R.I.P. John Lennon. October 9th, 1940 - December 8th, 1980.

I don't know if I've just been over-emotional lately, but it's gotten to the point where every time I listen to a song by the Beatles, or see a video of them on the internet, or watch "A Hard Day's Night," "Help," or any documentary on DVD, I start crying. Not like how the girls during Beatlemania cried with excitement or joy. No, these are emotionally draining, actually sad tears. It isn't just that today is the anniversary of John Lennon's death, as sad as that is.

What it really is, I think, is the slow realization that as phenomenal as they were and are, I will only understand on a basic level their influence on culture because I've lived during everything that has happened after them. Although I know the history of the 1950's and 1960's and I love the music from that era, I will never actually fully understand what it was like to be a part of that time. I've listened to the Beatles my entire life so I will never know what it's like to hear one of their albums for the first time and be completely blown away. As much as I love the Beatles, they don't sound as ground-breaking or different to me as they did to everyone else when they first came out, because I've heard all the music they've influenced since then.

I will never be able to say I saw them live. They formed, broke up, and John Lennon died all before I was born, and George Harrison died when I was in middle school. Anytime I see them or hear them, I'm blown away by how charismatic they were together, but I will never get to see that play out in real life.

I know millions of others share my pain, and those who were around in the 1960's most likely feel sad not because they didn't get to experience them, but because they did get to and now they know what they are missing by not getting to experience them anymore.

The Beatles as solo artists never could reach the same success they did when they made up the entity of the band. They forever were and are defined, and sometimes haunted, by being a member of The Beatles. I can't really think of any other bands who were so tightly defined that they couldn't break ties with their musical past. The four of them pushed each other as song writers, musicians, and innovators, and their competitiveness with each other made them as strong of musicians as they were. In the end, their differences broke them, but they never found the same push from anyone else. Or the same type of charisma.

Rest in peace John Lennon.