John Lennon's Murder - album designs

Important albums:

Chapman was a keen rock fan, especially of Todd Rundgren, and he would listen to the albums non-stop and learn all the lyrics off by heart. He would also study the album covers for clues.

He was intrigued by the mirror imagery of Todd's "A Wizard/A True Star"

A Wizard/A True Star - Todd Rundgren

and was aware that Todd Rundgren had used televisual concepts throughout his recording career. These were what Chapman picked up as special signals beamed especially to him, like a programme being broadcast for him to receive. The "Voyage To Utopia" album even had a kind of "test card" as its inner sleeve, as if Chapman was being told to fine tune his reception and wait for the signal to get clearer.

Finally, in November of 1980, just a few days before the murder, Todd released "Deface The Music". It was both a send-up of the "With The Beatles" album cover from 1963, and a crude parody of the Beatles' songs.

Beatles - With The Beatles Deface The Music - Todd Rundgren

The two albums were mirror images of each other, and to Chapman, this new signal was clear - de-face the music of the Beatles, or de-face (destroy) one of the Beatles.

Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren

Before the murder, Chapman left an arrangement of special articles in his hotel room, including tapes of Todd Rundgren's "Runt" album. The cover clearly shows a pianist with a noose round his neck, and hints of suicide or execution - the cover is also chillingly close to the famous image of Lennon playing "Imagine" on his piano.

John Lennon playing "Imagine"

Mark Chapman interpreted the album design as a sign that John Lennon must die.

When John Lennon released his "Double Fantasy" album late in 1980, Mark Chapman listened carefully to the lyrics and scrutinised the cover design. His fantasy was that he had become John Lennon's double...and the lyrics suggested Lennon was trying to become the new "Catcher in The Rye" - which is a role Chapman reserved for himself.

The album features songs about driving the monsters away, about protecting the children from harm - just like the "Catcher" could do.

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy

Lennon promoted the album as a coming together of East and West, of man and woman - Chapman saw it as a coming together of all the signs and signals.

And there on the dark, brooding cover was the kiss of betrayal, the Judas kiss of a phoney.

The signals were getting stronger by the day.

John Lennon - Walls & Bridges

The 1974 album "Walls and Bridges" features the famous #9Dream song, which I believe has such enormous significance in this case. I read it as Lennon's dream premonition of his own death.

I believe Mark Chapman interpreted the song in a similar way.

In #9Dream, John Lennon sings about passing through the mirror...

"On a river of sound
Thru the mirror go round, round
I thought I could feel (feel, feel, feel)
Music touching my soul, something warm, sudden cold
The spirit dance was unfolding..."

knowing that Alice went through the looking glass into another reality, knowing that at the moment of death we all ride the merry-go-round - or the mirror go round - through the mirror and beyond. And of course, the merry-go-round is linked to the Carousel in Central Park where Holden/Chapman stands waiting to find a way home, and the carousel that Lennon sings about in "Watching the wheels go round" (Double Fantasy album)

John Lennon and Mark David Chapman are the "two spirits dancing so strange", that Lennon sings about in #9Dream.

They come together, face to face in the surface of the mirror.

And Chapman knows he must go through the mirror to destroy his other self on the other side.

And Lennon felt himself being pulled through to the other side of reality.

Such is the power of the mirror, such is the twisted logic of paranoid schizophrenia, and such is the motive for this murder.

Find out more....

My books about John Lennon's murder contain the FULL story, told in an original and informative way.

"Two Spirits Dancing" is a 'novelised' version of the events. It is a full length, 100,000 word book that takes you into the parallel worlds of the killer and his victim. Available as a PDF ebook or as a 300 page paperback.

find out more...

"Through The Mirror Go Round" is a fully illustrated and factual account of the murder, including all the images, art work and album covers that are such an amazing part of these tragic events.