©2010 by Rod Harrel
Author's Note: This is the original script for the documentary of the same (see link to video below).
Thirty years later there remains the accepted
history of John Lennon’s death: a lone nut Beatle fan gunned down the pop
culture hero. The songs, the tributes, the articles, the videos rarely
mentioned the killer, and when they do, he was always alone. Or, perhaps, he
did have company, but it was in the form of his demons, his misconceptions of
Christianity, or his craving for infamy. A lone nut, a fan no less, had gunned down our
dear, beloved, ex-Beatle John. It would seem all sewn up, except for what Sean Lennon said in 1998.
“He
was a countercultural revolutionary, and the government takes that shit really
seriously historically,” Sean Lennon said of his father’s death. “He was
dangerous to the government…These pacifist revolutionaries are historically
killed by the government, and anybody who thinks that Mark Chapman was just
some crazy guy who killed my dad for his personal interests is insane, I think,
or very naïve, or hasn’t thought about it clearly. It was in the best interests
of the United States to have my dad killed, definitely. And, you know, that
worked against them, to be honest, because once he died his powers grew. So, I
mean, fuck them. They didn’t get what they wanted.”1
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| Photo: Bob Gruen |
The quote, from an interview, was an amazing thing to
see in print: Sean intuitively lays out the groundwork for further investigation
of his father’s death. Unfortunately, perhaps predictably, less than two weeks
after the interview there was some serious backpedaling by Sean. Older
half-brother, Julian Lennon, had publicly chastised Sean, saying that his
remarks were “ill-advised” and that “if you’re going to say something like
that, you need to have your facts.” Through a spokesman, Sean said that he
regretted saying what he did immediately after the interview.2 In the world of celebrity, the word
regret is apparently a synonym for “sorry that I told the truth.” All that is
left is a brotherly debate, in public no less.
Incredibly,
in the conspiracy-strewn landscape of American pop culture, the Lennon
brothers’ statements represent only the second public contradiction of the accepted history
their father’s assassination. Only Fenton Bresler’s groundbreaking 1989 book, Who
Killed John Lennon?
stands as the first. The book caused nary a ripple in the mainstream media, the
press corps, America’s fourth estate.
