In the Beatles, the alliance of John Lennon and Paul McCartney produced some of music’s greatest songs.

Never content with the status quo, Lennon then launched a solo career marked by experimentation, political activism, embrace of the counterculture and more enduring songs: “Imagine,” “Working Class Hero,” “Instant Karma!” and “#9 Dream.”

Imagine no John Lennon. A dozen years after his assassination, it remains no easier to even try.

That’s so not only because John should be with us tonight, feisty and fiftyish, but because in many ways, he, his music and his ideas remain with us, day in and day out, as powerfully as any figure in the history of rock & roll.

Lennon still speaks to us so often and so directly because he was rock’s first true polymath.