John Lennon, 29 years ago today....

He did change my life, I now know the difference between a headache and a migraine.

Talented guy.

What a waste!

A sad day indeed. Lennon, in my estimation, was a gifted, yet often cruel soul. The sum of all I've read leaves me with the impression that he was brilliant, petty, insightful, dark, lonely, and incredibly gifted.

I believe that with the Beatles he was greatly aided by the counterweight to his darker self provided by the other 3, and George Martin.

But what would the other 3 have been without him? No Strawberry Fields, In My Life, A Day In The Life, Girl, Norwegian Wood, I'm Only Sleeping- on and on.

How much poorer our musical lives would have been without him.

Just my opinion.

It's a tragedy when anyone is needlessly gunned down in cold blood. However, I disagree about his influence as it pertains to societal impact.

I do believe Lennon was/is a hero to many, FBOFW, and did affect the lives of many who admire/admired him.

THe saddest thing to me about his death was that he appeared to be entering a new phase of his public life with some new perspectives perhaps as a result of being a newly engaged father and family man. We'll never know what kind of new musical directions he might have gone down. As one of the undeniable great pop/rock musical talents of his time, and not one to rest on is laurels I would say, he might well had delivered a lot of interesting new music and remained relevant for many years IMO.

I believe pop/rock music would be much different today had he lived into the 1980s. No way to know for sure though.