What? John died? I thought it’s Paul that was dead!
In more seriousness, I was culturally unaware at the time. I had to have been 9 years old when it happened, but I was a kid growing up in a Jewish religious household - I knew nothing of rock music yet. (not until I was a teenager)
Not shooting John Lennon. I want to make that clear.
I was watching MNF; I was a sophomore in high school.
Several of my classmates and I had a APBA Football league (a board game, similar to Strat-o-Matic), in which we drafted players and formed our own teams. My placekicker was John Smith, the Patriots’ kicker, who was about to make the game-winning field goal when Cosell made the announcement of Lennon’s murder.
At the time, I was just getting into music, and was not (yet) a big Beatles fan. Had it happened a few years later, when I was a Beatles fan, it would have hit me far harder than it did at the time.
I lived in a crappy little waterfront apartment in Bremerton, Washington at the time, and I and my next door neighbor Gidget had just returned from a day trip to Pike Place market in Seattle. I was over at her place fixing up some spamghetti(times were tough back then), television on in the background, when we heard the news. We just stared at the television in shock. Gidget was crying openly, and I had tears in my eyes. She called her clients to cancel appointments, and we spent the night listening to Double Fantasy and reminiscing.
OK, blame this on Nyquil. I’ve been living on the stuff for the last week. In 1980, I woulda been 15, not 9.
Watching MNF as well. I was 13.
I convinced a number of kids and a teacher or two to wear a black armband.
I think I was doing the same thing I was doing when Michael Jackson died, except I can’t remember what that was either time.
[questioning Price]
Sefton: When was Pearl Harbor, Price, or don’t you know that?
Price: December 7th, '41.
Sefton: What time?
Price: [smugly] 6:00. I was having dinner.
Sefton: 6:00 in Berlin.
[to the other barrack members]
Sefton: They were having lunch in Cleveland. Am I boring you boys?
I have no idea what I was doing at the time, but I expect I bawled my head off and shat my pants.
No particular love for John Lennon, I was just short of 2 years old at the time.
I was embedded in my mother’s uterus.
I was a junior in High School. I was in my room and turned on my little clock radio. It was tuned to KLOS and they were playing Beatles/Lennon songs. I thought, “Cool. I Beatles marathon.” Then the DJ broke in in the middle of a song. He said, “some asshole just shot John Lennon…” I don’t remember anything else that he said after that. I was a big Beatles fan and shocked and depressed by the news.
I was asleep when it happened. The next morning I was getting ready for school (first year of college) and my sister came down stairs and told me the news.
Count me as one of those who was completely and utterly dumbfounded and numb. I was, and still am, a huge Beatles fan. I had most Beatles’ albums, a few of John’s post-Beatles’ albums, and had just bought Double Fantasy, on 8-track no less.
The issue with this particular celebrity death was that this was a guy who preached peace and love for his entire career. Yeah, a little naive and idealistic, but we all were back then. John Lennon was a cultural icon for his music, and for his stance on peace and his admitted involvement with illicit drugs. He was witty and quite anti-establishment. There’s no comparison today. And then to have all the radio stations playing 24 hour John Lennon. It was a very sad, sad moment in my life. If this could happen to John Lennon it could happen to anyone. Welcome to adulthood.
I was living in Berlin at the time.
I woke up and, as usual, turned on AFN (the American Forces Network with US news, etc.) and getting dressed and ready to teach a class.
When I first turned on the radio, all I heard was the disc jockey say, “…we will be playing John Lennon’s music all day today…” and they went right into one of his songs.
I thought, “Wow - isn’t that great! A whole day of Lennon’s music. I wonder why?”
Needless to say, I found out shortly why they were playing his music that day.
I was devastated - I had seen John and Yoko walking through Central Park near The Dakota a few years prior when I was living in NYC. It was so cool to have seen them that day, as I had always been a big fan.
