The Walrus Lives!
From Alternative History
Vale John Lennon. The former Beatle has become an icon for millions worldwide with his music and his message of peace and love. In many ways a poster boy of the hippy era, Lennon's influence was enormous in his day, even after the end of the Beatles. With his wife Yoko Ono, Lennon was a hero to the peace movement...and a 'dangerous radical' to some, notably J. Edgar Hoover, who some believe directly intervened to refuse Lennon a permanent U.S. visa. Some even believe Lennon's death in 1980 was orchestrated by the FBI, the CIA or any number of others. Of course, we all know the story. On 8 December 1980, "The Walrus", John Winston Lennon, was walking into his apartment building, the Dakota building in New York City, with his wife when he was shot dead by Mark David Chapman, later described as a 'deranged fan', though there is evidence against that claim. Lennon was rushed to the Roosevelt Hospital but was pronounced dead at 11:15 pm that fateful night. Millions mourned his death, and afterwards he was elevated from celebrity to pop culture icon. This timeline's point of difference is very simple. Mark David Chapman missed...
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[edit] The incident - December 8, 1980
On the night of 8 December 1980, John Lennon was targeted by a deranged gunman in front of his home, the Dakota.
It was unusually warm for December in New York City and Lennon had a full day planned. He first went to the Cafe LaFortuna for his morning espresso, then to a hairstylist before returning home. At the Dakota, he did an interview for the RKO Radio Network and a photo session with Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone magazine.
At 5:00 p.m., Lennon and Ono left their apartment to mix the track "Walking on Thin Ice" at Record Plant Studio. As they walked to their limousine, they were approached by several people seeking autographs. Among them was a young man later to be identified as Mark David Chapman. Chapman silently handed Lennon a copy of Double Fantasy, and Lennon obliged with an autograph. After signing the album Lennon asked him, "Is this all you want?" Chapman replied with, "Thank you, John", while photographer and Lennon fan Paul Goresh snapped photos of them both.
Lennons spent several hours at the studio before returning to the Dakota at about 10:50 p.m. Lennon decided against eating out so he could be home in time to say goodnight to five-year-old Sean before he went to sleep. They exited their limousine on 72nd Street, even though the car could have been driven into the more secure courtyard. The doorman, Jose Perdomo, and a cab driver saw Chapman standing in the shadows by the archway. Ono walked ahead of Lennon and into the reception area, and then Chapman called out, "Mr. Lennon!" As Lennon turned around, Chapman dropped into a "combat stance" and shot at Lennon five times with hollow point bullets from a Charter Arms .38 revolver.
Lennon was extremely fortunate. After the first shot was fired, the sudden noise caused him to startle and he fell onto the sidewalk. Chapman fired twice more but missed both times due to the sudden speed of Lennon's movements.
Lennon staggered up four steps to the security/reception area, said, "There's a gunman" and leapt over the desk as Chapman entered, gun still in hand. Concierge Jay Hastings summoned police by hitting a silent alarm button and, in a stunning act of bravery, lunged at Chapman attempting to disarm him. Perdomo jumped onto Chapman from behind and the two men pinned him down. Pedermo shouted "Do you know what you tried to do?" before kicking Chapman's revolver across the sidewalk. Chapman replied, "I just shot at John Lennon." The first policemen to arrive were Steve Spiro and Peter Cullen, who were at 72nd Street and Broadway when they heard a report of shots fired at the Dakota. The officers found Chapman sitting quietly on the sidewalk, with Pedermo and Hastings still holding him. They reported that Chapman had dropped the revolver to the ground, and it lay next to a paperback novel - J.D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye.
The second team — Officers Bill Gamble and James Moran, arrived a few minutes later. They immediately checked Lennon for injuries and, apparently finding none, requested Lennon and Ono, as well as Pedermo and Hastings, accompany them to the local police station for a statement. Chapman was taken in a seperate car to another station. Police reported Chapman was 'very quiet' and 'withdrawn', and indicated that he could scarcely believed that he'd missed.
Shortly after local news stations reported the shooting, crowds gathered in front of the Dakota - reciting prayers, singing Lennon's songs. Lennon and Ono returned to their apartment at about 4am on the morning of December 9, where Lennon made a brief statement to the crowd and to the press camped outside the building. "Everybody, I thank you all so much for your support. I am fine, nobody is hurt and I ask you all please to respect our privacy. It's very late and I'm very tired."
Chapman pled guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life. He is still in prison as of 2007, 27 years since his arrest, having been denied parole four times.
[edit] The early 1980s
Lennon was said to have been 'shaken' by Chapman's attempt on his life, and began to suffer from severe depression. He stopped all work on Milk and Honey, the album he had been recording with Ono, and became quite withdrawn. In early 1981, Lennon entered therapy and began to recover, though he and Ono have both admitted he was never quite the same man again after his near-death experience.
Milk and Honey was eventually released in October 1981 to mixed reviews. In mid-1982, the idea of a Beatles reunion began to be seriously canvassed - Lennon was said to be all for it, and Paul McCartney was said to be the hold-out preventing it from happening. Lennon even wrote a song, Get Over It, which was included on his 1983 double album, Torment, considered by many as Lennon's finest solo work.
