John Lennon Died Too Young, But Not That Young, And He Was Content
“You know what I listened to for the past five years? Muzak! For the kind of chores I was doing around the house, it was perfect. I know people are going to say, ‘Oh, that’s because he’s got to be 40 and got soft.’ Well, it might be that; it’s irrelevant to me. The attitude is that when you change when you get older that there’s something wrong with that, but the world is stupid enough as it is; if the young were running it, it would be really dumb.”
— John Lennon, in an interview a month before he was killed on December 8th, 1980. (This opens a PDF file of the article in the Times
.) So if the fact that that was thirty years ago today is making you feel old, don’t worry about it. John wouldn’t have. More darkly, though, you wonder, if he had known those would be the last years of his life, would he have still listened to all that muzak? Which is why, when I’m doing chores around the house (Hey! There’s a bright side to being unemployed and turning 40 — I’m living like John Lennon!) I make sure to play some of his music. You never know. And I want to make sure I go out on the good stuff. Like this.