Interesting synopsis of Lennon's output post-White Album, GHastly!  Although I humbly ask you that if you consider Because and Sun King the two worst tracks on Abbey Road--  where does that leave Maxwell's Silver Hammer?  Gack!  (I love those two tracks BTW, simply beautiful, and lovely to hear them harmonizing like that again!)

I do think that Lennon's solo output, at least at first, was like a public self-excoriation, where he was breaking down his Beatles past, going from the complexity of I Am The Walrus to the damaged fragility and minimalism of Mother, or I Found Out.  He was certainly a complex guy.

In keeping with the Original Post, I was in Junior High, in the bathroom the next morning getting ready for school.  My mom told me through the door that one of the Beatles had been shot.  I was too young to really understand it, though the Beatles were the biggest and brightest thing in my life at the time.  I remember all my teachers in school playing the radio all day long, in stunned silence.  Terrible.

"I'm OMAC!  Evacuate this section!  I'm going to destroy it!"