MONMOUTH COUNTY

Reflecting on John Lennon's death, 35 years later

Beatles author Ken Womack, a Monmouth University dean, assesses what might have been.

Jerry Carino
@njhoopshaven
Monmouth University dean Kenneth Womack, a leading scholarly expert on The Beatles, seen with books and memorabilia in his office.

Like many music lovers, Kenneth Womack has this date circled in his mind's calendar.

Thirty-five years ago, on Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was gunned down outside his New York City apartment. The tragedy left a great unanswered question: Had Lennon lived, what course would The Beatles and the culture have taken?

“The effect of time almost makes it worse,” said Womack, a Monmouth University dean and a leading scholarly authority on The Beatles. “On a micro level, his life was destroyed and his family was destroyed because of his assassination. On a macro level, we were all denied the opportunity to see how he would have grown and matured through some really turbulent and at times buoyant times.”

It's tantalizing to theorize what might have been. Womack, dean of the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences and author and editor of several books devoted to The Beatles, shared his thoughts on the subject with the Asbury Park Press.

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For starters, would the Fab Four have gotten back together?

“I absolutely do think they would have,” Womack said. “John had remarked before his death that it was getting very difficult to pass up the dollars.”

Not just dollars for him, but for charity. In the late 1970s, the benefit-concert concept was taking off, and no benefit would have raised more than a Beatles reunion.

“They weren’t going to be able to ignore those kinds of requests forever,” Womack said. “With their social bent, they certainly would have wanted to do something like that.”

Ken Womack's books on The Beatles.

Would reunions and retro tours have damaged their mystique?

“We see those diminishing bands — it detracts from the quality of their memory, and it does kind of destroy the mystique,” Womack said. “The Rolling Stones have stayed on too long. I think The Beatles would have damaged their legendary status, but a lot of that is guesswork because we don’t know how the story plays out.”

Not knowing is what bothers the 49-year-old Womack the most.

“In terms of Beatles scholarship, I find it really devastating because he never got to be our age, and what that means is he never got to reconsider how he felt about things,” Womack said.

For example: In 1980 Lennon publicly mocked The Beatles’ No. 1 hit “Eight Days a Week.” Would he have felt differently later in life after seeing how durable it became? Lennon was 40 when he died. He would be 75 today.

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“Beatles scholarship is really harmed because time stops at that part of the story,” Womack said. “We’re robbed of the pleasure of watching him as we’ve been able to do with Paul and, for the most part, George and Ringo.”

As Womack points out, in 1980 Lennon was still recording music “with a fresh sound” to it.

“I think John would have spurred Paul into doing some really interesting things in the ’80s if he had continued on that pace,” Womack said. “McCartney always responded to competition.”

Womack was a teenager in Texas when Lennon died. His father broke the news to him late at night, and then he read the details in the Houston Post the next morning. It still stings.

“We were robbed of a thinker, and how can the world ever be a better place for something like that happening?” Womack said. “It still makes me sad. I still feel the tragedy of it, not just every December 8, but all year.”

This Oct. 26, 1965 file photo shows John Lennon, left, and Paul McCartney as they smile during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London.

QUINTESSENTIAL LENNON

Womack’s books about The Beatles include “Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles”, “The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles”, Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four” and “The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four.” He is working on another book about Beatles producer and mentor George Martin.

Here is are his quintessential Lennon tracks over the years, what he calls “Twelve Great Lennon Moments.”

1. “You Can’t Do That” (1964)

This 12-bar blues effusion offers a quintessential example of the early Lennon at his fiery best with his stinging vocals about unchecked jealousy and sexual paranoia.

2. “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” (1965)

With Harrison’s sitar making its stunning debut, “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” marks Lennon’s clear shift away from the Beatles’ early songs about puppy love to full-on confessional lyrics about an extramarital affair.

3. “In My Life” (1965)

As the exalted centerpiece of the band’s Rubber Soul album, Lennon’s “In My Life” inaugurates the Beatles’ longstanding engagement with the power and whimsy of nostalgia. 

4. “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966)

Inspired by counterculture guru Timothy Leary’s engagement with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” with its brash fusion of surrealism and electronic sound, ushered in new ways of thinking about the concept of recording artistry.

5. “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967)

As one-half of the Beatles’ landmark “Penny Lane”/“Strawberry Fields Forever” single, Lennon’s brilliant lyrical and musical palette invites us to delight in the dreamstates of childhood in comparison with the inherent realities and challenges of growing up and growing older.

6. “A Day in the Life” (1967)

As the band’s dramatic climax to their groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, Lennon's “A Day in the Life” is arguably the Beatles’ most luminous achievement. At the end of the song, as the music of the group and a studio orchestra spirals out of control and into oblivion, a thundering, massive piano chord punctuates and reverberates in a moment of pure musical apocalypse.

7. “I Am the Walrus” (1967)

While an assortment of cryptic voices and diabolical laughter weave in and out of the mix, Lennon’s pungent lyrics encounter an array of ridiculous characters—from a "crab locker fishwife" and a "pornographic priestess" to the "expert texpert choking smokers" and Edgar Allan Poe himself. When "I Am the Walrus" finally recedes amongst its ubiquitous mantra of "Goo Goo Goo Joob," the song dissolves into a scene from a BBC radio production of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

8. “Across the Universe” (1968)

Influenced by the Beatles’ recent experiences with Transcendental Meditation, "Across the Universe" came to Lennon, its lyrics fully formed, as he lay in bed one evening with his first wife Cynthia: “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, / They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe.” Recorded with Lennon on his Martin D-28 and Harrison on tamboura, the composition captures the songwriter in one of his most earnest, lyrical, and hopeful performances. 

9. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” (1968) 

In the songwriter’s unparalleled imagination, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” offers a miniature history of rock ’n’ roll with Lennon as rock crooner at his devastating best. With McCartney and Harrison singing “bang-bang, shoot-shoot” in perfect harmony, the song teeters between earnestness and kitsch before reaching its spellbinding conclusion.

10. “Come Together” (1969)

With overt influences from Chuck Berry, "Come Together” witnesses the Beatles at their groovy zenith, with Lennon's soulful lead vocal, Harrison plying his Gibson Les Paul Standard, McCartney effecting a smoky electronic piano lick, and Starr fashioning a slick tom-tom roll for the song’s motto.

11. “Imagine” (1971)

As Lennon’s most significant composition as a solo artist, “Imagine” quickly emerged as the songwriter’s most revered and timeless peace anthem. Lennon’s April 1975 performance of the song at a New York City birthday celebration for Sir Lew Grade marked the former Beatle’s final public appearance on any stage.

12. “#9 Dream” (1974)

As a standout track from Lennon’s Walls and Bridges solo album, “#9 Dream” finds the songwriter creating a wistful and ethereal valentine to the power of love and dreams.