You are here. For some reason you stopped to read my column, in this paper, at this time, on this day. Hopefully you're a daily reader of the newspaper, or perhaps you know me. Over the next three months I'm sure you're going to get to know me much better than I know you.
You have to understand, I'm just looking for a bit of instant karma. I need to pass on the good fortune I've had finding and listening to good music that's really changed my life. Getting to write whatever I want every week for a whole semester is something I've been dreaming of for years.
Music was the obvious choice. What I really want to bring readers and music aficionados is the best music on this planet, music that actually has the ability to do some good in this world, for you individually and for society as a whole.
What we're going to try to do is make something great happen, find one band or song or moment or experience that will make you stop in your tracks and change your whole paradigm. I know it's a lofty goal, but I am consoled by the fact that even if I fall short, at least I know I gave some complete strangers something good to listen to and a look inside my life.
I'm assuming that you know of John Lennon. Integral part of the Beatles, married Yoko Ono, he was the supreme hippie, and was taken on Dec. 8, 1980; all that's background info. But do you really know who John Lennon is? I mean, aside from "Imagine," "Happy Xmas (War is Over)," "Give Peace A Chance" and his other, more popular songs.
Intuition tells me that if he were around today Lennon would acknowledge that the stuff that he did with the Beatles wasn't his best. It's great pop stuff and revolutionary for its time, but Lennon was set to write in his second career as a solo artist and later, with Ono.
Oh, Yoko. She did so much for Lennon as an artist. His realization that "everything is clearer when you're in love" inspired the man who craved so much attention in his early years to tell us where our attention, as a society, needed to go. If you really listen to Lennon, his writing on peace and love and jealousy and religion hits you in a place few can reach because of the way he used words. Check out the track "God" on Plastic Ono Band. It's one of Lennon's most pointed songs, yet you can't disagree with the man because he says it so beautifully. God is a concept / by which we measure / our pain, and later, I just believe in me / Yoko and me / and that's reality. It should be the theme song for the new generation of atheists and nonbelievers.
I love the newest step by Ono to keep Lennon's ideas alive. To honor her husband on the 25th anniversary of his death, Ono released the rights of the entire Lennon collection to Amnesty International. Its current project, Make Some Noise, showcases classic Lennon songs recorded by contemporary artists such as The Postal Service and Maroon 5. The motto for the project, "music can change the world, but only with your voice," fits Lennon's message perfectly.
