John Lennon, 29 years ago today....

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.

I don't know why but I always remember this day. Not like the Beatles or John Lennon meant much to me when I was 9 years old but I always remember hearing it on Good Morning America that he was shot and killed and I always think about it on Dec 8th. To bad, I bet he'd still be making good music today had this not happened.

"just a singer in a rock and roll band"? whether or not you are a fan of the beatles or john lennon's solo work, it's quite ignorant to be unaware of his towering contributions and iconic status not only in music, but in society throughout the world. listen to the words of "imagine". we still have not learned those lessons.