25 years later, Lennon's loss still being felt

Lennon clearly had courage as an artist. He wasn’t afraid to mess up, or to speak up. Lennon mocked Bob Dylan with a song, “Serve Yourself,” when he didn’t like “Gotta Serve Somebody.” It’s not too hard to envision him making his own cracks about the Stones during their dreary years. Few others today have the stature or nature to speak up with a contrarian word, and know they’ll be listened to.

By moving to New York and walking the streets, Lennon always seemed more accessible, more human than his peers, Light said. No one had more reason to fear the warped effect of fandom than the four men who lived through the hysteria of Beatlemania. Living outside of a bubble made Lennon a target.

Chapman remains in New York’s Attica state prison, where his third request for parole was denied in October. Ono wrote to the parole board urging he not be released. Chapman won’t be eligible for parole again for two years.

A legacy of Lennon’s death is a lingering uncertainty among musicians about being in public. Tom Araya, lead singer of Slayer, admitted that he’s “a little more cautious, conscious of his surroundings” than he might have been otherwise.

Losing the partner to whom he’s wedded in history has been difficult for McCartney, in ways he could and could not control. With Lennon lionized, McCartney’s reputation shrank in comparison. For a while, it became LENNON-McCartney.

It was unfair, and has since been corrected, but not before breeding an unwarranted insecurity. McCartney has spent years seemingly saying, “Hey, I was cool, too.” Light was struck by how McCartney opens his current concert tour with a video reminding fans of his Beatles exploits, when the music can speak for itself.

“He just digs himself deeper into a hole no matter when he does it,” Light said.

If Lennon had lived, McCartney said he believes they would have written songs together again. It all depended on the state of their relationship, badly frayed in the Beatles’ fracture, but improving at the time of Lennon’s death.

“We were having long telephone conversations about his cats and baking bread,” McCartney said. “Ordinary things, which I think easily could have led us into being mates again.”

After seven years of studying the Beatles, author Spitz said he doubted it. Lennon had left the Beatles behind and hadn’t gone back before he died. The closest the world got was when McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr transformed Lennon leftovers “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love” into “Beatles” songs.

“I always assumed I would meet him,” Fogerty said. “And when they are gone from you, you’re almost overcome with the sense that you never got to say goodbye. I never got to touch base from my heart to his heart and I’m sure that millions of us felt the same way.”

Lennon’s words from “.9 Dream” still echo.

“So long ago. Was it in a dream? Was it just a dream?”

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