I Just Shot John Lennon I Just Shot John Lennon "I Just Shot John Lennon" is a song from The Cranberries' album "To the Faithful Departed". It is a narrative of the events of the night of December 8, 1980, the night that musician John Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City. It is one of many tributes to Lennon, and also one of many other songs to recall the events of the night. After the narrative, there is commentary: "What a sad, and sorry and sickening sight". The title of the song comes from the
John Lennon one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge." Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers "took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me". In combination with "A Spaniard in the Works" (1965), "In His Own Write" formed the basis of the stage play "The John Lennon Play: