Bob Schwartz

Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He was 40 years old.

We could focus on the songs he wrote and performed, as part of the Beatles or on his own. So much there.

Instead, here is something less noted, these many years later

In 1964, the first year of manic attention to the Beatles, John published a book of his writing and cartoons.

The cartoons are scratches, the tiny prose pieces are sometimes described as nonsense, compared to Lewis Carroll.

What we see in these, as we could see in the first Lennon songs, is that he was not the average pop music star, with a voice, some catchy tunes, and a few interesting ideas. We would learn as he grew that he was one of a kind, with few equals, and like all of us, however many years he had to live and give, he lived and gave.

Go listen, if you have the chance, to a little John Lennon today.