Another American friend of mine came over to my apartment and she hadn’t yet heard the news, but saw my face and knew something bad had happened. We both got pretty teary-eyed that morning.
I was in second year of Music at university. I heard about it on the news the next morning when I woke up. Our music history class that morning was a pretty subdued affair.
I’ve said this in other threads before, but it bears repeating here - I was the youngest of four kids. We all had very different tastes in music. Elspeth loved 50s jazz like Monk, Bill Evans and Miles Davis’ first quintet. Margaret loved Easy Listening style folk - Nana Mouskouri, Roger Whittaker, Joan Baez. Bill loved hard rock - Hendrix, The Who, Santana. I loved hard rock and, as soon as it came out, Prog Rock.
But the one band the four of us could always agree on was The Beatles. Throughout the seventies, whenever more than one of us was at home, The Beatles were the one band that you could guarantee would get at least one side of an album played.
Throughout the seventies, I stubbornly clung to many of the peace and love idealism that The Beatles had come to represent for me. I also clung to the fervent hope that someday, they would be able to put aside their differences and record again.
Bill, my brother, died in a motorbike crash in Oct. of 1980. John Lennon was murdered about two months later. For me, the idealism of the 1960s was officially over. It was devastating.
I was a freshman in college and had always loved the Beatles, especially John. I don’t think I heard about it the night it happened (the TV in my dorm’s common room was locked after 10pm, and I didn’t listen to the radio while studying). I do remember the next morning. Students wore black arm bands to class. One guy on our floor (co-ed dorm) bought every Beatle’s album he could at the record store on the Mall (this was in Boulder)–it quickly sold out. No one talked about much else and whoever had TV access gave us updates on events, we were all subdued. I do remember honoring the moment of silence on campus. Compare this to when Reagan was shot that same year (in school) and all of us were incensed that the news would interrupt General Hospital for coverage(!).
I also remember (and still hold to) the conviction that the asshole who shot Lennon should not be given fame and celebrity. People didn’t want to say his name for years, although we all know it. I also remember Salinger’s book coming in for some criticism because this same asshole left it in his hotel room. When the famous photo came out of Lennon giving his autograph to the asshole, my stomach twisted.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard the Beatle’s had broken up: I was on a school bus headed home from elementary school. The bus driver had an all news station on and I was sitting close enough to hear it. I remember feeling very sad about the break up.
Add me to this list… I was 13.
I was getting midnight chow on an airforce base in Germany.
I remember later reading reports out of the Soviet Union of the KGB breaking up candlight vigils in Moscow, what a world.
I was 16 and was asleep, or, given my insomnia, trying to sleep. I learned about it when I turned on the radio the next morning and although not much of a Beatles fan I was pretty shocked. I guess I was still pretty naive, as I’d never imagined anyone would shoot a member of the Beatles–you just didn’t do that.
My sister learned about it at school. She was a Beatles fan and took it pretty hard. Years later when she was doing a report on it in college she started crying and had to leave the classroom.
This is the only ‘important’ event that I clearly remember when it happened, which is odd considering 9-11 and all. *
I was in jr. high, living outside Chicago, and I woke up to my alarm clock radio saying Lennon was dead. It was fricking cold, we had wood floors, and I did NOT want to get out of the warm bed. So I lay in bed, listening to the news, wondering why the world was so SAD about this guy dying.
I mean, in school we learned all about him; he was one of those Communist leaders, and weren’t we supposed to hate Lenin? 
I have no idea when I recognized that John Lennon was one of the Beatles, but obviously it was far too late. 
*Edit…I remember Reagan being shot, as well.
Yup, exactly the way I heard about it. 
I was ten…and I was at LaRabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago… I was having an asthma attack when the nurse came in and told me and my dad. I was just gettin into Lennon’s comeback and I had a distinct feeling that I was being robbed of something…
Funny my dad (big cop… present at the convention in 68) felt really bad about it… he respected Lennon’s stand on peace…