Imagine

Thirty years ago today John Lennon was murdered outside his apartment building in Manhattan. At the young of 40, John and Yoko were returning from a recording session when crazed fan Mark David Chapman approached them from the sidewalk and shot John at point blank range. He died en route to the hospital.

John Lennon is perhaps best remembered as one of the Beatles. The 60's rock band that led the British Invasion into the US music scene, the Beatles are the most successful and the most popular group of the entire rock era. Topping the charts with one hit after another, John and his partners, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison became the phenomenon of the 20th Century. The legacy and the impression they left on popular music endures to this day.

When the group broke up in 1970, each of its members went on to successful solo careers. John, along with his wife Yoko Ono, became just as famous for his human rights campaigns as he ever was for his music. But it was his music that defined him and it is his music for which he is now remembered as a genius of the modern era.

Imagine is my favorite John Lennon performance. On this, the thirtieth anniversary of his senseless death, I like to imagine what it would have been like if that horrific evening never occurred and John had kept on making the kind of magic that only he could make. It's a nice fantasy, eh?