Credit, Getty Images
-
- author, Tom Brook
- To roll, From BBC Talkies*
45 years ago, on December 8, 1980, former Beatle John Lennon was shot dead while walking home in the Dakota Building in New York.
The BBC’s Tom Brook was the first British journalist to report live from the crime scene.
In a text from 2020, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the singer’s death, he returns to the coverage of the historic event. Check it out below:
In New York, in my daily activities, I am constantly reminded of John Lennon, his life and his death.
Today, I live just four blocks from the Dakota Building.
I pass the building almost every day, and my gym, located on West 63rd Street, is part of a complex that also houses a hotel, where Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, spent his first night in New York.
Credit, Reuters
Lennon also continues to define my career. I have been a journalist for over 40 years.
During this time I submitted over 3,000 reports to the BBC and interviewed most of the big names in the film industry.
But everyone wants to know, when they meet me, what it’s like to cover the death of John Lennon.
Well, I have to admit it was a great story, but the logistics of reporting it were actually quite simple.
I manned a public telephone box within sight of the Dakota, from where I answered questions from BBC Radio Four presenter Brian Redhead, among others, in London, feeding him the latest information.
When he wasn’t doing this, he was interviewing some of the hundreds of Lennon fans gathered in the street.
Credit, Getty Images
Everyone around me was crying, some fans were hysterical. I was also a big Lennon fan myself.
The other day I looked at the photo on my first official BBC ID card from that time – it’s a frightening sight and I was surprised the company gave me a job!
But I definitely looked like a John Lennon fan. So yes, I was emotionally affected that night too, but I managed not to choke up live.
Credit, Getty Images
People always ask me to describe what it was like to be in the Dakota building right after he died.
I will never forget a young woman who said, “I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.” » I think his words sum it up perfectly.
Two years after the ex-Beatle’s death, I returned to Dakota to interview Yoko Ono. She had just started talking about Lennon’s death and was still talking about him in the present tense.
She told me, “He’s still alive, he’s still with us, his spirit will live on, you can’t kill someone that easily.”
Credit, Getty Images
Perhaps that’s what’s most remarkable 40 years after Lennon’s death: how his spirit still lives among the millions of young people who now flock to his music.
As this anniversary approaches, I have spent the last few days talking with some of them. They tell me they are drawn to Lennon’s music, his lyrics and his particular idealistic pacifism, which they say provides some comfort in these pandemic times.
But to be objective, I know that not everything was wonderful about Lennon. He could be mean and nasty – and he admitted to abusing women.
None of this has really affected his legacy – in fact, his stature as a musician has grown since his death.
I think what I loved most about Lennon was that he had an authentic voice. Not just musically. He did and said some controversial things, but he wasn’t a fake, he was always himself.
He was one of the most influential figures in 20th century pop culture history, a true Brit, and four decades after his death I’m still fascinated by him.
*Talking Movies is broadcast on BBC World News and BBC News Channel.
This text was originally published on December 8, 2020
About The Author
