Beautiful, Beautiful Boy

Today is the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. I had forgotten this until I visited Blue Witch's blog this morning. Her entry today is about John Lennon's death and tells where she was and how she felt when she heard he had been murdered. She then asked her readers if they remembered what they were doing on that day. I started to add my comment to the others when I realized it was turning into a novel so I decided to move my reply over here to my own blog.

I was going to school in New York and staying with my sister at her apartment on West 53 Street and 8th Avenue when John Lennon died. My sister's apartment was on the westside of the building facing 9th Avenue and up high. I remember that we were always hearing the wail of a police car or an ambulance siren whenever one raced to Roosevelt Hospital up on West 59th Street and 10 Avenue. In fact, the sound of sirens was such a part of living in the apartment, I quickly got to the point where the sound of them failed to register in my conscious mind.

I heard about the shooting from the television soon after John Lennon was shot and then, not much later, the news of his death. The news reports were being done from outside of Roosevelt Hospital and as I watched I knew I had probably heard the siren of the police car that brought him there but that, as usually, the sound of it had not gotten past my subconscious mind. I remember being shocked by the news that John Lennon had died but at the same time I felt removed from it.

The next day I heard that people were gathering in front of the Dakota apartment building and toyed with the idea of going up there myself but in the end decided not to because it didn't feel like the right thing to do. Years later I read an article on John Lennon's death and in it Yoko Ono said one of the hardest thing for her in the days after her husband's murder was hearing the sound of his voice floating up from the radios being played loudly by the people gathered in the street below.

In the early Eighties cable television was fairly new and some channels just transmitted blue screens with text scrolling down it. For sound they tapped into some radio station's broadcast. The night following Lennon's death I had the TV on one of those channels while reading and I heard the announcer say that the next song was being played in memory of John Lennon. That was the first time I ever heard Beautiful, Beautiful Boy and as Lennon's voice filled the room I felt an overwhelming sense of lost and sadness. At the end of the song I heard John Lennon whisper, "Goodnight, Sean, see you in the morning," and my heart shattered. At that moment I knew if John Lennon wasn't safe in this world then none of us were, and I broke down into deep heart wrenching sobs; grieving my loss, a little boy's loss, and the world's loss.

Close your eyes, have no fear,
The monster's gone, he's on the run,
And your daddy's here.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.

Before you go to sleep, say a little prayer,
Every day, in every way
It's getting better and better.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.

Out on the ocean, sailing away,
I can hardly wait to see you come of age
But I guess we'll both just have to be patient.
'Cause it's a long way to go,
A hard row to hoe,
Yes, it's a long way to go but in the meantime.

Before you cross the street, take my hand,
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.

Before you go to sleep, say a little prayer,
Every day, in every way
It's getting better and better.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.
Darling, darling, darling, darling, Sean.

Good night, Sean,
See you in the morning.