Springsteen, Lennon and Creedence

With law school finals over, several schoolmates and I, after sleeping off the multiple all-nighters, headed for an East Bay pub crawl, looking to grab one last evening on the town before driving cross-country to New Jersey for a Christmas holiday, where I had tickets to catch Bruce Springsteen and his magnificent E Street Band at Madison Square Garden, a week later. 

On this fateful night, a date forever etched in my brain, I was perched on a barstool at the Townhouse, a raucous country bar in Emeryville, sipping on fine Kentucky bourbon, while Tom Fogerty, former rhythm guitar player for Creedence Clearwater Revival, frontman for the house band, explained Creedence’s origin story to the small crowd that had gathered around between sets. The one TV over the bar was turned to the news, volume muted, while Tom explained how he and his brother John were huge fans of the Beatles, particularly John Lennon. 

While in high school in nearby El Cerrito they had read a Rolling Stone interview with the legendary Beatle in which Lennon discussed his musical influences. Many were southern blues masters: Furry Lewis, Professor Longhair, Muddy Waters, BB King. From those musical roots came the swamp rock from deep in the bayous of Louisiana that morphed into the unique sound that would rocket Creedence to rock n’ roll fame. 

As Fogerty finished his tale, a picture of Lennon flashed on the screen, and Tom asked the bartender to turn up the volume. It was December 8, 1980, and John Lennon had just been murdered outside the Dakota, across from Central Park, in New York City.

The next morning, still in shock from the murder of one of my few heroes, I put my suitcase and Irish Setter, Meaggan in the car and hit the road for a depressing 4-day cross country trip east through the bleak winter landscape of Interstate 80. The trip was mostly uneventful - Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, state lines morphing invisibly as we drove day and night through  gray unforgiving country. 

Our only hiccup came when a defective solenoid cell left us stranded outside Salt Lake City at 2 am when I stopped to allow Meaggan to relieve herself on a highway median, and the vehicle would not restart! We spent the night sleeping on the 18th green of a nearby golf course. We were awakened by a disgruntled greens keeper early the next morning, who, after hearing our plight, took a look under the hood and gifted us a screwdriver, which he demonstrated could be used to bypass the dead cell. 

We drove through a blizzard outside Omaha, a cutting wind relentlessly lashing the insignificant and puny auto as it whipped slate-colored clouds, like an army of shape shifting demons across the angry sky, horizontally driving sleet and snow mercilessly against the treeless prairie, rattling us to our very bones.

When we arrived on the east coast, New York was grieving. Lennon had made America home. Being a man of peace, he could not be bothered with bodyguards and security, even in this violent land with guns available to every lunatic and loser with a grievance. Had he remained in England he likely would still be with us today, but like so many before and since he loved New York and the freedom it allowed, so unlike the enforced mores of his native Britain, and ultimately paid for it with his life.

Bruce Springsteen, also a devoted Lennon fan, initially decided in the days after the shooting to cancel his shows at the Garden. But upon further consideration, and with urging from Lennon’s bandmates, he decided to go on as scheduled. He would not let a madman destroy the life-giving force that was rock n’ roll music at its best. As the band took the stage, and the house lights dimmed, the Boss stood with a lone spotlight at center stage, tears rolling down his cheeks, and dedicated the show to John Lennon. Nineteen thousand fans stood entranced, seeking shelter from the storm, as the band opened with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s mournful ballad “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”

“As long as I remember

The rain’s been comin down

Clouds of mystery pourin’

Confusion on the ground

Good men through the ages

Tryin’ to find the sun

And I wonder, still I wonder

Who’ll stop the rain?”