(To mark the 37th anniversary of John Lennon's tragic death, Next Avenue is republishing this article about his meaning to boomers.)
On Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt referred to Dec. 7 as “a date that will live in infamy.” But to millions born after World War II, Dec. 8 is the date that lives in infamy­ — that was the day, in 1980, that John Lennon was assassinated.
Boomers, myself included, continue to mourn this man they never met, a man who aspired only to play rock ‘n’ roll but who, between 1964 and 1970, unwittingly became the de facto leader of a worldwide youth movement. He inspired us to successfully challenge the stifling conformity and perceived hypocrisies of the Greatest Generation, and, to the ongoing dismay of social conservatives who “want their country back,” ushered in a new era.
When we met The Beatles — 79 days after the assassination of JFK — boomers of all ages saw immediately that these four androgynous young men represented a new New Frontier. Amused older observers dismissed The Beatles as a passing fad, but we were enthralled — not only by the band’s new sound and appearance, but by their casual rebelliousness, and promise of fun and freedom. Early Beatles factoids told us that John was the leader, and that always seemed true.
With I’m A Loser in the fall of ’64 and Help! the following summer, John showed us vulnerabilities beneath his cheeky exterior. We related to these pop confessionals and used them, along with other increasingly sophisticated lyrics, to make sense of our own lives.
For six years, The Beatles engaged millions of children and adolescents with a nonstop flow of sounds, images and ideas; a constant flow of new. Indeed, growing up with The Beatles was like following a dazzling alternative curriculum, more interesting and more relevant than what we were learning in school. And more empowering.
John Lennon Was the Voice Of a Generation
Fans and critics alike began “close listening” in December ’65 with Rubber Soul, the album that elevated The Beatles from pop stars to artists. We had come to trust and rely on The Beatles as a source of something much more than entertainment, and those feelings deepened. On The Word, Lennon tells us he is the leader of the emerging counterculture and exhorts us to embrace love as a guiding principle in our lives — something he would do repeatedly over the years.
John challenged us again two months later with Nowhere Man, a political song with a call to action. The takeaway message was “pay attention,” “be engaged in the world” and “have opinions.” About one minute into the song, you can hear the mobilizing tone, a signal to millions of young people, increasingly frustrated by the hypocrisy of their elders. Three months after that, in Rain, Lennon presents us with the case for nonconformity and critical awareness as he points out the foolishness of how “they” behave.
By the summer of 1966 — after Lennon’s Jesus comment and Dylan’s motorcycle accident — the “voice of a generation” baton passed to The Beatles. They were now widely acknowledged, by young people and "the establishment,” as leaders of the counterculture. Lennon’s disdain for intellectuals, authorities and ideologues, combined with his intermittent self-loathing, made him uncomfortable in the role. But he was also an impassioned communicator with deeply held views, well aware of the power he wielded over a very large and very impatient generation. With Yoko’s support, he found purpose in his celebrity.
Blending Art And Activism
Lennon continued to challenge us with his unique blend of art and peace activism. And though many disliked Yoko, or didn’t appreciate the bed-ins and the War Is Over campaign, we watched and listened. And we knew John — outspoken, playful and authentic — was on our side. We were inspired by his willingness to speak up for what he believed, even when his ideas, methods and wife were ridiculed.
Our historically-unique relationship with The Beatles — made possible by the demographics, technology and the politics of the moment — still defies description: Not quite like older brothers or friends, not quite like dads or uncles and not quite like teachers or ministers. And definitely not like relationships with any pop stars before or since. And while Lennon wasn’t everyone’s favorite Beatle, he was the one who most often brought the “weirdness” that was so compelling.
Large In Life, Larger In Death
Our relationship with Lennon was new and modern, unlike any that existed before. And so our reaction to the loss, even after more than three decades, is a new, modern kind of grief — but no less real than what we’d feel for a dear friend or family member. We continue to miss his wit and his intellect. We’re sad for his wife and sons. We wonder what he’d think about the Internet, climate change, The Middle East and digital downloads.
Lennon was larger than life during his life, and has grown even larger in death. He remains a cherished figure to the global siblinghood of Beatle fans who grew up with him, as well as to younger admirers who bemoan the fact that they “never walked the planet at the same time as John Lennon.” Some deify him. Yes, he was just a guy who wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll, and he was by no means a perfect human being, but he’s become a worldwide symbol of humanity’s highest aspirations — and you know that can’t be bad.


Why We Still Mourn John Lennon

Candy Leonard

This April will mark 45 years since The Beatles broke up. That may come as a shock to members of a certain generation born between 1946 and 1964, of which I am a shocked member. Though few of us are walking around with Beatle haircuts anymore, the Fab Four still seems very much with us.
 
While they shaped the boomers in many ways, as a personal-finance writer, I’m intrigued by one way that’s rarely discussed: How we think about money.
 
That’s a thesis raised in Candy Leonard’s recent book, Beatleness: How the Beatles and Their Fans Remade the World.
(MORE: Paul McCartney, Speaking Words of Wisdom)
First Purchase: Beatles Albums
“For many young fans, their first experience going to the store with friends, or saving allowance money, or earning money from lawn mowing or babysitting, was about buying Beatle stuff. Diverting lunch money was also common,” Leonard, a sociologist as well as a Beatles buff, writes. “Fans remember knowing approximately when the next record was coming out, calculating how much they’d have to save each week, and budgeting.”
 
It’s probably no coincidence that half the Beatles records you see at garage sales and thrift shops these days still carry the names of their former owners, written in childish script on their sleeves. The albums were that precious to us.
 
Reimagining What a Millionaire Is
The Beatles also showed us that it was possible to make money, and gobs of it, by doing something fun.
 
Before they arrived on the scene, our notion of millionaires tended towards stuffy old men with stuffy old enterprises like railroads, banks and steel mills. As The Beatles hit it big, though, many of us badgered our parents into buying us guitars — a few of us actually learned how to play one. 
(MORE: Why We Still Mourn John Lennon)
From 'Money' to 'Taxman'
The Beatles’ songs, too, often dealt with money, proving that they were giving the matter some thought, as well. Money (That's What I Want), a cover of a 1959 R&B hit that appeared on their second American album in the spring of 1964, was pretty clear in its message. But Can’t Buy Me Love, a Lennon-McCartney original released that summer, began to show some ambivalence.
By the time of Taxman in 1966, Baby, You’re a Rich Man in 1967, and You Never Give Me Your Money in 1969, they seemed fed up with the whole concept.
 
Fans, too, were beginning to become skeptical — not of The Beatles themselves, but of the commercialism that swirled around them, Leonard told me. When some discovered that the albums released in the U.S. were different from the U.K. versions — ones sold here typically had fewer songs — they felt cheated.
 
Accept No Substitutions
But American teenagers also got a useful lesson in the workings of the marketplace from The Beatles.
 
