REMEMBERING JOHN

“If there’s one thing that May Pang has been fighting for the last 28 years, it’s the idea that John Lennon was depressed, isolated and out of control during the 18 months she lived with him, from the summer of 1973 to early 1975, when he reconciled with his second wife, Yoko Ono.”

So begins the review of May Pang’s new book , INSTAMATIC KARMA in the New York Times. It seems to me what the author of the article was trying to say was that Ms Pang has been fighting against the idea that John was depressed, isolated and out of control…or am I missing something? But let’s not turn the review of the new book into a review of poor writing skills, or maybe it was just an inability to convey a simple thought. Writing ain’t what it used to be, that’s for sure!

So, after many years, May Pang, well known to Beatlefans, has released her secret cache of photos. It’s nice to see John smiling and happy. To see him spending time with his son Julian, relaxed and playful. But still it’s painful. Reading about the book, looking at the pictures, thinking back to that time all make me wonder: what happened? What was it that made John go back to Yoko Ono?

I won’t get into the “Yoko broke up the Beatles” debate, but I DO think that Yoko had a very bad effect on John, and think it’s a little scary that someone so gifted, so talented and so loved (of course you know I’m talking about John, not Yoko!) could have so easily been seduced by Ms Ono. Well yeah, I could see if for the short term. A fling with a crazy, non-conformist artist. A chance to be wild and crazy and call it creative. A chance to turn his back on the conventions of society and just dare people to object. A chance to laugh at the world’s criticism and disdain, to fight for a cause, even if that cause turned out to be his undoing. But still we wonder why.

I guess it’s like when your best friend falls madly in love. For the first few weeks you don’t even see your friend because they’re consumed with their new love, but then finally! You get to meet the new person, and after the first ‘hello’ you know…YOU JUST KNOW…that somehow your friend has temporarily lost his or her mind, and you hope and PRAY that it really is only a temporary condition. This was the reaction of many when John first met Yoko, and then to everyone’s dismay….they stayed together! What had happened? Where had the John we used to know gone? Or had that John been a fake, and now, thanks to Yoko, the world was finally seeing the REAL John Lennon? I guess we’ll never know the truth, and the fact is, people fall in love with other people for the strangest reasons, most of them inexplicable and beyond rational explanation.

Reading this review, seeing the pictures and thinking about the memories of John is a little bittersweet. So much was taken from the world when John was murdered, and as you can tell, sometimes taking a trip down memory lane is painful. Maybe I should pop A HARD DAY’S NIGHT into the DVD player and remember the other John, the John I first fell in love with back when I was twelve years old. Some memories are better than others. “And we all shine on…”