And 35 years later, they’re back!
I was on my way home on a bus in Oakland California, and overheard someone talking about it. I said, what, what? Then I said, that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. And maybe, 40 years later, I’ve heard sadder things but that’s still high on the list.
My two older sisters went to the Beatles concert at the Cow Palace (San Francisco) in 1964. I was eight and not permitted to go.
He was the only Beatle I was ever interested in.
In 60 days it will have been as long since his death as was the length of his lifetime.
And it was, really. The notion of a targeted assassination of a celebrity, apparently just for its own sake, right in the street, was a jarring thing. At the time one would indeed think first of mugging gone wrong or of just random violence.
That also evokes the sense of news media commonality that still existed at that point.
I had gone to bed early that night (exhausted after a final exam) so I missed learning of it “live” by maybe an hour or so, waking up to the reports was impressive.