Twenty-five years ago today, Mark Chapman killed John Lennon. I was in the fifth grade, and had no real idea who he was. Another kid — name long since lost — asked me if I knew about it at recess. I’d heard of the Beatles, but didn’t know any of their names or much about their place in the world. My parents, God love ’em, were warbaby nerds (b. 1940) who, in the truest sense of the quote, “had two 50s and went right on into the 70s.” They had no appreciation for or interest in the era’s music despite being essentially the same age as the Beatles and the Stones (no original member of either band was born after 1943; Bill Wyman was born in 1936).

I remember thinking it was odd that a few other kids were so upset, yet I had no idea who the man had been. Soon after I became a relatively obsessive music fan on my own — Mom and Dad didn’t even have real stereos — and grew to understand the shock of the loss. Other musicians have died early, but few were murdered outside their own homes for no good reason, and fewer still were truly pioneers.

The title to this post, as Mike has no doubt noticed, is from a Paul Simon song off his excellent and often overlooked “Hearts and Bones” record, released three years after Lennon’s murder. It’s predominately about Simon’s breakup with Carrie Fisher, but the final track is called “The Late Great Johnny Ace.” There really was a Johnny Ace, but the song is actually about Lennon. The final stanza goes like this:

On a cold December evening I was walking through the Christmas time When a stranger came up and asked me If I’d heard John Lennon died And the two of us went to this bar And we stayed to close the place And every song we played was for The Late, Great Johnny Ace