I know I did, as a young innocent, when I went to buy my first Beatles record. I picked an album that looked like the real thing but turned out to be an obscure orchestra playing their songs. Fortunately, a kindly cashier tipped me off.
(MORE: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time?)
 
I left with a 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand as well as a lifelong habit of reading product labels and wondering what the catch is.
 
Skeptical or not, many of us have remained loyal customers ever since. “Boomers have purchased the Beatles catalog in so many formats and different remasterings, especially over past 40 years or so,” Leonard says. “As recently as November, a box set came out — all in mono. And fans buy it again and again.”
 
Of course the Beatles weren’t the only band with a thing or two to say about money. Pink Floyd (Money), The Grateful Dead (Money Money), The O’Jays (For the Love of Money), and Frank Zappa (We’re Only In It for the Money) all made contributions to the genre, as have musicians ever since.
 
But, as in so many other things, the lads from Liverpool had the greatest and longest-lasting impact.  
 
As Leonard puts it: “The Beatles weren’t merely the soundtrack to important events in fans’ lives, they were the actual substance of the events and triggered the rite of passage from children to consumers.”
Greg Daugherty is a personal finance writer specializing in retirement who has written frequently for Next Avenue. He was formerly editor-in-chief at Reader’s Digest New Choices and senior editor at Money.


How The Beatles Taught Boomers About Money

Greg Daugherty

“We love you Beatles, oh yes we do,” was the boomer mantra in the 1960s. Among other things, the four lads from Liverpool dispensed a lot of advice in their songs over the years — from assuring us we’d get by “with a little help from (our) friends” and “we can work it out,” to urging us to “follow the sun” and “come together.”
And a whole lot more.
But recently, a couple of my Next Avenue colleagues asked me if I wanted to become a real nowhere man by finding the answer to their question: “Did The Beatles ever lie to us?”
Lyrically, I mean. Is love really all you need, and doesn’t money sometimes attract it, if not outright buy it?
(MORE: How The Beatles Taught Boomers About Money)
Oh, I can hear the backlash already: How dare you ask such questions?!
But as you’re preparing to throw us under the bus, or a yellow submarine, take a moment to reflect on the words of the lads themselves as we ferret out the Fab Four’s fibs in five of their songs.
1. Do You Want to Know a Secret?
Pretty straightforward song, no? Guy’s in love with a girl, pretends it’s a secret so he can surprise her; has her come closer as he whispers in her ear, “I’m in love with you!”
Not so fast.
Turns out there were plenty of “secrets” afoot around the time John Lennon wrote this song. For one, he and Cynthia Powell (Lennon) had been secretly married, prompted in no small part by her pregnancy, not the kind of thing The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein would want bandied about in the press.
For another, while writing the song, Lennon realized he was actually in love with Cynthia. Needless to say, that didn’t last. Did he tell her that secret, too?
Fib No. 3: Lennon was secretly copying lines from a scene in Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where Snow White, standing by a castle well, sings to the doves: “Wanna know a secret?/Promise Not to Tell?/We are standing by a wishing well.”
And fourth, Lennon offered the song to George Harrison without saying, as he later admitted, “I thought it would be a good vehicle for him because it only had three notes and he wasn’t the best singer in the world.” (Maybe that falls in the category of a lie of omission that’s actually kind.)
(MORE: Why We Still Mourn John Lennon)
Let’s promise not to tell...
2. She Loves You
In many ways, this is the quintessential Beatles pop song of their early years, distinguished by the “yeah, yeah, yeah” coda. But unlike their other early hit records, She Loves You changed the point of view by making the singer of the song the observer of another couple’s relationship and has him address the “other man.”
Therein lies the rub. At first blush, we think the song is about reconciliation — the singer is offering to fix a broken relationship by being the intermediary (“she told me what to say”) and offering advice to him (“apologize to her”).
But my good friend, the insightful rock critic Dave Marsh, found what he calls “darker nuances” in the text. Maybe lies even? Marsh claims that, in effect, the singer is not really advising his friend, rather he’s warning him that if he doesn’t appreciate this woman, then he (the singer) will.
So, rather than the two being friends, they’re, in effect, rivals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
3. Ticket to Ride
As part of the soundtrack to Help!, the Beatles’ second feature film, this bouncy song is ostensibly about a girl dumping her boyfriend, the song’s narrator. “The girl that’s driving me mad/is going away/she’s got a ticket to ride/but she don’t care.”
Here we go again.
By the time the film was released, Paul McCartney had told his biographer that indeed, as some Beatles fans had claimed, the song was referencing a British Railways ticket purchased by John and him to visit his cousin Betty Robbins who lived in the town of Ryde. Thus, McCartney and Lennon were quite aware of the double meaning when they wrote the song.
(MORE: Paul McCartney, Speaking Words of Wisdom)
But wait there’s more — Lennon later informed a friend of yet another meaning. Alluding to the years the Beatles had spent performing in Hamburg, Germany, Lennon admitted that the young ladies (prostitutes) who worked the streets of Hamburg had to have a “clean bill of health” so the local authorities would give them a card saying they were “clean.” Seems that Lennon had coined the phrase “ticket to ride” to describe these cards.
But she don’t care.
4. Think for Yourself
Finally, a Beatles song that’s actually about lies and lying. Written by George Harrison, Think for Yourself is a direct admonition against lying — “You’re telling all those lies/about the good things we can have/if we close our eyes.”
Given Harrison’s topsy-turvy relationship with his wife Patti Boyd (she left him and married his best friend, Eric Clapton), you might think the song was a warning to her. Perhaps. But lines like, “The future still looks good/and you’ve got time to rectify/all the things that you should” lend some credence to Harrison’s later admission in his book I Me Mine that the song was inspired “probably by the government.”
As Mark Twain would say “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
5. All You Need Is Love 
Ah yes, the anthem that perfectly summed up the aspirations of the international youth movement in the summer of 1967. With the Vietnam War at its peak and peaceful protests being staged worldwide, All You Need Is Love was “an inspired song that they (Beatles) really wanted to give to the world as a message,” said their manager Brian Epstein. “The nice thing about it,” Epstein added, “is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything.”
The song premiered during a BBC program called Our World on June 25, 1967. The show represented the first live global television link broadcast to 26 countries in Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Central America, Japan and Australia. “We had been told that we’d be seen recording it by the whole world at the same time,” said McCartney, “so we had one message for the world — love. We need more love in the world.”
And that’s not really a lie the Beatles told us. The fact that this is not the case is on us. Maybe love was all we ever needed.


