Chords for The Night John Lennon Died

[F] The death of a man who sang and played the guitar overshadows the news.
By the time Walter Cronkite began the nightly news on December 9th, 1980,
the biggest single news story in the world was more than 18 hours old.
He [Bb] gave a piece of shit.
In America, millions of people didn't find out what happened from a newscast or a special report.
They learned John Lennon was dead by watching a football [Abm] game.
_ _ [B]
Hello again everyone and we're excited about [N] tonight because the Patriots have not been able to beat
Shula and Miami here at the Orange Bowl since _ 1966.
That night in New York City, a local TV news producer for WABC, Alan Weiss,
was in a motorcycle accident in Central Park and taken to nearby Roosevelt Hospital.
One of the EMTs said to me, you're really lucky.
If it was the weekend with all the shootings and stuff that go on,
you could be in the ER for hours before anybody sees you, but it's a quiet night tonight. _
The Dolphins tied the game at the end of the third quarter.
Cosell, Gifford and Fran Tarkenton called the [C] action.
Frank, you just can't come into a game the way New England [N] has come into this.
Fighting for a playoff first, you've got to go all out and be aggressive.
In New [E] York, Weiss noticed another patient being wheeled past [Em] him.
Two of the police officers come out and I hear one officer say to the other one,
can you believe it, John Lennon.
I opened up my eyes and I looked up and I said, excuse me officer, what did you say?
[N] Just before 11 that night outside the Dakota, his apartment building in New York,
Lennon was shot four times by an obsessed fan named Mark David Chapman.
Dr.
Stephen Lynn was working in the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital.
We were told that he had no vital signs and the nurses in fact confirmed no blood pressure,
no pulse, no breathing, no response.
I knew that there was a pay phone in the waiting room.
So I called the assignment desk, spoke to Neil Goldstein, the assignment editor.
Neil, I'm at Roosevelt.
I think John Lennon's been shot.
At the time of the call, Lennon was still in surgery.
I literally took his heart in my right hand and massaged his heart,
hoping that perhaps when we restored some blood volume, we could restore some cardiac function.
But that was not to be the case.
And at about 11.15 that evening, John Lennon was pronounced dead.
Outside the hospital that night, Alan Weiss described what happened next.
There was a scream, a woman's voice.
I was told.
[A] I did not see who was screaming.
I was told [N] it was Leoko Ohno.
Oh no, no, oh no, oh no.
She said, no, it's not possible.
You're lying.
He can't be dead.
He was just alive.
I saw him.
Before anyone outside Roosevelt Hospital knew of Lennon's fate,
Weiss confirmed with his own doctor what happened and then reported it.
In Miami, the Patriots and Dolphins were tied in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter.
Beautiful shot by Kavanaugh.
When the phone rang in the production truck.
ABC News called the truck and said, John Lennon has been shot in front of his apartment building
and died on the way to the hospital.
I immediately called ABC News back.
They confirmed it to me.
I then knew what the next step should be and that was to call my boss, Rune Arledge.
Through the IFB I was listening to the phone calls.
You're trying to reach Rune Arledge.
Howard Gosell, who said, what's going on?
What's going on?
And of course, Fran and I look at each other and trying to keep track of a very important football game.
Butterflies must be churning in the stomach of John Smith, the field goal kicker for New England.
Rune told me what I should do and how I should do it, being very careful about me giving Howard the news
because Howard was friends with John Lennon and Rune knew that he would be upset.
There he is, John Smith, and he could be on the spot in just a moment.
As the game went to commercial break with 40 seconds left, Gosell was uncertain what to do.
He told Gifford off the air what he knew, that John Lennon was dead.
In the booth before coming back live, they had less than a minute to decide what to do.
They were shot outside of the park.
I _ _ _ _ _ _ _ can't see this game situation allowing that news flash.
Can you?
Absolutely, I can see it.
You can?
[F] You've got your head.
We know it.
_ [Bbm] _ It's a [G] tragic moment.
All [Eb] right.
This is going to shake up the whole world.
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] Let's play and then I'll get it in.
[Bbm] It was just a situation where you didn't quite know what to do with it.
And meanwhile, we decided we would go ahead and go with [Bb] it.
John Smith is on the line, and I don't [Bbm] care what's on the line, Howard.
You have got to say what we know in the booth.
Yes, we have to say [Bb] it.
Remember, this is just [B] a football game.
No matter who [Gb] wins or loses.
An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC [C] News in New York City.
John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the west side of New York City.
The most famous, perhaps, of all of the Beatles.
Shot [B] twice in the back.
Rushed to Roosevelt [Eb] Hospital dead on arrival.
I thought he handled it extraordinarily well.
Honestly, [E] I was still concerned that maybe we had done the wrong thing.
As it turns out, we didn't.
We informed millions and millions of people that [Bb] one of the [G] great people of show business had been assassinated.