Laying in bed reading.
MNF, very surreal.
The next day at school everyone was wearing their Beatles t-shirts.
It didn’t hit me until that Saturday. The local Rock station, KLOL-101FM, Houston, played an entire day of tribute to him. Of course, a lot of it was Beatles stuff, but I was amazed that one could fill a whole day’s programming with the creative work of only one person and have no repeats. One of the more surprising things was how many songs he wrote for other people. I can’t remember a single one now, but a whole block of music was other artisis performing a Lennon work. Some of those may have covers, now that I think about it. I was alone, working on a huge house in River Oaks. Needless to say, I was quite meloncholy that day…
<emo philips> I don’t have an alibi! </emo philips>
Seriously, though – I was 2 at the time. I managed to become a Beatles fan around the 6th-7th grade, somehow completely oblivious to the fact that John was dead. I remember having a conversation with my mom after listening to Abbey Road and asking her what the Beatles were doing these days… and she let me know that John had been shot. I was crushed. So I found out about 10 years later. :smack:
In Bagwell Dormitory at NC State University, studying for a final exam in Statics the next morning.
After hearing it, several of us were milling about out in the hall, saying “Who’s going to tell T?” (T was a huge Beatles fanatic who lived down the hall.)
I was 3.
Wow, I was twelve when he was shot?? Huh…it seems to me like I was much younger.
Anyway…mom told me about it in the morning. I was a bit of a sheltered kid, and was still two years away from rock music being an integral part of my life, but I certainly knew who the Beatles were. I just remember being sad that such a horrible thing happened to someone who so many people loved.
I was still doing time at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic grade school back then. Two of the younger, lay teachers called out that day. I recall some of the old-school nuns being upset at all the adulation heaped on someone who had corrupted the morals of so many young people. :rolleyes:
I was a senior in high school and my younger brother told me as I was getting ready for school. It wasn’t till I started walking out to the bus that I got that twinge of shock that I still get to this day when I think about it.
A girl came into class crying. She said “John Lennon’s been shot”. Then she took her tie off and put it round her head like a bandana. Others followed suit until the whole class was wearing their ties round the head. In recess the trend carried on until about half the school was wearing their ties round their heads.
How embarrassing.
I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. I was watching the news.
I was 12, in seventh grade, and my dad told me when I woke up that morning for school. I had grown up in a household where music was playing almost constantly, and the Beatles figured heavily in the rotation. My mother, father, maternal grandmother and many of their friends and relations were very into the Beatles. My grandmother was as in love with John as you can be with a person you’ve never actually met. She was very upset. For months. As for me, I was shocked and sad, though I didn’t cry, and I spent most of that day in a haze.
My first reaction was to ask my dad “Are you sure this isn’t a hoax? Like that ‘Paul is dead’ thing?” He assured me it was not.
I was in my bedroom, getting ready for school, when I heard it on the radio news.
I was 17 and had just about got past the worst of my teenage Beatles obsession, so I probably took it more calmly than I would have when I was 15.
I was shocked and sad. It took a while to sink in.
When I arrived at school, I mentioned it to the first person I saw, who said “Who’s that?”
I painted my fingernails black, and bought every copy of every newspaper, souvenir supplement, memorial magazines, and the Double Fantasy album - which I had not planned to buy because of John’s insistence to inflict Yoko Ono’s work on his fans.
24 years ago. I’m older now than he was when he died. I feel so old.
First I have to put in a little back story…
At Skiles Middle School in Evanston, Illinois there was this big guy who was one of the playground monitors. All the kids loved him… he would take us by the hands and whirl us around. He was like a big teddy bear. Anyway, on December 7, 1980 he was trying to break up a fight between two gang members and as a result he was stabbed to death. I remember wandering around downtown Evanston all afternoon thinking about him.
I heard about this in school the next day (December 8). Later that evening around 9:00 I was in my bedroom listening to a Grateful Dead record when my father came in. I remember asking him if something was wrong, but he said no, he was just checking on me. The next morning I found out what he meant to tell me, that John Lennon had been murdered.
I remember riding the 202 bus down Main St. to school that morning and seeing an “L” train go over the bridge, and I thought “I guess the world keeps moving.” For almost a week after that I listened to nothing but Beatles, and to this day on December 8 every year it’s the same thing.
I remember really clearly. I was in bed, supposed to be asleep but was listening to the radio. The Christmas lights were on outside of my bedroom window, and it was snowing and windy. That’s really one of my big memories.
I was about 25 back then, a young paratrooper.
I simply have to admit that the news did not make a big impact on me at the time. I was busy with other things I suppose. I like the Beatles, but at that moment in my life, my priorities were elsewhere.
Sort of a non-story, but I thought it was important to come clean in the interest of historical balance.
I had gone to bed early that night, and woke up about 1:00 AM (Eastern), sick with some GI-type bug. I slept with my radio on, and noticed when I woke up that several Beatles songs had played in a row, which I thought was kinda odd. Then the DJ mentioned what had happened.
I was more concerned with my being sick. I was so sick, that I didn’t leave the next day other than the frequent trips I was having to make to the bathroom.
I was in grade 6 and I heard my classmates talking about it. Shamefully, I wasn’t quite sure who John Lennon was … I thought maybe they were talking about Jack Lemmon!!! :smack:
When one of my friends scornfully clued me in, I didn’t feel much at all (except embarrassed of course!).
Now, if it had been Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel or John Denver, that would’ve made more of an impact. Their music is all I remember my folks listening to … on an 8-track player of course. 
It’s always bugged me that I share two names with his killer. That’s how I heard about it - the news was on in the background, and I heard my name on it (I was six, BTW).
You know, I don’t remember. I was 20, still living at home – this was a couple of months before I went to boot camp… I don’t have the slightest idea where I was when I heard about it. I didn’t have a radio in my car, and we didn’t play the radio where I was working then… I must have heard it on the news, I guess.
You can find more stories in this thread that was posted on the same subject last year (including my own).
I was taking a bus to school (grade 10).
The strange thing was that the whole bus was buzzing with this information, when an elderly lady said very loudly, “I’m glad he’s dead. He was in league with the devil.” I have never seen a crowd turn so ugly, so quickly. Boy, did she get an earful. The bus driver literally had to intervene to get her off the bus, but you could tell he was pissed at her too.