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Floral, Musical Tributes for Lennon 25 Years On

By REUTERS

Published: December 8, 2005

LIVERPOOL, England/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Liverpool and New York prepared to honor pop icon John Lennon on Thursday with floral and musical tributes and a candle lit vigil close to where he was shot dead 25 years ago.


In a ceremony in the center of the northern English city where Lennon was born and raised, fans and officials will create a shrine beneath a statue of the legendary Beatle, gunned down in New York by a fan in the presence of his wife Yoko Ono.

Later in the day, the city holds a memorial service for the man who created some of the best-known tunes in pop and is considered one of the most influential songwriters of all time.

In New York, hundreds of mourners are expected to gather at the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park and light candles at 10:50 p.m. EST (0350 GMT Friday), the time Lennon was shot.

Friends in Liverpool remembered Lennon with fondness, but also felt he distanced himself from them after meeting Ono, the woman who many fans blame for breaking up the Beatles in 1970.

``You couldn't approach John at the end, and looking back it was from the moment ... he met Yoko Ono,'' said former friend and fellow musician Billy Kinsley, who knew Beatles Lennon and Paul McCartney in the 1960s.

``It was sad. He was my hero from when I was a 15-year-old kid, and he was always approachable, always said hello, and had a little chat. But after he met Yoko, that went out the window completely.''

His assessment of Lennon and the Beatles as musicians, however, has never changed.

``It really did make a big impression on me seeing the Beatles on that first night at the Cavern, because it just changed my outlook,'' he told Reuters in a makeshift recording studio in his garden, recalling the night in February 1962.

``I thought 'My God, I have just seen the best thing that I could ever see', and since then it's been downhill because I've never seen anything as good as the Beatles.''

DEVOTION
Kinsley will perform ``Beautiful Boy,'' which Lennon dedicated to his second son Sean on his ``Double Fantasy'' album, at a memorial service in Liverpool later on Thursday.

In New York, Ayarton Dos Santos will be at the ``Imagine'' mosaic, named after one of the Lennon's most famous songs, just as he has been nearly every day for the last 13 years to arrange petals, acorns, apples and bagels into a peace sign.

``It's all about peace, love and happiness. It's for brother John,'' Dos Santos, 41, said.

``You come here, you feel his spirit. His spirit is so alive in here,'' he added.
Yet the man who brought a generation such pleasure with seminal tracks like ``Strawberry Fields Forever,'' ``Give Peace a Chance'' and ``Imagine,'' also caused pain to those who loved him.

Both his first wife Cynthia and their son Julian recently voiced their sense of rejection when Lennon left them for Ono.

Cynthia told Reuters earlier this year that she and Julian were ``airbrushed'' from the Beatles' story and that Ono made it clear she did not want her in New York after Lennon's death.

In a statement on his Web site, Julian added: ``I have always had very mixed feelings about Dad. He was the father I loved who let me down in so many ways ... it's painful to think that his early death robbed me of the chance for us to know each other better.''

Ono's spokesman Elliot Mintz said he had received more than 500 requests for interviews with Lennon's Japanese-born wife.

``It's just too painful for her to discuss,'' he said.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.