Keith Richards: He wasn’t just a mate of mine, he was a mate of?everybody’s, really. There were the Beatles and there was John. As a band, they were a great?unit. But John, he was his own man. My father just passed away and he?winked at me just before he died. I really feel a lot better about death?now. I’m getting off on that wink. I’d give the wink to John.
Marianne Faithfull: The most amazing time I ever had with John is when we went to see the?maharishi, and that’s when I really got closest to him. He was so funny. I was always a bit frightened of him because he was so incredibly clever.?The weekend we went to Bangor where the maharishi was delivering a?lecture was very intense because we all went on the train there: the?Beatles and me and Mick Jagger and the maharishi.
Then, over the?weekend, we got the news that Brian Epstein had overdosed. John was?devastated. I wish I’d gone on the retreat in India not because I liked the?maharishi, because I didn’t. Just to be there to hear Lennon’s asides and to?watch the whole thing unravel because it did. I would have loved to be?there for that.
Noel Gallagher: I was in my front-room in Manchester listening to a football match, and?they interrupted it to say that John Lennon had been assassinated. It was?like, “Fuck”; it was just silence, really.
I didn’t know what it meant until I dissected the White Album. Lennon’s legacy is?absolutely 100% his music. His music is just completely timeless and unsurpassable. If it wasn’t for?John Lennon, I think that Paul McCartney would have had the Beatles?writing Yesterday right up until the day that they split up.
Sting: I think the Police had just come offstage in Miami. I was told that he’d been?shot, and I had the reaction that everybody had disbelief, shock, horror.?What happens when people like him die is that the landscape changes. You?know, a mountain disappears, a river is gone. And I think his death was probably as significant as that. The Beatles were formative in my upbringing, my education. They came from a very similar background ?the industrial towns in England, working class; they wrote their own?songs, conquered the world. That was the blueprint for lots of other?British kids to try to do the same. We all miss him, and I think about him?every time I walk by that building.
Lenny Kravitz: I met Yoko Ono and Sean on my first tour. For my birthday one year, Yoko?gave me one of John’s shirts. It’s black, one of those disco rollerskating?shirts; he used to wear those tight, glittery shirts.
Sinead O’Connor: It was my 12th birthday and I was walking home from school. I guess I?would have been young enough to not see death as being entirely?disastrous. Lennon had a sense of everybody’s right to stir shit. He was very brave?and vulnerable, and saw that it was brave to show one’s vulnerability. He was wonderful and gorgeous.
Sheryl Crow: In the band that most influenced music and, moreover, culture, he represented the rock’n’roll attitude of rebellion, dissatisfaction and social?consciousness, the idea that we as people can expand our minds, grow,?live together and love in peace.
Shirley Manson: I was 14 and I was in my first class of the day and some girls in the class?who knew I was a freak about the Beatles started teasing me, saying: “Oh,?you know John Lennon, he’s dead.” The best dream I ever had was that I was sitting next to him in an?airplane. I was his wife, but I was me. Nothing happened in the dream?except that I could hear the drone of the airplane. And I said nothing, but I?could feel the connection between us. When I woke up in the morning, I?don’t think I’ve ever felt so deeply contented. ?
John Travolta: The Beatles meant everything to me growing up, and John was part of?that. I loved Lennon’s persona. He knew who he was and he knew what he?represented to a worldwide public. John knew he had the floor; he knew he?had to parlay that into something. I think he incited and inspired a whole?group of youth to speak out and say what they felt. ?
Wyclef Jean: When I heard that John Lennon had died, I was in my grandmother’s house?in Brooklyn. I was like: “That’s fucked up.” I was mad, young. Lennon was just a great songwriter. The simplicity with which he wrote songs … it’s something even a child can understand. But it’s not easy to?write a simple song. And every one of Lennon’s songs had a dope hook.
He wrote about what was going on, and he always encouraged world peace.?He came to New York and sang about the Vietnam war. Although he never saw world peace, I think he changed a lot of people’s?minds.
Art Garfunkel: I knew him a little bit and he was unbelievably engaging. At the Dakota?once, after dinner, he pulls me into the bedroom and he says: “I want you to tell me about your work with Paul?Simon, because I understand you just recorded in Nashville together. I’m getting calls from my Paul,” he said,?”and he wants to know if I’m?available for recording. What should I do?” Can you imagine how I felt??John Lennon asking me for my advice?
And I said to?him: ‘”John, I would do it put all personality aside and go with the fun of?the blend. Make music with somebody you have made a sound with. A great?pleasure is the thing to stick with.” He didn’t take my advice.