SONGS BY JOHN LUCKEN
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      • Travelin Man
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      • Goodbye
      • Resolutions
      • The Nightmare
      • Solitaire
      • For You
      • The One
    • Archive II >
      • The Ways of Change
      • Lose Your Love or Die
      • Though You're Gone Today
      • Hello There Little One
      • Pacifier/Complicator
      • Love
      • Warning
      • Forever Evergreen
      • Those Times We Had
      • On Our Way
      • Nasty Habits
      • Slow Poke
      • War Child
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      • Anytime Anywhere
      • Time Capsul
    • Archive III >
      • State of Mind
      • Tribute
      • Second Thought
      • Back Alley Blues
      • I Told You So
      • It Just Don't Hurt Anymore
      • Persecution Complex
      • Anxiety
      • Rock-n-Roll Star
      • Interlude in E/Triumph
      • Trouble-Maker
      • We Can Make a Difference
      • On Such A Night As This
      • Beyond Words
      • Voyager
      • The Uncelebrated
      • I'll Be Back For You
    • Archive IV >
      • Early Saturday Morning
      • I'm Leaving You
      • Friends are Friends
      • Renaissance
      • Another Buck
      • Days' Done
      • Haywire
      • Thing's aren't what they Seem
      • One
      • Baqtasia
      • The Seed
      • Loneliness
      • Dreamspun Reality
      • Try one more Time again
      • Tangled Lives
      • Derelict Shuffle
      • Heat Up
      • Our Love
    • Archive V >
      • Never Going Home
      • Come What May
      • Hide Away
      • Way Back When
      • Home
      • Heaven's Gate
      • Atlantis
      • No Matter
      • Another World
      • Say Your Prayers
      • Finding my way Back
      • Boogie Blues
      • Over the Crest of a Wave
      • Reasons People Change
      • Not Far Beyond the Dream
      • How Many Times
    • Archive VI >
      • Someway,Somehow,Somewhere
      • Sunrise
      • Instrumental 1
      • Instrumental 2
      • HalfWay
      • Fade Back-to Reality
      • Confusion
      • Take as you Give
      • Test of Time
      • Nothing can stop you
      • Steamroller
      • Doin' it Right
      • Easy
      • Impact
      • Sooner or Later
      • Melancholy Monday
      • Judgement Call
      • City of Thieves
      • No Rest for the Wicked
    • Archive VII >
      • Prologue
      • The Promise
      • Keyz Teeze
      • By The Way
      • I've seen you out there
      • Headline Story
      • American Dream
      • Say what you Mean
      • Outta sight-Outta mind
      • Roller Coaster
      • Oh well
      • 1976
      • Small Town Boy
      • After the Fall
      • Dolphin Sonata
      • Wake Up-It's Not A Dream
    • Impact-Ground Zero >
      • Steam Roller
      • Nothing Can Stop You
      • Sooner or Later
      • Confusion
      • No Matter
      • City of Thieves
      • Tomorrow & Yesterday
      • Fade Back-To Reality
      • Doin' it Right
      • Second Thought
      • No Rest for the Wicked
      • Try One More Time Again
    • Impact-Critical Mass >
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      • On Our Way
      • WarChild
      • Tangled Lives
      • Easy
      • Impact
      • The Uncelebrated
      • Though You're Gone Today
      • By The Way
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RIP JOHN LENNON




12/8/1980--12/8/2020

It's hard to believe it's been 40 (!) years
since John Lennon was shot.
Now gone as long as he was alive.
I'd rather celebrate his life, than commemorate his death.
But I have to acknowledge this terrible anniversary as
one more bad thing happening in 2020.
In 1980, it was just over a year since I lost my father to cancer.
Watching a loved one suffer & slowly slip away is heart wrenching.
It changes you.
The shock of the killing of an icon, in his prime, making a come back,
does too.
Like the Kennedy & Martin Luther King assassinations before it. 
I was 20 & working the late shift at the Empire Bowl. 
Tending the machines in the back, KCAL 96.7
​on the radio, when the word came in.
John Lennon's life & death ignited my activism in 
political, environmental & social justice causes
that still inspire & drive me today.
​I owe a debt of gratitude to him for the idealism he planted.
Below is a song I wrote at the time in Lennon's honor.
I used a few of his song titles in the words.
Like a lot of my songs, it's personal and raw, written with
a sorrow & honesty I'd guard more closely today.
It didn't matter then, it seemed the world was mourning.
Funny I still get emotional about it, all these years later.
Some things are like that

tribute


​Eight P.M. the word came in
The news wasn’t good -- but had it ever been?
A shining star fell from the sky tonite
You gave your life to the cause
Of what’s right, you set the example
You lead the fight for love and peace
The only way -- we can be saved
To fight without violence, is the truly brave
And for an instant, the world stopped
The people stopped, wherever they may be
And in that instant, the world lost
And once again learned to “Let it Be”
Now we’ll never know -- what good
There had yet to come
All because of one mad man’s
Fatal date with a loaded gun
We will “Remember”
How could we ever forget
The man who touched our hearts
A friend we never met
Even from “Across the Universe”
Your inspiration will never cease
All we need is love (you said)
And with it a chance for peace
I wish I could go back
To nineteen sixty four
To relive again
What I missed out on before
© 1981 J.Lucken​


The envelope below was taped in the back of my old lyric book.
A few ideals I attached for inspiration.
Also a letter to the editor I wrote in 1980.

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I listen to
Breakfast with the Beatles 
with host Chris Carter

every Sunday from 9am-Noon
on KLOS 95.5 
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