Lies The Beatles Told Us

Doug Bradley

Whenever my old college roommate Harold calls, I always look forward to a fun, freewheeling conversation. We invariably reminisce about our favorite songs by the Rolling Stones (his favorite band of all time), lament the depressing state of New York professional sports teams, and laugh about the hijinks of our old university pals, while shaking our heads about how so many sensible young women failed to succumb to our charms and rejected us.
Bob Edwards, the longtime host of NPR's 'Morning Edition,' in 2012.When he called me a few weeks ago, however, I immediately sensed something was amiss. Harold's demeanor was unusually quiet. When you get to our age, your first instinct is to wonder: Who died?
Sadly, I was right on the mark. "We've lost Gary," Harold said somberly.
The question that stayed with me was why, then, did the passing of a casual friend affect me so deeply? 
Even though he only mentioned a first name, I immediately knew the score. After a respectful silence, I asked him to tell me some details. "That's all I know," Harold said. 
"You know something," I said, "Gary loved the Grateful Dead so much that I think he'd approve my quoting 'Truckin,' when Bob Weir sings: 'All a friend could say is, Ain't it a shame?'"
Then we said our goodbyes and hung up.
Surprised By My Reaction 
For the next few hours, my mind flashed back to my college years and what Harold liked to call "the carefree days." I felt numb and drained by the shocking news. But why? 
After all, Gary and I had not stayed in touch, and I hadn't seen the man in some forty years. Heck, we weren't even what I'd call close friends while we were all together back at school. 
The question that stayed with me was why, then, did the passing of a casual friend affect me so deeply?
"We are affected by someone's death for many reasons," explained Dr. Jennifer B. Naidich, a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. "We are moved by feelings of nostalgia, personal feelings of vulnerability and natural feelings of grief."
We grieve for all sorts of reasons as well. "Sometimes, we can't help but feel guilty," she added.
Triggering Memories of the Past 
Did I feel guilty that I hadn't tried to keep the friendship alive? Or, as it was in the 1983 movie The Big Chill,  was I feeling sad because I couldn't quite come to terms with such jolting news?
When I told Naidich that I felt sad, even though I hadn't been in touch with my now-deceased college friend for many decades, she could understand the way I was reacting. 
"The loss of a former friend can trigger old feelings of personal connections," she explained.
The more I thought about it, I had to admit that I was also bothered by the fact that I had not achieved a sense of closure. Perhaps I was reliving some of my guilt over having not been a better friend to someone who had been troubled in college and never got rid of his demons.
I eventually found a measure of solace in concluding that I was hardly the first person who ever experienced these kinds of feelings. That convenient rationalization did suddenly make me feel a little better.
The Impact of Social Media 
If anything, the age-old process of grieving — over the losses of loved ones, friends and public figures alike — has become a complex sensation in the twenty-first century because of the pervasive impact of social media.
Ronnie Spector in 1977In the early weeks of 2022, social media followers flocked to the Internet to issue soulful posts about the recent passing of all kinds of celebrities, ranging from singers Ronnie Spector and Meat Loaf to comedian Bob Saget and Clark Gillies, who helped lead the NHL's New York Islanders to four consecutive Stanley Cup championships back in the early 1980s. Other recent deaths that elicited an outpouring on social media include Louie Anderson, Sidney Poitier and Betty White (on December 31, 2021). 
Of course, most of us never had the pleasure of meeting any of these famous folks, much less claiming them as friends or even acquaintances. 
No matter. Having them surfacing back in the news, on the saddest of occasions, was enough to unleash our happy memories of the Ronettes, immortalized by the hit song  "Be My Baby," and the program, "Full House," on which Saget played everyone's favorite TV dad, Danny Tanner; he was also the host of the popular "America's Funniest Home Videos."
Naidich understands why so many of us turn to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to unburden ourselves, whether about the loss of a pop culture fixture, or even to announce the deaths of our loved ones to so many people that we have never met.
"People grieve en masse," Naidich pointed out.
As much as anything we are mourning our own loss of innocence. That's why Beatles fans flock every December 8 to Strawberry Fields in New York's Central Park, a stone's throw from where John Lennon lived, and died on that sad Monday night in 1980, to sing "Give Peace a Chance," "Imagine," and other Lennon classics.
"We are social beings," Naidich stressed. "And now, because of social media, people are able to express their grief on a whole other level than ever before. With celebrities like Meat Loaf and Bob Saget, we remember how young we were when we first encountered them."
The Covid Factor 
In these difficult COVID-dominated times, grieving takes on a whole new meaning. Many people were unable to attend funerals in person of loved ones because of health and safety concerns. Mourners had to settle for gathering on Zoom and other forms of modern technology to let out their grief. As the old saying goes, it was better than nothing.
"With celebrities like Bob Saget, we remember how young we were when we first encountered them." 
Psychologists have developed a new category for this behavior: Post-COVID Stress Disorder.
"COVID has made grieving more complicated than ever," Naidich observed. "COVID has created [internal] conflicts. [The fact] that we can't mourn in the traditional way has triggered feelings of anger and guilt."
And helplessness. When my old friend Harold gave me the details of a memorial service for Gary, I didn't even bother to write down the information. It was a flippant move on my part or a lack of respect.
I knew I wasn't going to go because I didn't want to gather in a crowd. Call it my personal COVID stress disorder.
And hell yes, I felt very guilty, on top of everything else.


