1980 Singles # 47 John Lennon

It would be churlish of me to do this countdown of singles of 1980 without mention of this man Because this single came out right towards the end of the year just before his cruel and utterly seismic death. Not that I was really even aware of him at the time. I had had a sheltered upbringing musically of ABBA, The Carpenters, The Seekers and Louis Armstrong while Lennon had just emerged again after years on the periphery of music and cultural importance from his years as a house husband with Yoko, helping to bring up Sean.

It's strange, but when his death was announced I didn't really even know who he was. I knew about The Beatles of course but really associated them with McCartney who had never been away and had been central to my years growing up with his cosy and enormous hits and general high profile all the way through the mid to late Seventies.

I remember the younger brother of a friend at school being utterly shell shocked by Lennon's shooting at the time and not really understanding what the fuss was about. The music business certainly woke me up to that after 8th December. Memorials, re-releases, eulogies, tributes, cash ins. It went on for months, well into 1981. I caught up with Lennon properly further on down the line, didn't have my big Beatles phases until many years later. Now I have stacks of their albums piled together in my flat and return intermittently. He's probably the main man in that band for me now.

As for Starting Over, it and Double Fantasy are not my favourites of his. They're laced with sentiment, but you couldn't say that he and Yoko were not entitled to such emotions. The way the song kicks in is pure Fifties Rock and Roll and Lennon's voice an almost comic parody of his first loves Elvis, Fats Domino, and the Big Bopper. The song is as shamelessly nostalgic as anything from the Grease soundtrack. Listening to it now tugs at me much more than it ever did at the time. What a senseless and brutal act those gunshots were. Taking so much away from so many people and giving absolutely nothing in return.