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Long Live Lennon
December 2011ZANI – 31 Years Ago Today
My name is HASSAN. I saw this Stevie Wonder clip for the first time recently.. it was 31 years ago today - when I was just a little boy riding a 3-wheeled bike around a Bradford council estate, when I needed a little help from my enemies to tie my own shoe-laces.. Our neighbours had painted NF - taller than me - on the block of flats across the street.. I grew up thinking it was a part of our postcode - and yet this was just the very, very, very, long beginning - of being shown how my skin colour makes me an unwelcome, second class citizen in my own great country.. Someone eventually painted over the National Front - but those letters must have been painted with a really massive brush - because it still remains on the wall to this very day - in more ways than your eyes may wish to see..Today - there are hundreds of wonderful writers, musicians and artists, whose work I learn from and aspire to be like one day.. I clearly can remember the day Marvin Gaye was killed, and how it felt for me.. I still have my unused tickets for my friends and myself to see Nirvana in Manchester.. And I'm one of the last few people to buy a ticket to see Michael Jackson - because at the last moment the promoter released a few more seats - and I managed to get one - in row 12 beside the stage - the day before he died.. I know some folks lie about what happens in rock n' roll, and about who they've seen play, and who they think they know - so there's no reason to believe these things I say.. I'm just thankful I'm not one of the stupid people who can't show some real respect for someone and their talent - until after they are dead..
Even as a little Northern Soul in Yorkshire - this one single day in December 1980, is still one of the biggest things to ever happen in my life.. I had already been taught by the time I was aged 4 about how to correctly take a vinyl record out of its sleeve - how I must always only hold it by its edges - and how to carefully clean the stylus with its special brush.. Our only colour television had no remote control and was rented from the D.E.R. shop, and we didn't have much matching furniture - but what we did have was an entire catalogue of The Beatles and John Lennon, and many more records too.. And so a long time before football ever changed my life - and several years before I even knew how to write a story at school - I was this junior Northern Soul riding a 3-wheeled bike on a Bradford council estate - whose only way to escape the noise both inside and outside our home - was with my little ear pressed up against one of our giant stereo speakers - just listening to Lennon singing to me.. Being so very, very close to his voice like that as a little boy - it really felt like he was singing to me.. And by the time this December day arrived in 1980 - my Northern Soul had heard John's voice for more than half of my young life.. I remember watching Frank Bough on the news that night - talking about John Winston Lennon being killed in New York City.. I seem to remember the BBC also deciding to broadcast The Beatles - Help! movie aswell.. I don't think we knew how to cry in front of each other back then - and there wasn't much anyone could say about all of it.. So we just sat there, and we watched the rented colour telly, and we played our records..
Right now I'm now listening to I Am The Resurrection by The Stone Roses..
I sometimes think about the wonderful talents of Marvin Pentz Gaye and Kurt Donald Cobain and Michael Joseph Jackson and John Winston Lennon.. And I think of how hard they must have worked and worked and worked - to become the best writers and singers and musicians they could be for us - and then I think of how many stupid people let them down and didn't help them out when they should have done.. And it kinda doesn't always feel so easy to celebrate life and enjoy the work of trying to become a better writer.. And yet a celebration of the gift - of rock n' roll and just being alive today - is what I really think these great artists and others like them shared with us.. The Gift..
Long Live Lennon
This photo is of a shop window I noticed in Manc this summer - after I saw Ringo Starr and his band singing Give Peace A Chance..
© Words – HASSAN/ ZANI Media
hassanwillbeking@hotmail.com
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