The day John Lennon died will undoubtedly remain one of the most tragic moments in rock history. The music world had lost a figure who transformed the spirit of an entire age. As he revealed during a new interview with Goldmine, Ozzy Osbourne’s world also collapsed when he got that heartbreaking news. Although he had never listened to the Beatles live, he was pretty aware of what they had contributed to the rock world.
“I remember where I was,” he said, recalling that dark day. “Exactly where I was, when it was, what time of the day it was. I was in Wales. I was writing and rehearsing, and Sharon calls me up and says, ‘You’ll never guess what happened.’ She says, ‘John Lennon got shot last night.’ My world just f*ckin’ stopped. It was like when Kennedy got done, you know. But a f*ckin’ guy like Lennon … it just stopped my world.”
He continued, “I mean, I never saw [The Beatles] play. How great would it have been if they hadn’t shot Lennon and he hadn’t died such a horrible death? If they’d ever gotten back together, they would have taken over again.”
As you may recall, John Lennon was murdered by a deranged fan outside his apartment on December 8, 1980. Mark David Chapman, in his later statements, announced that he murdered Lennon because he was jealous of his life and he wanted to be a famous person and not a ‘nobody’ anymore.
Although 40 years have passed, the memory of that day continues to hurt many people. Ozzy Osbourne also described that day as an event that shook his world. In another recent interview with Forbes, he named his favorite singer-songwriter, John Lennon.
He was particularly influenced by him lyrically. Given that he is the Prince of Darkness, it may sound surprising, but the late Beatle’s 1971 solo classic ‘Imagine’ has a special place for Osbourne. He even said he had listened to it more than a thousand times. According to the singer, ‘Imagine’ is one of the best examples that John Lennon dedicated his life to demonstrating a crucial point.
