The Dream is Over

I remember hearing my very first Beatles song. It was on a cassette tape my mom bought at Christmas time, and she said to me,"listen to this, you will enjoy it." She was right. My ears consumed that tape. And from that time forward I was a Beatles fan.
I bought my own cds to listen to, and one Christmas in junior high my parents gave me my first copy of John Lennon's solo work. It was a greatest hits album entitled "Lennon Legend", and it was the same experience all over again.
You see John is my favorite Beatle, because John is the most human to me. The Beatles to me are not a super group, but THE super group. This band had every element working for it, they pioneered popular music, no, music in general. They seemed untouchable to me, that is everyone except for John.
John was a troubled youth. He did not know his father, and his mother was a singer and spent a lot of time away from home. He was raised by two aunts. John found comfort in music. He learned to communicate through music, and I eventually found comfort in John's music.
John never tried to hide the fact that he could be a real ass sometimes. He was loud, argumentative and rude. He never tired to hid these things, in fact John embraced all his traits.
When I was in junior high I feel into a deep depression. I felt no emotional attachment to this world. I was not particularly close to any of my friends, and I did not feel close to my family. I had an identity crisis along with a loss of faith. I spent a good portion of my time alone in my room pondering what my place in this world was, and I felt guilty for doubting all the things that were so clear to me as a child. This was when I heard John's music for the first time.
I played that "Lennon Legend" album all the way through and closed my eyes and heard John Lennon describing the same feelings I had, telling me it was alright. He shifted my focus from the turmoil inside of me to the world outside. John's music gave me a purpose again. He told me I could change the world, that I was the answer to my problems.

Nobody Told Me, Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiV7mxzdGQ&ob=av2e

Take for example the song "God, or the Dream is Over". This song starts off nice and quit, John sings, "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." and then the song begins to build. Up and up the music builds it becomes more intense and John lists all the things he does not believe in anymore. At the end the music stops, and with out auto tuning or voice enhancement John sings " I just believe in me." This is the most intament of songs I have ever listened to in my life, still to this day. John exposes his heart to us and in the end alone as naturally as can be John says he believes in himself.

God, Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv3ic6OOXns

John wrote what he felt always, but especially in his solo career. I watched documentary footage of a man, starving and tired standing outside of John's door explaining that John wrote those songs for him. John said "no, I wrote those songs because that is what I was feeling at the time. You know I got up that morning and had a good shit, so I thought I would write a song about it." The man, like myself felt close to John, but he is not writing to us but to himself. After the conversation John did something no star would, he invited the man to join him for breakfast in his home.
Sometimes I wounder what it would be like if John were still alive. This Saturday he would have turned 70, and I want to know what his razor sharp wit would write about the politics of today, and then I realize that is not what John would want. John would want me to make up my own mind, to voice my own opinion, not his. Lennon would want me to be like him, by not being like him. If that makes any sense?
I would just like to thank John Lennon for helping to make me the woman I am today.
Happy Birthday John Lennon. -B