The next anniversary of his death falls on a weekend, so we might as well use John Lennon’s birthday—that being yesterday, when we wrote this—as an excuse to showcase a nice little lyric. The following is an excerpt from a longer composition by Sean Tyla. Like many musicians, Tyla was thinking about Lennon’s death while recording his own 1981 release. Unlike many musicians, though, Tyla wrote something that sounds like a fine warning about such gentle hippie souls as Mark David Chapman:

        Cold December
        Do you think anyone will remember
        The night they shot him down
        In this crazy mixed-up twisted shitty town
                Trying to make a dollar out of Rock and Roll
                Is like living in the middle of a war
        And if you give peace a chance
        And if you give peace a chance
        They’re bound to kill you for sure

That goes double for Charles Manson, too.

We marked Lennon’s birthday by watching the Imagine: John Lennon documentary on VH1 Classic—mainly because it’s always good to see Al Capp. We were also won over by New York Times reporter Gloria Emerson. She may have been little better than a Commie spy while covering the Vietnam war, but Emerson certainly did some good as a quirky ’70s sex symbol. She looked like Miss Hathaway with a stylist. Seriously, check her out.

Make it your own: This is an atypical moment from Sean Tyla, who’s better known as a pioneering pub-rocker with Ducks Deluxe. “Babylon Suite” is from Redneck in Babylon—paired on CD with 1980’s Just Popped Out. A lot of people compare Tyla to Bob Seger, but that’s kind of generous.

 

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