It was unusually mild in New York City the night of December 8, 1980. The temperature in Central Park, across the street from the Dakota, never dipped below 46 degrees. And it was on that night, 45 years ago this past Monday, that John Lennon's life ended as he was returning home from a recording session with his wife, Yoko Ono. A madman had traveled 5,000 miles to shoot an ex-Beatle to death. At that moment the very nature of reality changed. Now, as hard as it is to believe, Lennon has been dead longer than he was alive.
Winters in New York aren't what they used to be, and two years ago Christmas Day was even milder than it was that long-ago night. The temperature hit 50 degrees. That afternoon, my wife, Mary Lyn Maiscott, and I joined someone who'd been a close friend of Lennon's for a meal at his apartment. After we ate and drank a bottle of Champagne, we switched to red wine, and Mary Lyn played a recording of a song she'd recently written, "Jezebel." Our host then played an old recording that he had, and it inspired Mary Lyn to write another song, "Mild December."
Last week, at Berlin, in the East Village, Mary Lyn performed that song for the first time. You can listen to it in the above video. It follows her cover of the Beatles' "Now and Then."
If you'd like to catch Mary Lyn in concert, her next show will be in Seville, Spain, in February, date TBA. She'll be performing with our friends Martín León Soto and Aida Vílchez. I'm the opening act. I'll be reading from the Spanish edition of Nowhere Man: Los últimos días de John Lennon and answering questions (with a lot of traslation help from Martín). We are, I dare say, back by popular demand after a two-year absence. You can check out our 2024 performance on YouTube.
Last week, I appeared on The Joe Rooz Show to discuss Nowhere Man. Joe, a Brooklyn boy who now lives in Texas, is one of the better interviewers I've come across in the 25 years I've been talking about the book. Here's his description of our encounter:
First up was Robert Rosen, author of Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon. We dug into the origins of his book, his access to Lennon's diaries, and how he blended investigation with restrained imagination—especially around Lennon's vivid dream practices, occult interests, yoga and numerology, and his surprisingly intense fixation on Paul McCartney. Robert also shared how a brief born-again phase drew unexpected attention from Christian media and why he believes Nowhere Man captures Lennon's inner world like no other biography.
You can listen above.
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