Counterculture – Sharing History

On December 8, 1980, music legend John Lennon was shot and killed outside of his New York City apartment. His death, often referred to as “the day the music died,” devastated a generation of fans whose youth, filled with war and strife, had been brightened by the Beatles subversive rock culture. Despite Lennon’s tragic early death, his music and life, both as a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist continue to be extremely influential even now, four decades after his death.

John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England in 1940. In 1964, at the age of 24, Lennon became a household name as a member of the unbelievably popular music group, the Beatles. In part, the Beatles were so popular because their music didn’t sound like anything the world had heard before. Between Lennon’s iconic rock and roll voice and Paul McCartney’s pop vibe, the band created music about love and pleasure. The group became so beloved that Lennon famously stated that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now,” which led to religious fanatics burning Beatles albums. Lennon was also an outspoken political activist. He was so passionately opposed to the Vietnam War that the Nixon administration attempted to deport him. But no matter what they did or said, people loved the Beatles. In 1970, the Beatles broke up. John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono spent the next ten years working on music together, releasing albums like “Imagine” and “Double Fantasy,” which have become classics.

On December 8, 1980, Lennon spent the day working with his wife, including participating in a photoshoot with Rolling Stones photographer Annie Leibovitz that produced one of the most iconic photos of Lennon and Ono of all time. That night, Lennon returned home to his apartment in the Dakota in New York City. As he walked up on the building’s entrance, a deranged man emerged from the shadows and shot Lennon four times. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The man who shot Lennon, Mark Chapman, was believed to have done so for fame. He said, “I was nobody until I killed the biggest somebody on earth.” He remains in prison to this day. Forty years after his death, Lennon remains an icon. 2023 saw the Beatles hit 1 billion streams on Spotify, proving that even after all this time, Lennon’s words and music make the world feel something good.

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On August 15, 1969, the music festival that would come to be known as Woodstock began. The festival was headlined by some of the most famous musicians of the time as well as several fledgling artists who would go on to claim rock and roll fame. The festival’s legacy, however, has little to do with who played there and more to do with who attended. Woodstock has become synonymous with the counterculture of the sixties—young people who faced the tumultuous and violent realities of the Vietnam War, the Stonewall Riots, and the Civil Rights Movement and believed that love and music could change the world.

Woodstock was held on tract of land owned by dairy farmer Max Yasgur. When festival organizers John Roberts, Joel Rosenman Artie Kornfeld, and Michael Lang set up a stage on this land they didn’t realize that the festival would see more than 400,000 attendees. Performers at Woodstock included Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Despite the rain, the vibe remained peaceful among the throng of concert-goers. Yasgur, addressing the crowd, is recorded to have said, “You’ve proven to the world . . . a half a million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music and God bless you for it!”

The legacy of Woodstock lives under two perspectives. Some believe it symbolized the worst of that generation—self-indulgence, addiction, and declarations without action behind them. Some believe it was a revolution—young people declaring to the world a desire to change the society they live in and their belief in the power of togetherness and music to do so.

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