Why We Mourn Celebrities and Long-Forgotten Friends

Jon Friedman

March is Women's History Month, a time to celebrate women's contributions to history, culture and society. Also, it's an opportunity to correct misperceptions of one woman's outstanding contributions. Yoko Ono has never received her due as a major influence on popular culture. 
An established member of the contemporary art movement known as Fluxus well before she met and fell in love with Beatle John Lennon, Ono the individual was as misunderstood as her art form. Central to that misunderstanding is the undeserved heat she suffered for the breakup of the Beatles.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono interview Chuck Berry while co-hosting 'The Mike Douglas Show'Last year's release of Peter Jackson's "Get Back" three-part, multi-hour Beatles fan-a-thon film documents just how wrong most of the world was about Yoko Ono breaking up the Beatles. During the film, and in subsequent interviews, Paul McCartney resoundingly states just how in love John and Yoko were. And how much he appreciated that love.
Fifty-one years ago, just after Valentine's Day, I got to witness John and Yoko's love first-hand. And then, in March 2001 backstage after Yoko's Walker Art Center performance in Minneapolis, Ono again showed me her great grace.
The Offer 
In early February 1972, my friend Murray, who had just landed a weeklong gig as an usher on Philadelphia's "The Mike Douglas" television show, rang me up. With a voice like silk he purred, "Hey, Susan, do you want one of my passes to see the Douglas show?"
"I think you'll want this pass. John Lennon and Yoko Ono are co-hosting the whole week."
"For Mike Douglas? Why?" I responded, incredulous. Just to set the perspective: Mike Douglas hosted guest stars of my parents' generation from a small basement television studio in the heart of Center City. The show was old-fashioned, and Douglas was a charming conservative at best, and square as a takeaway pizza box at worst.
However, I held a bright torch for the handsome Murray, who was older with movie star good looks and a long, lean frame. Still, I was busy with my graduate school studies and initially dismissed his invitation.
"I think you'll want this pass," he countered. "John Lennon and Yoko Ono are co-hosting the whole week."
I was gobsmacked. How had I missed this news? My adamant love of John Lennon was legendary in my circle.
Offering a gushy and uncustomary girly apology, I thanked him profusely for the offer. Since I lived in a small Center City apartment, Murray suggested that we meet near the studio to hand over this now precious stage pass.
The Show 
The day came and I dressed appropriately – Brit-hip in a brown, houndstooth miniskirt, matching dark coco tights and cashmere sweater, set off by brown platform boots. The ensemble seemed spray painted on my Twiggy frame. My treasured embroidered Afghan sheepskin coat completed the look!
I dressed appropriately – Brit-hip in a brown, houndstooth miniskirt, matching dark coco tights and cashmere sweater, set off by brown platform boots.
The truth is, I can hardly remember the show. I was too excited. It was the day after the famous Chuck Berry appearance with Lennon on the program. The local and national news media had made a great fuss about John Lennon fulfilling his lifetime dream of playing with his musical inspiration and idol — Chuck Berry. My own fandom was validated realizing that my idol had wanted to meet his idol. (A documentary called "Daytime Revolution" about the week John and Yoko spent on "The Mike Douglas Show" has recently been completed.) 
It was a Thursday. I remember because it was a day off from my part-time book department gig as a junior buyer and cashier in Philadelphia's iconic Wanamaker's Department Store.
The guest pass seat was near the back, but the studio was so intimate we could reach out and touch the stage from practically any seat in the house. Murray had selected an aisle seat, so if John or Yoko came into the audience there was a chance I could reach out and touch them.
But there was another reason.
The previous December, I had been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disability, Myasthenia Gravis, a debilitating neuromuscular disorder that not much was known about. My left foot dragged, and my hands would stop working. Sometimes I collapsed. The doctors had placed me on a brand new and frightening regimen of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors. I was a guinea pig of sorts. The doctors were still working out the drugs and dosages. My life had been turned upside down.
Murray was being very mindful of his childhood friend by offering me an easy-to-maneuver aisle seat.  
After the show ended, he fetched me around to the stage door, insisting "Now, wait here." I did.
The Encounter 
After a time, the bone-numbing, mid-February cold triggered my new malady. I had waited for what seemed like hours and disappointed, had pivoted to walk the short ten blocks back to my apartment when a voice resonated behind my shoulder.
"Say luv, yew Susan?" I turned, almost collapsing as a hand reached out to steady me.
There were John and Yoko, all big smiles … and alone.
I nodded with such enthusiasm I must have looked like one of those bobble-headed dolls.
"Say luv, yew Susan?" I turned, almost collapsing as a hand reached out to steady me.
"Ya got a good mate there, in Murray, ya know," John's Liverpudlian accent drove the frost from my bones. Yoko added in her high Japanese lilt: "He was very concerned that we meet you." At that, she extended her hand which I shook as ardently as an aluminum pan of Jiffy Popcorn on a gas stove.
Murray must have played the sympathy card because they asked me about the Myasthenia Gravis and I answered as best I could, in shock, barely registering that I was standing with two people whose art and romance I idolized.
Yoko seemed truly pleased to learn that I owned both her and John's poetry books, "Grapefruit" and "In His Own Write." She nodded knowingly when I explained I was an English Literature graduate student majoring in Modern Fiction and Poetry.
I stood with them for almost twenty minutes. They were holding hands, relaxed, natural and kind. Both seemed genuinely interested in me! I couldn't believe this was happening, and I remember the feeling, strong as a muscle memory, more than our words and conversation.
And Once Again 
Thirty years later, in 2001, my Dutch husband, Martijn, who knew this legendary story well, bought tickets to see Yoko and their son, Sean, perform at Minneapolis' Walker Art Center. Martijn encouraged me to bring Yoko's poetry book along, well – just because.
It turns out, as an extra surprise, Martijn had arranged a special backstage pass for me to meet Yoko.
Once again, I found myself alone in the company of Yoko Ono. When I offered her my book to sign, mentioning the "Mike Douglas Show" meeting almost thirty years before, she smiled her enigmatic smile, telling me she perfectly remembered the young girl in the mini skirt and Afghan coat with the strange illness. Then, she signed the book and kissed my cheek.


