So what did John Lennon mean to you?

TWENTY-five years ago, five shots rang out into a cold New York night. John Lennon died - and his music became immortal.

The ex-Beatle was only 40 when he was murdered outside the Dakota, his luxury Manhattan apartment block, on December 8, 1980.

His killer, Mark Chapman, wanted infamy and a place in history. This he got, but while Chapman remains locked behind bars, Lennon's legacy has flourished. He is revered as an icon whose contribution to popular culture and the peace movement still resonates today.

Lennon also became a commodity and his name has sold scores of new books in the past few months alone.

There have been remastered records, best-of box sets, documentaries and even a Broadway musical. He is a statue, an airport and a memorial garden in New York's Central Park.

A new Hollywood film about Chapman and the days leading up to the murder will star Jared Leto as Chapman and Lindsay Lohan.

But 25 years on there is still debate about whether Lennon was a true prophet of peace and musical legend while years of family infighting have haunted his memory.

His son Julian, now 42, once said the only thing he learned from Lennon was "how not to be a father".

Julian's mother and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, makes her own accusations in her book, John.

She suggests he was mean, that he beat her once and that he was intensely jealous.

That won't stop his fans streaming to visit Strawberry Fields in Central Park, lay flowers on his memorial or sit and strum his songs.

Over the road, where Chapman pulled his trigger, tourists take pictures of the Dakota building that is still home to Ono.

Chapman, a devout Christian, was born in Georgia where he grew up and was briefly engaged before entering a dark period of depression.

He tried to kill himself in 1977 with the exhaust fumes of a car and in the following years became obsessed with JD Salinger's classic novel, The Catcher In The Rye.

Chapman likened himself to the main character, disaffected youth Holden Caulfield. At the same time, he developed a hatred of Lennon. After seeing photos of him posing on the roof of the Dakota, he said something in him "just broke".

"I remember saying in my mind, 'What if I killed him?"' Chapman was to say later.

"I felt that perhaps my identity would be found in the killing of John Lennon."

On December 6, 1980, 25-year-old Chapman followed in Caulfield's footsteps by taking a trip to New York City.

Two days later he went to the Dakota and waited for Lennon, who signed an autograph for him as he left the building.

But Chapman did not go home. He waited for the singer and Yoko Ono, to return.

Shortly after 10.50pm, they did just that, getting out of their limo and heading towards the building.

Chapman fired five bullets, burying four in Lennon's back. He then sat down quietly and opened The Catcher In The Rye.

Lennon died en route to hospital.

Later that night Chapman signed a police statement that read: "I have a small part of me that cannot understand the world and what goes on in it. I did not want to kill anybody and I really don't know why I did it."

He pleaded guilty during a brief 1981 trial and was sentenced to 20 years to life. He has since been denied parole three times at New York's Attica prison.

A decade later, Chapman said he considered himself a "white knight" on an unstoppable crusade.

"It was like a train, a runaway train, there was no stopping it," he said in an interview.

But while Chapman languishes behind bars, there appears to be no stopping those intent on keeping Lennon's legacy alive.

Christine Woodcock

CHRISTINE, who was then 14, saw The Beatles four times in 1963 when they came to play the Rialto in York.

The first time, they weren't even top billing. "They sang Love Me Do, that was the big one," says Christine. "And we all did!"

She and her friends, who felt they were the only ones who had recognised The Beatles' star quality, left after the interval without bothering to wait for the top-billed act and went around to the stage door.

"We shouted up to the dressing room window and they came out," she recalls. "They dropped photos to us, then we called them down and they signed them. We were just screaming.

"They were gorgeous. It was all so new. We were the new Sixties, and they were different to everybody. They were English, Liverpool, straight hair and mods and we just identified with them. They were different from our parents, different from everybody.

"They were just completely fabulous. We used to go behind my friend's settee and play their music and cry. We felt that they were just like us, that they were saying the things we could not say."

