Tom Dunne: For me, John Lennon was the brightest light in the sky
John Lennon would have turned 80 today, Friday.
“John Lennon is dead!” My mother’s words to me at approximately 8 30am on December 9th 1980. I didn’t really believe her. I was a lazy teen, hated getting out of bed, and she would say anything. But even by her standards this was harsh. I stumbled to a TV, cereal in hand and looked on: It was true. My heart broke.
I loved John Lennon. When people ask ‘who’d be your dream interview?’ I never have to think: It’s John all the day long. The best, sharpest, most dangerous Beatle. A punk before punk existed and for me, the brightest light in the sky.
I attempted to carry on as normal, but by mid-afternoon I was back from UCD, desolate, and attempting to cram for an exam whilst listening to his music.
Then the door bell rang. It was my best friend, equally distraught and carrying a bottle of Southern Comfort. I abandoned my study. “The exam is multiple choice,” I told him, “how hard can it be?”
I’d come to The Beatles late. It was Bowie that first floated my boat but for my 13th birthday my brother in law gifted me 12 home-recorded Scotch cassette tapes of The Beatles' albums. I listened chronologically. By the time it hit the later albums the doors of perception were shaking on their hinges.
All roads seemed to lead to John. The songs that most arrested me were his. There was a sharpness, a lyrical edge to the earlier songs like 'Girl, Hide Your Love Away' and 'Norwegian Wood' that was absent in Paul songs. And then the later ones. 'Strawberry Fields', 'Dear Prudence', 'Come Together'... man alive.
But it was his solo career that was the clincher. It was erratic no question, but it was also vulnerable, angry, hurt, complicated and utterly human. When punk rock arrived, it left a lot of music looking bloated and irrelevant, but there was nothing bloated or irrelevant about 'Working Class Hero'. John seemed cut from the same cloth, part of some bigger, cooler picture.
In later years the world of radio brought me closer to John than I could ever have imagined. In the early 2000s, when his son Sean played the Olympia, I was invited to talk to him. Waiting to record he said, dejectedly, “To most people I’m just a piece of living Beatles memorabilia!”.
“No!” I exclaimed, “surely not.” I’d been told to try and avoid John and Yoko references but it just took one question for the floodgates to open: “Was music something you were encouraged into?” I asked. “Are you joking me?” he exclaimed, “You think Yoko talked of anything else?” And we were off.
The next day he recorded a session for me, including a version of The Beach Boys’ 'God Only Knows', an event of karmic significance.
The next time I got close to John’s world was via George Martin. His performance at the NCH wasn’t selling and so a few nights before it he came into the studio. He was very, very hard of hearing and I had to later edit out my essentially shouted questions, but he was wonderfully generous.
When I asked him about Paul he was effusive in his praise, but when I asked about John his demeanour visibly changed. His chest rose, “John!, Ah John,” he signed. He looked at me as if no words could convey his pride. “With John,” he laughed a little, “you just never knew what he’d come in with! It was remarkable.”
The fallout from that day in December arrived in January. The college re-opening was delayed by snow but walking in I saw the exam results waiting for me on the notice board. I peered up nervously. I had received no mark at all. Another note on the board advised that Thomas Dunne was to make an appointment to see the Dean.
It emerged that, to discourage guessing, negative marks had been awarded for wrong answers. I’d guessed more wrong than right, entering UCD folklore in one fell swoop. I still have no idea what I told the Dean but I hope it was, “Someone had just shot John Lennon! What did you expect?”
At this remove I like to think that it was a good way to have marked the event. The exam was in a subject called the Mechanics of Rigid Bodies, which I think tells its own tale.
So, John, wherever you are, happy 80th birthday, we still all miss you.