Meeting John and Yoko

Susan Schaefer

On a chilly night in December 40 years ago, a gunshot extinguished the remaining idealism of a generation. And in a brief, violent moment, hope had died yet again for me, with the shooting of John Lennon.
As New Yorkers have always done in times of both celebration and tragedy, we took to the streets in a primal need to connect with one another. December 8, 1980, the day Lennon was killed, would be no different. Shocked and stunned crowds of mourners, tears streaming down their faces, gathered spontaneously near Lennon's famed apartment building,The Dakota, lingering until dawn outside the very place he had been shot only hours earlier.
Including 24-year-old me.
The senseless killing of our icons in our still-young lives had tragically become all too familiar to those who grew up in the 1960s. Now, at 65, I remember that bone-chilling night in December as vividly as when I heard the news of the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
A Sad and Unexpected Announcement 
It was just an ordinary Monday. The New York City streets were clogged with vendors hawking Christmas trees and holiday shoppers trying to get their hands on a Rubik's Cube, that year's "must-have" Christmas gift for kids. The hostages in Iran were spending their 401 days in captivity and it was becoming old news. Barely a month had passed since Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan had become our President-elect.
I had settled in for the evening at my third-floor walk-up on East 18th Street, preparing for another late night of work. A student at the School of Visual Arts, I had yet to complete an illustration assignment due the next day. At the ready was a supply of frosty pink cans of Tab to get me through the night. 
The airwaves were filled with crying and shared grief. 
As usual, my Pioneer radio was on, set to 102.7, WNEW-FM, its music taking take me through the wee hours. Painting a canvas to the music of Queen, Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart got me into a groove.
When DJ Vin Scelsa took over the 10 p.m. time slot as usual, I took little note. But when the legendary broadcaster broke in with an announcement, I dropped my paintbrush, creating a cadmium red slash on my Calvin Klein Jeans, and froze.
"I have the extremely sad task of informing you that John Lennon died tonight," he said, barely able to keep it together as he struggled to get out the words.
Grief-stricken and in a state of suspended disbelief, I became glued to the radio, ignoring the ringing telephone as my answering machine quickly became filled with messages from distressed friends.
The airwaves were similarly filled, with crying and shared grief. Devastated Beatles fans without the benefits of Twitter in those days took to calling in to radio stations to share their anguish on air, desperately seeking information. 
"This can't be true!" cried more than one inconsolable listener. "They've killed him, they've killed John Lennon," wailed others. "How could something like this happen in New York?," one caller asked, tormented.
How indeed?
Crowds in the Cold Outside The Dakota
I loved that John Lennon considered himself a New Yorker. He had made it his home. In my early 20s, so had I. That he had lived so contentedly as an artist in the place I called home was special. That he was killed in the city I loved was devastating.
As the evening wore on, reports began circulating of a vigil taking place outside Lennon's residence on the Upper West Side. Despite the late hour, I didn't hesitate. I knew where I needed to be. It felt essential to join the more than 600 singing, chanting and crying fans who would spend the evening till early dawn outside The Dakota. 
How many times had we witnessed our sense of idealism and optimism slowly snuffed out by an assassin's bullet? 
Hailing a yellow Checker cab, I raced uptown from my apartment and soon saw the crowds that had gathered outside the iconic apartment building across from Central Park. 
Looking up at the formidable fortress-like landmark, its iron gates now covered in black bunting and flowers, it seemed incomprehensible that only hours earlier, Lennon had been shot as he entered this storied structure with his wife, Yoko Ono.
I edged my way into the growing sea of pea coats and parkas, surrounded by others of my generation; we stood together bereft in shocked solidarity. How many times had we witnessed our sense of idealism and optimism slowly snuffed out by an assassin's bullet?  
Crowds gathering outside the home of John LennonYet the horror of this one seemed inconceivable. That the life of a man like John Lennon, someone with such penetrating genius, who moved us to imagine a world of peace right along with him, could end in such an abrupt and violent way was devastating and impossible to comprehend.
A Beatle had been killed.
Memories of The Beatles 
So many boomers like me recall first seeing The Beatles on a February night in 1964; I was only 8 at the time and it remains an indelible memory. 
Along with most Americans, Sunday night was Ed Sullivan time at my house: At 8 o'clock, along with 73 million other viewers, my family had gathered around our TV set in the living room to watch the very first live television appearance of that British import. My own parents tuned in just to see what the heck all the fuss was about with this Moptop foursome.
While my parents sat a safe distance away from the set, I plopped myself down as close as possible to get a good look at The Fab Four. They opened with "All My Loving," muffled by the screams of besotted teenage girls in the audience, and for their closing song they pleaded with us that "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Yeah, yeah, yeah!
The Beatles burst into our lives at a primal moment, only 77 days after President Kennedy had been assassinated, the first of our shared childhood traumas. The sense of possibility that had been so prevalent in those early years of the New Frontier, which Kennedy beckoned us into, had died on November 22,1963.
To fill this emotional and spiritual void, we quickly related to a group of young men: vibrant, upbeat, irreverent, a departure from the past. Like JFK, they were smart, quick-witted and energetic. We could easily transfer the sense of hope onto these four lads from Liverpool. 
Most girls had their favorite Beatle. John was mine.
Grieving a Loss of Hope 
Sixteen years later, the frigid night air was filled with quiet sobs and sorrowful singing from lifelong fans as we stood in vigil for John Lennon.
Some carried Beatles posters, albums and homemade signs. Soon, candles appeared in the windows and people in the crowd lit matches or plastic Bic cigarette lighters, filling the dark night with light.
There had always been a hope that the Beatles would get back together. 
But it wasn't just adults filling the streets. Despite the late hour, some of the grieving brought their young children, bundled up in snowsuits and mittens; others gently rocked baby strollers in time with the music filling the night air.
Music emanated from portable radios or from a Sony Walkman and sang along with The Beatles, tears in their eyes. One group of people would start singing "All You Need Is Love," reverberating for city blocks, then others would applaud and start another Beatles song. 
In time, I joined in the muffled chanting of Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," while others choked out the lyrics to his "Imagine." Now the unimaginable had happened.
A mourner in the group called for a moment of silence, and for a minute, the crying and the singing ceased. We were grieving not only for John Lennon's death, but the death of an era — for a rock star who symbolized our youth.
Before Lennon's death, you would be hard-pressed to find a boomer of that time who didn't secretly hope for a Beatles reunion. After their 1970 breakup, there had always been a hope that The Beatles would get back together. 
As long as The Beatles themselves were all alive, people could kid themselves into believing there might finally be one final concert, one more album.
That hope, too, died on that chilly Monday night.



