It Won't Be Long...

Originally published 10/11/15

There is some beauty in this world. Art comes in so many forms and is capable of conjuring so many different feelings within the human soul. An artist who is expressive enough, talented enough, persistent enough and perhaps lucky enough to connect with different people across the world while leaving a lasting mark upon the hearts of those who follow his or her work is a rare phenomenon. Without question, regardless of form, one of those artists was John Lennon. Following my early-adolescent loves of grunge and punk rock, I became an avid Beatles fan at 15, unable to escape their melodies, voices to match, and the creative force inherent in their work. Later, in my early twenties, I delved into John Lennon’s solo catalogue. Lennon would have been 75 this past Friday, October 9th - a fact I wasn’t aware of until coincidentally seeking out Strawberry Fields on the West Side of Central Park on the same day.

As I approached Strawberry Fields through pounding rain in the early evening, I could hear the bass-lines of Stand By Me in the distance. I didn’t immediately make the connection. Rounding a corner, it still didn’t strike me what was happening when I saw the path was entirely congested with a group of 50+ people singing It Won’t Be Long, circled around some pictures of Lennon. The timeless beauty of that melody sifted through the air on the voices of those park dwellers: “Since you left me, I’m so alone, now you’re coming, you’re coming on home. I’ll be good like I know I should, you’re coming home, you’re coming home!” I was struck, raising my voice to join in. It was a heartbreakingly ironic moment of beauty to experience, tinged with sadness. It was not a hero-worshiping sadness related to Lennon so much as it was an appreciative sadness that comes with the recognition and acceptance that something great has come and passed within humanity - something that you were lucky to have experienced in one way or another. If you’ve ever had a dream where you’ve found a lost love who still holds a part of your heart, and then woken into day with the seemingly tangible memory of that former love paired with the concrete reality of its absence, it was perhaps a bit like a lucid version of that sequence, albeit brighter with the freedom to access a real form of the moment again without having to wait for the perfect combination of sleep that elicits emotional memories.

Words like timeless and universal easily become cliche when endlessly applied to art, losing their meaning without experience to match. However, experiencing firsthand the timelessness and universality of emotionally powerful art grows anew the meaning of those words.  I stood there being rained on with the rest of the group, moving into This Boy after It Won’t Be Long, realizing something I’ve realized before when experiencing great art beyond the lifetime of it’s creator - someone like Lennon doesn’t have to come home, he’s still here. He lives on in the hearts of those who love his work. That has never been clearer to me than it was on Friday in Central Park. Whatever you connect to most, connecting to it unexpectedly with a group of people you’ve never met who feel the same way is a moment you don’t soon forget.