Lennon's Anniversary: Russ Ward Reflects

Sands / AP file
John Lennon was shot and killed outside the Dakota building in New York on Dec. 8, 1980.

The tragic irony of John Lennon is that in death he became what he never was in life: fixed, frozen and unchanging. The man who surprised us with every song and and every spoken word, the creative and philosophical gypsy who never stayed in the same place for long, suddenly became a statue, an icon of the era in which he left us - as if he had been struck by the White Witch's wand.

He is remembered as the world's foremost anti-religious feminist, rather than our generation's great explorer of ideas. Like Bob Dylan, he was always busy breaking new ground while everyone else was trying to understand and imitate the last thing he did. And like Dylan, many of his followers resented his abandonment of the past.

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Also: Remembering John Lennon That fateful day: Dec. 8, 1980 from MSNBC