With Peter Jackson’s revolutionary The Beatles: Get Back docuseries taking the pop culturally dialed-in world by storm of late, absorbing the absence of the band’s founder – slain by a disturbed fan 41 years to the date this Wednesday, December 8 – proves as daunting as ever.
Repurposed at length over the decades, especially at this time every year, the events surrounding John Lennon’s assassination by the hands of Mark David Chapman have become etched in the minds of heartbroken fans everywhere. The singer/songwriter had retired from the public eye and recording music to become a stay-at-home dad to son Sean (born 1975); only to be shot dead five years later while returning to his Dakota Apartment building mere weeks after the release of his comeback album, “Double Fantasy.”
NBC technically broke it first, interrupting The Tonight Show to alert the world. However, its iconic ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell’s decision to deliver the news during the closing moments of regulation on Monday Night Football (MNF) for his network that’s most remembered.
“This, yes we have to say it, remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead … on … arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that newsflash, which in duty bound, we had to take.”
And he nearly elected not to issue his famous report.
As John Smith prepared to kick the New England Patriots to victory with a field goal attempt ultimately blocked in an overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins, Cosell’s broadcasting partner Frank Gifford had been goading him (Cosell) off-air not to sit on the information, per the Los Angeles Times.
The crew had obtained the scoop via a coincidence; a fellow ABC employee had been in the same hospital emergency room Lennon was rushed to. However, Cosell was somewhat reluctant to interrupt a gripping game situation with the news deemed categorically “greater than the game,” but not necessarily related to it. Was it his place to set a new precedent for a sportscaster’s – and media personalities in general – responsibility to the public?
After all, Cosell single-handedly revolutionized his specific industry – offering more opinion and analysis than any booth-chief before his long-held reign. In doing so, he paved the way for generations of announcers and color commentators to follow who, like Cosell, recognized they too could have a dog in the fight if they wanted, and if it enhanced the national entertainment on display.
The also controversial figure who later wrote his way out of the booth and the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the release of his too candid-for-the-time period “tell-all” 1985 autobiography “I Never Played the Game” had interviewed Lennon on a MNF telecast in 1974 as well. Reportedly, he had even jokingly attempted to persuade Lennon to reunite with The Beatles on another program. Despite the group’s then-decade-long hiatus, the frequently hypothesized prospect of their reformation was enough of a hot button talking point to mark the Fab Four, and their respective solo endeavors, with evergreen relevance.
Lennon would make headlines that night regardless of Cosell’s involvement; but it was in the moment Cosell held the news of the “Imagine” lyricist’s demise in his hands, and in the next where he then released it unto us – where Cosell, as everyone else did, recognized Lennon was truly beloved; not just as a Beatle, but because he was much more than one. By Cosell’s and audiences’ calculations, Lennon’s death was a clear reminder to the lives he touched, and even his detractors who could retroactively admit: humans by nature can’t quite place, or encapsulate how they feel about someone until the person whose departed has left them for good. Though, here we are, 41 years later, and each December 8, like clockwork, Lennon is mourned as if it’s 1980 all over again.
“Don’t hang on this,” Gifford urged Cosell. “It’s a tragic moment. This is going to shake up the whole world.”
And it did.
Thanks to The Beatles: Get Back – now streaming on Disney+ – and a general, unrelenting interest in the band, the myth, and their legend, The Beatles are arguably as popular now as they were at the time of their split. And thanks to Cosell, established media authorities and determined journalists on the rise know the mold to follow when a Beatle, or any public figure of the highest form, passes away.
Whilst accessing his proverbial beat-hitting precision and unique cadence as the seasoned preacher-of-sorts he was considered at his peak, Cosell refused to sugarcoat his eulogy prompt. Poetically setting the stage, he’d in turn invite those suffering in the immediate to confront, not deny; to work up the courage amid the obligatory rush of despair to say a proper, and necessary, goodbye.
“I was working evenings in the city at the time, and when the news broke in the office, everyone’s pagers immediately went off left and right,”’ Anthony DeLisio, of Ronkonkoma, recalled. “People called home, and heard what Howard Cosell reported during the game. My friends, everyone nearby immediately went to the (Dakota) apartment – but I couldn’t because I had to work. His music was everywhere afterward; talk shows, on the radio. It’s one of those world-stopping moments that never seems to stop.”
To further contextualize Lennon’s legacy as it collided with Cosell’s two weeks shy of Wintertime – 1980, a music video/fan-made tribute hybrid on YouTube entitled “God – John Lennon (legendado)” commences with Cosell’s report as an introductory prologue. The video intercuts stills of the real-life figures mentioned in the song with footage tracking Lennon’s career, family life, and candlelight vigil held outside The Dakota the night of his death – amongst other moments of chill-inducing imagery.
Through the power of montage in the modern day, this January 2009-posted amateur video outkicks its coverage en route to moving newer generations of fans. It transforms an already well-renowned song in its own right into a haunting self-eulogy; one pairing beautifully as a response issued by the subject of Cosell’s foremost bulletin that left, and still leaves, everyone else speechless.
