History is dotted with ‘where were you' moments, singular events that change the course of society in an instant. One such occasion was the the murder of John Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980. On that day, fellow rock icon Tom Petty had been in the studio working on his Hard Promises LP, while also hoping he’d get a chance to meet the famous former Beatle.
“I was working with Jimmy Iovine, who was a friend of John’s,” the rocker recalled in the book Conversations with Tom Petty. “And Ringo was working next door that week. The talk right around that time was that John was coming to sing on Ringo’s album. So we were kind of jazzed up, thinking we were going to meet John.”
Sadly, fate had other plans. Lennon was gunned down that night outside of his home at the Dakota in New York, the victim of a deranged fan. Petty was still in the studio when he got the news.
“A call came and said John had been shot," Petty recalled. "We just thought it was nonsense. And then a call came right back in about 15 minutes that said that John’s dead."
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com