John Lennon didn’t make it to Christmas in 1980 — he was killed two weeks shy of it, by a man craving fame and clutching a copy of The Catcher in The Rye, an American classic about the protection of innocence.
Earlier that day, Lennon had been interviewed by a young radio producer called Laurie Kaye. In this last recorded interview, as if reciting the lyrics of his song ‘Imagine’, he lamented our tendency to separate one another: “We think we’re broken into these fragmented pieces — countries, sexes, races — it’s a joke. Imagine no countries; imagine no religion; would it be so terrible?”
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