Imagine: It's Been 40 Years Since the Death of John Lennon

Sally Edelstein

The Beatles are back with a new song. 
And I am happy about it. I feel young and hopeful at a scary time, as The Beatles did in the 1960s, when the world was on fire and the Vietnam War raged on and on.
I can escape with The Beatles.
Music publisher Dick James, who started working with John and Paul in 1962, once put it so well. He said The Beatles were "the perfect entertainment machine."
The just-released "Now and Then," billed as The Beatles' last song, will probably raise more questions than answers. Is this a true Beatles song? Is it a triumph or a gimmick? What would John Lennon have thought? Why does this project mean so much to Paul McCartney?
Unmistakably The Beatles 
"Now and Then" is unmistakably John, Paul, George and Ringo. The song sounds a bit somber in the beginning. No, it doesn't rock like, say, "Glass Onion." Yes, it lacks the mad experimentation of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," too. And it is fair to say that Lennon's voice is not as distinctive as it was on "Come Together."
It will be a matter of personal taste whether someone embraces the song or waves it away.
It will be a matter of personal taste whether someone embraces the song or waves it away.
Is it even fair to invoke the titles of Beatles' classics? Probably not. But people will do that, just the same. As a Washington Post headline summed up: "The 'new' Beatles song is perfectly fine. That's not good enough."
McCartney, for his part, bristles at the notion that some form of artificial intelligence accounts for the creation of "Now and Then." He told The Guardian: "To be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It's all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings — a process which has gone on for years."
Nevertheless, some people will dismiss "Now and Then" as some sort of a 21st century gimmick. They'll call it a product of "Get Back" director Peter Jackson, whose technology provided the impetus for the song's creation, pushing a few buttons on a space-age, state-of-the-art console. This seems grossly unfair. 
The Beatles in Washington DC, 1964Others will prefer to gush about the miraculous modern technology that allowed Paul McCartney and Peter Jackson to breathe life into a Lennon home recording that was unusable on its own.
The Beatles Nation is ecstatic at the prospect of any sort of new Beatles offering, flaws and all. Consider the joyful reaction of Melanie Formosa, a 22-year-old disc jockey on Long Island and a total Beatle freak: "I am thrilled that 'Now and Then' will finally be released. It's wonderful that artificial intelligence is able to help make that happen. I don't see it as a technological gimmick at all. Artificial intelligence was used to clean up existing recordings, which has been done time and time again."
Me? I've gone on record on Next Avenue as — harrumph! — declaring that The Beatles should not have bothered to recue this recording from the junk heap and should have instead, get ready for it, let it be.
Then I heard the song played a few weeks ago in a private Apple screening room on a spectacular sound system. Voila! It was definitely The Beatles, again. 
There is a lesson there, folks. Listen before you leap.
What's In It For Paul? 
I can't help but wonder why Paul took such pains and so much time — he first proposed putting out "Now and Then" three decades ago — to unearth Lennon's homemade song.
Paul doesn't need the money. He also doesn't need to have to deal with carping from critics that the song is a gimmick, and not even a great one at that. Paul can live without knowing haters are griping that he has cheapened the Beatles legacy.
"I don't see it as a technological gimmick at all. Artificial intelligence was used to clean up existing recordings, which has been done time and time again."
I wonder if McCartney has a need to remind people that The Beatles were the kingpins of the 1960s. 
The Rolling Stones' new album, "Hackney Diamonds," is their first release in 18 years. McCartney plays bass guitar on one track. The Stones have been getting almost unanimous critical praise for the new work.
And Bob Dylan is back on the road and getting excellent reviews for performing selections from his 2020 "Rough and Rowdy Ways" album. The critics lavished praise on it, reaffirming Dylan's place in popular culture.
You couldn't blame Paul McCartney for wanting us to re-experience The Beatles. I think he deserves credit for persisting through all these years.
It's a great parlor game to guess what Lennon would have thought about the fuss over "Now and Then." Lennon was notoriously competitive with McCartney. Don't forget that John dismissed Paul's early solo work in a ditty entitled "How Do You Sleep?" John sang: "The sound you make is muzak to my ears/You must've learned something in all those years."
More a Triumph of Effects Than a Coup? 
Lennon might have pointed out that he thought so little of the throwaway "Now and Then" that he didn't bother to record it properly and include the song on 1980's "Double Fantasy," his first album release in five years. For the record, "Now and Then" also did not appear on the lovingly crafted "Lennon Anthology" album, a four-CD production which included outtakes from all of Lennon's solo periods.
You couldn't blame Paul McCartney for wanting us to remember The Beatles.
Harrison, who died in 2001, went on record in a 1987 radio interview with Mary Turner, stressing that when The Beatles slaved away in the recording studio, they relied on "the natural human element."
"The problem is, there's a lack of discretion," Harrison suggested to Turner. "We invented a lot of the gimmicks. Now you can … press a button and get the sound that we spent months trying to invent back in the Sixties."
The reason that "Now and Then" has languished was that Harrison vetoed putting it out in the 1990s because he thought it was a sub-par and unworthy Beatles song. 
And in the end … does it even matter if the public thinks the song is more of a triumph of effects than a coup? I bet I know what McCartney would tell the critics.
It reminds me of what Paul succinctly said on "The Beatles Anthology."He answered the naysayers who had complained that The Beatles' 1968 "White Album," a two-record set that contained 30 songs of a dizzying variety of styles, proved to be unwieldy. 
Paul said: "It was great. It sold. It's the bloody Beatles' White Album. Shut up."
"Now and Then" is John singing and Paul and George and Ringo playing on it. In 2023, no less.
It's the bloody Beatles. 
Shut up.


'Now and Then' Is the 'Bloody Beatles' and That's Enough

Yoko Ono, who will turn 90 years old on February 18, remains possibly the most misunderstood woman of modern times. It's time to set the record straight.
For more than 50 years, Yoko has gotten a bum rap. It's as if she was sentenced to life imprisoned by the court of public opinion for a crime she didn't commit. She has the unfortunate legacy of Breaking Up the Beatles.
Yoko Ono and John Lennon in New YorkIt is ludicrous to believe that an outsider could exert such power and influence over John, Paul, George and Ringo. It seems laughable to believe this diminutive woman could snap her fingers and cause the greatest rock and roll band of all time, whose members had been the best of friends for many years, to disband. 
It is ludicrous to believe that an outsider could exert such power and influence over John, Paul, George and Ringo.
The band died a slow death and started to break up when the guys stopped touring in 1966 — two full years before Yoko emerged. They gradually grew apart.
The August 1967 death of their manager, Brian Epstein, forced the Beatles to manage their business affairs for the first time, which put a strain on their unity and friendship. Prior to that, they only had to worry about making music and creating magic. Epstein took care of the rest.
Lennon's Power in The Beatles 
Subsequent disagreements about who would succeed Epstein cut deep. And the pressures of running their new company, Apple Corps, proved insurmountable for four men who were great at making music but found themselves in over their heads at playing businessmen.
These factors dwarfed whatever influence Yoko supposedly had. Lennon, who had formed the Beatles as a teenager, broke up the band. He was the leader from day one and, as McCartney claimed, Lennon had the veto power. Whether they hired Epstein as the manager, fired Pete Best as the drummer or decided to stop touring, nothing got done without Lennon's approval. He had the loudest voice.
And so, Lennon decided to break up the Beatles because he was crazy in love with Yoko and wanted to spend all his time with her.
"I'm in love for the first time," Lennon sang on "Don't Let Me Down" in 1969. He meant it, too.
Really, his decision to leave the Beatles in September 1969 was no different than when your school chum leaves the local bowling league or the softball team because he'd rather spend time with his new love. Lennon just happened to be one of the most famous and admired people on the planet.
John's Muse 
Yoko, you'll remember, burst onto the pop culture scene back in 1968, when she became Lennon's lover and muse. 
She was born in Tokyo, the daughter of a banking executive. Her family moved to New York when she was 20 years old, and she attended Sarah Lawrence College. She gravitated to the Manhattan arts scene and met Lennon in London in 1966, on the eve of one of her one-woman art exhibits.
They married in March 1969. The Beatles officially split up in April 1970, when McCartney broke the news to the world in a press release, and conveniently timed his bombshell to the release date of his first solo album, "McCartney." 
The four ex-Beatles continued to bask in the public's adulation. Meanwhile, Yoko has worn the black hat ever since.
Yoko has been known by her many incarnations: performance artist, musician, businesswoman, tycoon, feminist, gadfly, peacenik, performer. A testament to her impact on popular culture is that she is immediately recognizable by her first name only, like such feminist icons as Cher, Madonna and Kamala.
Yoko surely did influence John's art —and his happiness.
Yoko surely did influence John's art -- and his happiness. The evidence exists in his songs. When he was meditating in India with the other Beatles — not to mention his wife, Cynthia — in early 1968, Yoko was back in London, and John was in despair at being so far apart from her.
He wrote and sang about that time in his song, "I'm So Tired:"
"You know,
It's three weeks
I'm going insane!
You know,
I'd give you everything I've got
For a little piece of mind!
Lennon incorporated Yoko in his music in other ways, too. He insisted on having her sing the line in "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," ("Just when he looked so fierce") which McCartney previously would have handled. "Ocean Child," Yoko's name in Japanese, gets mentioned in John's moving song "Julia," about his beloved mother who was killed in a hit-and-run auto accident when he was 17 years old.
The lyrics of John's heralded song, "Imagine," were directly influenced by Yoko's book, "Grapefruit." And Lennon named his 1970 solo album, "The Plastic Ono Band," in tribute to her.
Hard to Love Yoko 
Admittedly, Yoko didn't make it easy for us to love her in the beginning. She never seemed to smile in public. Her face was hidden by her cascading black hair. "A sphinx without a secret," one writer sneered.
"I only ever asked two people to work with me as a partner. One was Paul McCartney and the other was Yoko Ono."
John, Paul and George were mystified by her. The Beatles, chauvinistic Northern Englishmen at heart, had discouraged girlfriends and wives from infiltrating their recording sessions at Abbey Road. Yet, Yoko sat by John's side all the while. In a  bizarre twist, John had a bed moved in to Abbey Road so Yoko, who was recovering from an automobile accident in the summer of 1969, could attend the sessions while she was recuperating.
She was John's partner in crime during those kooky bed-ins for peace in 1969. She and John climbed inside a bag and conducted wacky interviews. Most notoriously, the two posed naked on the cover of a 1968 album called "Two Virgins," consisting of strange electronic sounds and not featuring a solitary "goo goo ga joob."
Unwilling to believe that John had changed from his lighthearted persona in the Beatles movies, "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!," the media happily blamed Yoko for his jarring transformation.
Remaining Dignified 
Admirably, Yoko has maintained her dignity all these years and never lashed out at her detractors. The treatment of Yoko in London by the awful, sensationalist British tabloids got so ugly that John and Yoko decided to move to New York in 1971. That's where they spent the rest of their years.
The couple separated in 1973 for approximately 18 months, but got back together. John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman outside their home in the Dakota apartment building on December 8, 1980. He was 40 years old.
Yoko Ono continues to stay in the public eye and been involved in worthwhile causes. Her philanthropy has focused on many peace, arts and disaster relief efforts.
It's about time we gave her the benefit of the doubt. Take what John Lennon once said to heart:
"I only ever asked two people to work with me as a partner," he said, according to the Times of London. "One was Paul McCartney and the other was Yoko Ono."


