We should be listening to some new music from John Lennon, instead of observing the anniversary of his murder.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a freshman in college, and like most Beatles fans, I was hopeful that one day we'd see them all together again. After all, John had just ended half a decade of seclusion with a new album, "Double Fantasy" (half of it's Yoko). Maybe he'd take his re-emergence to its next logical step and patch things up with the other guys.

I remember sitting at the table in the kitchen of our fraternity house, playing some type of "wholesome, family-type" game, when word came from the guys who were sitting in the living room watching Monday Night Football. Howard Cosell made the announcement around 11 p.m.: "John Lennon has been shot."

Of course, some people survive bullet wounds, and there was that small window of opportunity where it was possible that he'd just been clipped, that he'd be back playing his guitar in no time.

But that didn't last long. Mark David Chapman knew what he was doing, and word soon came that John was gone.

I was just about to turn 18 at the time, and in retrospect, his murder seems symbolic of my passing from the relative securities of childhood to that cold, hard "real world."

For some reason, the lyrics to John's "Working Class Hero" seem appropriate here. Listen, and you'll know what I mean.