Happiness is a Warm Gun

“Happiness is a Warm Gun” - The Beatles (The White Album - 1968)

It was the year of my birth and one of the must influential albums in like…forever was released. Historically speaking and into the future. Everyone from Son of Sam to Charles Manson to Mark David Chapman took their cue from this sprawling two disc (or two lp - let‘s be honest) set that at the time was avant-garde and popular and prophetic all at the same time. Maybe it still is. Why did so much bad come from so much good? Just 4 guys from Liverpool taking what they saw in society and reflecting it back to us. Well, isn’t that what we all do? Take the great things we have - these gifts from God - and pervert them. Make them into things that we are ashamed of. Black marks on a white album.

So why is a song like “Happiness is a Warm Gun” my favorite Beatle’s song of all time? Why not “Love Me Do” or “Hey Jude” or something like that? Out of a catalog that has songs in the thousands, why this one? Maybe because it’s ripe with irony. Maybe because it has about 5 completely different songs in one brief 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Maybe because it is so damn confusing - (not out of the ordinary for these guys at this time) - that it lends itself to many interpretations or no interpretations, and I just love that. Maybe because I think Lennon’s voice sounds like butter on this track.

What does this song mean to me? Hell, I don’t know. It’s just cool. It is an amazingly cool song. That’s why I am listening to it over and over right now on my I-Tunes.

*Just a note - the Beatle’s catalog, along with Led Zeppelin’s is one of the few holdouts in Apple’s attempt to take over the world. I don’t know who owns the Beatle’s stuff anymore - (I know it was Michael Jackson at one time) - but they’re not giving it up. My copy of The White Album was imported to I-Tunes by me, from my limited edition and numbered copy of the cd, released on the 30th anniversary of the album in 1998. I wanted it there so I would never have to be without it. You should all get your own copy. If you can find it on vinyl, buy it. You’re a lucky person.

So back to the reason I like the song. It’s just not like anything else in the world. I take from it, in all the weirdness, that it’s some kind of admonition for peace. I mean that’s what John was all about, right? And then, on December 8th, 1980, at about 10:50 in the morning, just after John and Yoko had completed that famous photo shoot with Annie Liebovitz, and not even a month after they had released Double Fantasy, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon with a warm gun.

This is either a sick irony, or self fulfilling prophesy, if you believe Mark David Chapman was influenced at all by The White Album (which I believe him to be). He claimed it was the novel Catcher in the Rye. (Another big impetus for people doing horrible things. That and the Bible. And they are both such amazingly good books in their own right.) Once again, a perversion of all good things. What would J.D. Salinger have to say about the actions of Mr. Chapman? Or God? Or John Lennon himself? I guess we’ll never know. At least not right now.

So what do I have to say in conclusion about this greatest of Beatle tunes? (I know this is scattered, so I apologize) I don’t know. I like the song. Like I said, it is so very cool. And powerful. And it’s a shame John had to die when he did. And how he did. I’m glad he left us the treasures he left us though. I am not one to get into star worship, and to be honest, I wasn’t really aware of the loss of John at the time, being the ripe young age of 12 and being forbidden to listen to rock and roll. (Because you all know that rock and roll is the devil’s music) But I do know this…Even though God has a master plan and even though it was John’s time. I really wish he hadn’t taken him that morning in 1980. I would like to see John around today. I am sure he would have a lot more to say. To speak to us. Especially us here in the states. About guns, maybe?

http://www.iamthebeatles.com/article1163.html