[edit] Live Aid and the Beatles reunion
Despite McCartney's recalcitrance to reform the group (which he always denied), it was ironically McCartney that would prove the seed of the band's renewal. In 1984 McCartney had participated in Bob Geldof's Band Aid single, Do they know it's Christmas, which Lennon had been offered a part in but declined (he was working on his own project along similar lines). Geldof, whose activism against global war and poverty in many ways matched Lennon's, was determined to recruit Lennon for his cause, which was to be a massive open-air concert against global hunger and poverty, specifically in Ethiopia, Live Aid. McCartney was on board from an early stage.
On March 15, 1985, Geldof and McCartney met Lennon in New York and asked Lennon to participate. Lennon was certainly sympathetic to Geldof's cause, but had his doubts as to whether or not the concert would be effective and also expressed concerns over the commercial nature of the enterprise. However, he was said to be open to the idea of participating. Geldof and McCartney contacted the other Beatles, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, with a view to reforming the Beatles for a one-off performance at Wembley for Live Aid, as the centrepiece of the concert.
Once Harrison and Starr had agreed, the four Beatles reunited for the first time in fifteen years when the other three met Lennon in London and, in Starr's words, "told the old bugger to jump on board". Lennon has always insisted it was McCartney, not Lennon, who was most opposed to a reunion, while McCartney and Starr have both stated Lennon was the real hold-out.
Whoever was the hold-out, obviously they changed their minds. On July 13, 1985, an estimated 1.5 billion viewers in 100 countries tuned in to watch Live Aid's televised broadcast. What nobody knew, as Status Quo set the concert off, was who was waiting in the wings.
The names got bigger and bigger. When the Beach Boys took the stage, surely it couldn't get any bigger? Then McCartney arrived and performed two songs before launching into Hey Jude. As he reached the first verse, Lennon walked onto the stage and joined him in the number. Then Harrison and Starr arrived, and the Beatles played the rest of the number in their first joint performance for fifteen years. The ovation from the 72,000 strong crowd was so loud it interfered with the sound equipment and few could hear the song. When Hey Jude finished, the reformed Beatles played Let it Be and finally All You Need is Love as the final song of the evening. The New York broadcast was almost totally overshadowed by the enormity of the Beatles reunion.
[edit] The comeback tour and Feel the Sun
Geldof (and the Beatles) had only intended to reunite for the Live Aid cause, but the popularity of their appearance and the money it had been able to raise caused the group to reconsider their decision. Ringo Starr later said "We all thought about the times we'd had before and realised that maybe it was worth giving it one last shot." All four Beatles fronted the press in August 1985 and announced that the group would reunite for a series of benefit concerts in the UK and United States.
The tour was the group's biggest ever, but was frought with danger. For a start, the huge crowds of fans at the group's gigs reminded them why they'd stopped touring in 1966 in the first place. Security was nightmarish, and at the band's concert in Boston, Massachusetts, which took place on January 16, 1986, one fan was killed and eleven injured in a stampede. Perhaps, the group mused, this wasn't such a good idea after all. It was after the Boston incident that the group decided to cancel a number of their American concerts. The tour ended on February 15 with an open-air concert in Central Park, New York City, attended by more than a million people. There were reports of several injuries among the crowd as well.
The tour proved, especially to Lennon, that reforming had been a mistake. If more proof was needed, it was in the band's caustic relations with each other - several blazing rows had broken out on tour, just as they had two decades ago. Lennon wanted the band to confine themselves to their later work, while McCartney advocated performing songs from across their career, including their earlier sound which had made them so popular.
Despite all the setbacks on tour, the group consented to record one final album, which all of them, by mutual agreement, knew would be the last. Further collaborations would be impractical and horrific for all concerned. That said, the album that was produced is considered by most fans to be one of their finest, on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road. Lennon described the album as "fucking brilliant".
The album was called Feel the Sun and contained songs by all four band members. The title track was a McCartney composition. Unlike all their previous albums, Lennon and McCartney were not co-credited for songwriting, with the exception of There Was Nobody, which the two collaborated on while touring.
The album was an instant success and was #1 on both sides of the Atlantic and in 43 other countries. It remains by far the biggest-selling Beatles album of all time, and the fifth-highest-selling album of all time in the United States (it ranks #6 in the UK).
Following the release of the album, the Beatles announced that they would not produce more original material but consented to the release of previously unheard material periodically throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
[edit] The 1990s
The Beatles officially broke up for the second time shortly after the release of Feel the Sun. However, public pressure for them to reform was enormous. This caused inevitable tensions. Lennon and McCartney both preferred to concentrate on their solo work. McCartney released several new albums in the 1990s, while Lennon was less prolific. Lennon and Ono returned to their filmmaking career, becoming activists against global warming as the decade drew on. The Beatles continued to make occasional appearances with each other, but never as a complete group. Most often, Harrison or Starr would feature as a guest at one of McCartney's concerts, though the reverse was occasionally true.
All four Beatles guest-starred on The Simpsons in the 1990s. Ringo Starr appeared in the episode Brush with Greatness as himself. He was followed by Harrison in Homer's Barbershop Quartet, McCartney in Lisa the Vegetarian and Lennon in Trash of the Titans1. The series creator, Matt Groening, has stated it had always been his wish to have all four Beatles appear in an episode together. Sadly, this never happened. Lennon would later also appear (as his own disembodied head) for a brief cameo in an episode of Groening's other animated series, Futurama.
[edit] The final performance
[edit] Death of George Harrison
[edit] Lennon today
1Editor's note: Lennon's appearance on The Simpsons replaces that of U2 in this particular episode. I'm sure Lennon would have relished the chance to call someone a "wanker" on television.
