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Rumpus Book ClubLester Bangs on John Lennon
Jacket Copy has scrounged up an old op-ed written by the rock critic Lester Bangs, published six days after John Lennon was killed.
“Look: I don’t think I’m insensitive or a curmudgeon. In 1965 John Lennon was one of the most important people in the world. It’s just that today I feel deeply alienated from rock-n-roll and what it has meant or could mean, alienated from my fellow men and women and their dreams or aspirations.
I don’t know which is more pathetic, the people of my generation who refuse to let their 1960s adolescence die a natural death, or the younger ones who will snatch and gobble and shred, any scrap of a dream that someone declared over 10 years ago. Perhaps the younger ones are sadder, because at least my peers may have some nostalgic memory of the long-cold embers they’re kneeling to blow upon, whereas the kids who have to make do with things like Beatlemania are being sold a bill of goods.”
September 6th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
This article of which you printed an excerpt was originally entitled “Thinking the Unthinkable About John Lennon.” His conclusion was “John Lennon was just a guy.”
September 6th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Seth, I’m glad you’re linking to the piece, because I fear your excerpt doesn’t do it justice. It starts out smart and then, twice more, gets even smarter; and I think the writing really stands out in places… if not so much those above. I was thankful to find it in our archives, and I hope people read the complete piece. It’s really something.