Yoko Ono at 90: Still Misunderstood After All These Years

Let me get this out of the way: Like you, perhaps, I appreciate the Beatles more than clear air. Their music is the soundtrack of my life. Don't take that last sentence lightly. I'm in my 60s.
The Beatles in 1963"Now and Then" represents the third example of how recording technology can take a low-tech demo from Lennon's private vault, clean up the scratches and remove the hisses.
Further, my Beatles street cred is beyond reproach. I teach a class at Stony Brook University in New York called "The Beatles: Their Music, Legacy and Influence." I wrote a 14,000-ebook (for no money) called "Goo Goo Ga Joob: Why 'I Am the Walrus' is The Beatles' Greatest Song." I've seen Paul McCartney perform six times.
I feel a need to make these points because I might make you very angry. 
You see, I maintain that the Beatles should NOT release the new "Beatles" single that McCartney heralded earlier this year. When it comes to the Beatles' legacy, I say: let it be.
'Now and Then' 
The betting is that the song will be called "Now and Then." John Lennon recorded the demo, which he never intended for public release, well after the Beatles broke up. Lennon knocked it off on the piano, in his apartment at the Dakota. 
"Now and Then" represents the third example of how recording technology can take a low-tech demo from Lennon's private vault, clean up the scratches and remove the hisses.
"Now and Then" would follow the lackluster "Free as a Bird" and the uninspiring "Real Love." Both were also Lennon-penned songs that were credited to "the Beatles" when they came out in the 1990s.
Trust me, I get no satisfaction from blasting the post-breakup Beatles releases.
"Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" (the latter of which sounded a lot more moving to me when it was released in its original, stripped-down presentation on a "John Lennon Anthology" package) were thinly disguised gimmicks that anchored the ballyhooed "Beatles Anthology" compact discs.
I Get No Satisfaction
Trust me, I get no satisfaction from blasting the post-breakup Beatles releases. I had high hopes that they would succeed, at least as a novelty. But I found the relative quality of the two songs to be very disappointing.
For the record, I also blanched when McCartney exploited footage of Lennon singing on "I've Got a Feeling" from Peter Jackson's "Get Back" film, which showed the Beatles recording a new album and performing new songs up on the Apple Ltd. roof on Jan. 30, 1969.
McCartney used the clip during his concert performances of "I've Got a Feeling." Playing devil's advocate, you could say that McCartney, whom I greatly admire as an artist and an individual, gave young (and older) Beatles fans an opportunity to enjoy the Lennon-McCartney magic one more time. Me? I saw it as a cheap gimmick. 
Stodgy? Me? 
Call me stodgy — I've been called a lot worse — but I think the Beatles' legacy should be pure and not compromised by gimmicks. Let the lesser acts do that.
My objection also raises a key point about the uses of technology in culture. We are bound to see opportunists apply AI technology to revive old images and recordings in ways we probably can't fully imagine.
I hope "Now and Then" proves me 100% wrong. I hope it is a gem. I hope we all grow to love it.
And I recognize that someone who disagrees with my position could retort that such endeavors as the release of "Now and Then" and McCartney's new performance of "I've Got a Feeling" succeed in keeping the Beatles' music relevant, by exposing it to a whole new generation that can only appreciate the Beatles on YouTube. 
Sadly, these whippersnappers were born too late to have the thrill of turning on the radio in the Sixties and hearing a disc jockey breathlessly announce, "And now, here is the NEW BEATLES SONG." 
Am I merely a 1960s snob? Maybe!
I hate the idea of dredging up songs, which John Lennon himself never felt a need to record properly in a professional studio, and then foisting them on a public that is desperate for a new Beatles song.  
The practice of adding background vocals and musical instruments to a home recording is shamelessly inauthentic. I doubt that Lennon, who recorded a song entitled "Gimme Some Truth," one of the highlights of his 1971 "Imagine" album, would get behind this gimmick.
"Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" sounded second-rate upon their releases in the 1990s. The songs were released to coincide with the airing of the Beatles' "Anthology" package of CDs and an eight-part television series. 
The Beatles consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr making music in their recording studio in London. A genuine Beatles song was the product of John and/or Paul (and less often, George on his own) writing a song and bringing it into the studio. When the four musicians and close friends worked together, they made magic.
Their inspiration did not come from studio tricks. Even when they experimented, starting with the "Revolver" album in 1966, the magic came from their collaborations.
I'm so tired of sounding like a blue meanie. You know something? I hope "Now and Then" proves me 100% wrong. I hope it is a gem. I hope we all grow to love it. I hope it is brilliant and inspiring. 
But I won't hold my breath.


