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The Edge of the American West 
5 comments
December 8, 2008 at 3:41 pm
bitchphd
I always find this such a sad Xmas song. Also, of course (and probably as a result), a favorite of mine.
December 8, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Malaclypse
Best christmas song ever, I agree.
He packed so much life into only a few years.
December 9, 2008 at 3:20 am
Ron Tunning
Yeah, this song began the “dirty hippies'” assault on Christmas. What kind of frickin’ nonsense is it to celebrate the end of war while promoting racial and cultural diversity?
This still has the power to stimulate tears of both sadness and hope.
December 9, 2008 at 6:13 am
drip
This has been my Christmas card for 6 years. I hope it becomes less, not more poignant this year.
Peace.
December 9, 2008 at 8:55 am
kid bitzer
yeah, i remember clear as day when lennon was shot. really tore me up–one of the first times a guy i’d sort of grown up with, only younger than me, dies before you.
and then the days of pretty much non-stop lennon and/or beatles on the radio. back when we listened to radio.
i remember a year or two later my brother called me on the phone, and said, ‘you know, i just found incontrovertible proof that i’m an optimist.’
whyzat, i asked.
‘because i was flipping channels, and first one radio station was playing billy joel, and then another was playing a different billy joel song, and then i spun to a third one, and son of a bitch but it was playing billy joel.’
and where does the optimism come in, i asked.
‘because instead of deciding that the world sucks, i suddenly got all happy and thought, hey, maybe billy joel has died!’
that’s looking on the bright side, alright. but it was the radio response to the death of lennon that led to the association of ideas.