I was 12 when it happened, and John Lennon was only “my” second rock’n’roll dead after Bon Scott had died earlier that year. I had fell in love with AC/DC after “Highway To Hell” came out, and a few weeks after that Bon died, so that made a big impression on me. But I already had had an infatuation for the Beatles, though having been born in 1968 and being too young to have known them in their own times, I had learned about them and their music from older cousins of mine, and already got some of their albums, especially the Red and the Blue albums, which I wore out the grooves off, before discovering AC/DC. And though I was only in my third year of taking English classes, I knew that Bon was mostly singing about girls and booze, while songs like “In My Life” and “Nowhere Man” and countless others went much deeper. So Lennon’s death hit me harder, although his band hadn’t existed for ten years and never in my conscious days. I had a grasp at that time what an eminent figure John had been.
I don’t remember where I heard the news, but it was probably on the radio or TV.