The Beatles Should Just Let It Be

Having just celebrated his 80th birthday, Paul McCartney is still "The Cute Beatle" — and so much more.
The nickname-happy media gave McCartney that label around the time that "A Hard Day's Night" came out, at the dawn of worldwide Beatlemania in 1964. McCartney has allowed himself to look his age with great dignity. He lets his generous amount of gray hair shine through. There may now be a bit of a puddle around his mid-section — not that most guys wouldn't love to trade physiques with him — but big deal. What McCartney radiates will always allow him to look on the sunny side.
Do you want to know a secret? Paul McCartney acts his age. Happily!
Yes, a cynic would say dismissively, "Of course, he always looks happy. He's worth a billion dollars!" As the Beatles once sang, on "She's Leaving Home," "fun is the one thing that money can't buy."
"But I think in the end, you do what I do, what most people do: just remember the great stuff." 
McCartney remains philosophical. Remember the sentiment that he expressed on the cover of his first solo album, "McCartney," in 1970, which contained a photograph of a spilled bowl of cherries: Life is not always a bowl of cherries.
Since those heady days, the man who went on to give us "Yesterday," "Eleanor Rigby," "Penny Lane," "Hey Jude," and "Let It Be," not to mention a slew of hits as a solo recording artist, has had to cope with his share of setbacks, heartbreaks and losses.
Somehow, though, like a fine watch, he keeps right on ticking. Like a gutsy prize fighter, he rises off the canvas. How does McCartney stay so productive and upbeat? And what lessons can we mere mortals learn from his shining example?
Getting Better 
McCartney has exhibited his hopeful nature in public. During an interview he did on Howard Stern's radio show on Jan. 14, 2009, Stern asked him how he had been coping with the 2001 death of band mate George Harrison and McCartney answered philosophically.
"How are you doing with everyone dying? Your mom and dad. I've lost both my parents. I lost John (Lennon), lost George, lost (first wife) Linda. It's very tough. You want them back. You want them back all the time. But I think in the end, you do what I do, what most people do: just remember the great stuff."
Even beyond McCartney's grieving, he had his mind on coping with the state of the world, which was in a worrisome place at the time of the conversation with Stern. The global economy had tanked, and our morale was low.
Stern: "Are you depressed by the world's situation now?"
McCartney: "I'm not exactly happy about it. But I'm an optimist. You've been around a little while, you've seen stuff. You've seen Vietnam. You've seen Nixon. 9/11." 
McCartney has always been an optimist — an attitude and life philosophy that has served him well. Does he think the glass is half-full? Just look at his songwriting credits.
As a songwriter in the Beatles, he was the one who sang "it's getting better all the time" even as his songwriting partner, John Lennon, answered with a smirk in the same song, "It couldn't get much worse".
McCartney sang, "We can work it out."
When the Beatles were in the process of breaking apart and McCartney was distressed, he solved his existential crises by counseling, "Let it be."
He urged us to "Take a sad song and make it better."
He believes in yesterday.
You say goodbye. Paul McCartney says hello.
The Long and Winding Road 
The Beatles broke up in 1970, ending the reign of what their music publisher Dick James once called "the perfect entertainment machine." After privately despairing the termination of his brilliant collaboration with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, McCartney put the pieces together and struck out on his own — and, at first, anyway, strike out he did.
Music critics savagely panned his first few post-Beatles albums. On a 1971 song called "How Do You Sleep?" Lennon dismissed McCartney's new music as "Muzak to my ears." Coming from Lennon, McCartney's boyhood his idol and ex-partner, those unusually harsh words especially stung.
McCartney released the worldwide hit "Band on the Run" in 1973 and got back on his feet, creatively. But in 1998, Linda, his beloved wife of 29 years, died of breast cancer, the same disease that had claimed his mother, Mary, when Paul was 14 years old.
Ed Sullivan poses with the Beatles during their first ever live U.S. television performanceA second marriage in 2003 to British activist Heather Mills, 26 years his junior, proved explosive fodder for worldwide tabloids and ended after only five years. Happily, he and his third wife, Nancy Shevell, a New York business executive, continue to go strong after a decade.
As he navigates his own long and winding road, Sir Paul — born James Paul McCartney to a working-class family in Liverpool, England during the height of World War II — has personified a remarkable capacity for aging gracefully.
He has been utterly unselfconscious about embracing — even celebrating — his advancing years. When you remember that McCartney remains one of the world's most photographed and identifiable people, this disdain for looking falsely youthful makes him a wonderful role model.
A Day in the Life 
McCartney has sported a head of natural-looking gray hair for so long that it seems hard to think of him in his Beatle days. He is comfortable looking his age and not losing any sleep about whether he will keep up with his fellow rock stars, who seem willing to strike a deal with the devil just to look young again.
But McCartney's hair color is merely a cosmetic decision. Far more crucially, he has kept up a demanding workload. Proclaimed in the media to be a billionaire, McCartney clearly doesn't make new music or go on tour or stay in the public eye for the money.
Proclaimed in the media to be a billionaire, McCartney clearly doesn't make new music or go on tour or stay in the public eye for the money.
Despite any aches and pains that come naturally in one's twilight, Paul McCartney has never lost his love for the work he does so well.
I've never met McCartney. But I have gained a sort of understanding about the rock and roll mentality and aging. I wrote a book about McCartney admirer and peer, Bob Dylan, in 2012 called "Forget About Today: Bob Dylan's Genius for (Re)Invention."
In the course of my research, I interviewed many people who were or continue to be close to Dylan. I asked a family member, "Why does he still tour so much?" This is the same point you could raise to McCartney, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who as well as the likes of Elton John, not to mention Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones — all men who have been making music for more than five decades and have happily stayed prolific over the years.
When I asked the Dylan insider that key question, he nodded thoughtfully, as if underscoring the public's curiosity to learn the holy grail of how a rock star ages.
He said: "He likes to work. Touring helps him stay in good physical shape. He gets to travel around the world and see old friends. He loves singing the songs he wrote, which still mean so much to him." At that point, my interview subject smiled and added: "And yeah, he likes the money."
Paul McCartney, it appears, likes it all. He enjoys reminiscing in interviews. You'd never catch him in a "Sunset Boulevard" kind of weakness, when he yearned for the good old days. He respects what he has accomplished but won't allow himself to get stuck in the past.
While the world was bemoaning life during the global pandemic, McCartney got back to work. He couldn't tour, of course. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves and recorded an album of new songs.
Nothing seems to keep Paul McCartney down for long. His life philosophies enable him to turn the page time after time. He knows his place in the world. We should all be so lucky to have this gift of self-awareness.
Yes, he once sang a song called "I'm Down." But he also sang, "It really doesn't matter if I'm wrong — I'm right. Where I belong, I'm right."


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