Last week I attended a gathering at Strawberry Fields in Central Park to commemorate the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I’d been meaning to attend this popular New York City event ever since I moved here but for one reason or another, never made it—until this year. The entire day was marked by thousands of people passing through this famous section of the park to pay tribute to Lennon, who was shot four times and killed by a deranged fan named Mark David Chapman 29 years ago. Flowers, photographs, candles and notes framed the famous Imagine memorial mosaic, as did a smattering of acoustic guitarists strumming to Lennon’s seemingly endless playlist of musical poetry. I showed up at roughly 9:00PM where a crowd of roughly 300 diverse fans was singing Norwegian Wood as if they’d rehearsed for years. I’d always admired the music of Lennon and The Beatles yet experienced a newfound appreciation for songs able to be sung harmoniously by a large group of strangers hailing from across the globe. My mind suddenly began to dissect the music, desperate to discover Lennon’s unifying formula. Was it his melodies? I looked at the group of guitar playing hippies in the center of the thick crowd and noticed they were all playing open chords. Nothing augmented or diminished. Nothing inverted. Nothing seventh and extended. Just a collection of campfire-style chords that somehow generated some of rock n roll’s most beloved tunes. So was it his lyrics? Surely nobody questions Lennon’s ability to tell profound, transformative stories through song. “Picture yourself on a boat in a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes.” I mean honestly, who writes like that!? However, as I listened to the foreign tourists beside me singing “Imagine there's not country. It’s a hard to do. Nothings a kill for die for. And religion too” it became apparent that lyrics were not the driving force behind Lennon’s ability to unify. Clearly there’s something transcendent about Lennon’s music that’s seldom been replicated since. Perhaps an implicit understanding shared by fans around the world about what it is he stood for—even when it wasn’t popular or commercially advantageous. Even when it cost him his wholesome Beatle mania aura, and cast him as a trouble-making outsider. That’s character. That’s integrity. That was John Lennon.