All her friends had their favourite Beatle, Christine recalls. "Mine was George. He was so mysterious. But then we took turns as well. Every three months we had a different favourite. Sometimes it was John, sometimes it was Paul. It was never Ringo, though. He was the funny, quirky one, but never the sex fantasy."

She had a letter from Paul, Christine says. She wrote to him with a friend, and they got a letter back. "Me and my friend had it for six months each in our bedroom windows." Sadly, it somehow got lost "between windows".

And what about John? "He was the most grown-up one, the poet," Christine says. "He was always a bit... maybe more unattainable than Paul or George. A bit distant."

Which only made him more gorgeous, she says.

It is impossible to say who was the greatest Beatles, Christine says. Probably it was the song-writing rivalry between John and Paul that drove the group. "It was a very creative partnership."

So will she be playing Imagine today in memory of Lennon? "I will be thinking back to my youth," she says.

Wilfrid Mellers, music professor

THE founding professor and for many years head of music at the University of York was among the first serious music academics to recognise the importance of The Beatles. In 1973 he wrote a book about their music -Twilight Of The Gods: The Beatles In Retrospect.

Now in his 90s, Prof Mellers makes no apologies for considering The Beatles worthy of serious academic attention. "I thought it was my job as a professional to recognise what was likely to endure," he says. "The Beatles have survived, and they have become a great influence on modern popular music."

He believes John Lennon was the true driving force behind The Beatles. Paul McCartney was a brilliant songwriter, he says. "But he didn't have the depth of John Lennon, I don't think."

So what was it that made Lennon great? "Being musical, I suppose. I think he was more responsive to what music can do than the others. And he was a very intelligent man."

Rick Witter, lead singer of former York band Shed Seven

THE thing about The Beatles, says Rick, is that they worked brilliantly together as a group, so it doesn't really make sense to ask who was the greatest Beatle. The so-called rivalry between Lennon and McCartney was mainly a media creation, he believes. Each had their own strength, however. "McCartney was the melody man," he says, when pushed. "Lennon was the spokesman for a generation. He had balls."

There is no doubting Lennon's legacy, Rick says. "Just look at Oasis. They all want to be him." He himself was more of a Stones fan, however. "They were a bit more seedy and sleazy, which was what I liked."

Ian Donaghy, of York band Huge

BIG Ian remembers clearly where he was when he learned the news of John Lennon's murder. "I was coming back from shopping in Bishop Aukland with my mam and dad. I was ten years old.

"It was Andy Peebles on the radio. I remember my mam feeling really sad, and I felt rather odd. My mam's favourite song is Woman by John Lennon."

Lennon did not make such a big impact on Ian, but he has his advocate in the band. "Phil our guitarist rams the Beatles down our neck all the time. He's a major authority on the Beatles."

So is Lennon overrated? "No. The bottom line is how can the music be overrated when it's touched so many people and made so many people take up music?"

He picks out In My Life as a personal favourite. Huge will be doing an acoustic version during their gigs on January 14 and 21 at the Grand Opera House, York. Their slower version of Can't Buy Me Love, complete with horns, goes down a storm too.

Tim Hornsby, of live music venue Fibbers, Stonebow, York

ONE of the first records Tim ever bought was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and from that moment on he was a huge Beatles fan. Why? "Because they were spokespersons for a generation and they wrote great songs, never bettered."

Lennon and McCartney were equals in their song-writing skills. "They brought different things to the table. The combination of the two was unbeatable, by common consent.

"Bands through the years, whether they were hard metal or grunge, have cited their influence."

After the Beatles split up, he followed their solo careers "sporadically" and feels neither Paul nor John ever again achieved the same prolific high standards.

"I got the impression they were spending rather more time having a go at each other, a bit like opposing politicians."

That said, he preferred Lennon's solo output to McCartney's. It was "more to the point". "You only have to listen to Imagine to know he's got the world down to a T."

Had he survived, John Lennon would still be making a cultural and political impact, Tim said. "A great songwriter is a great songwriter, full stop. I think he would have got feistier as the years had gone on. There's so much more to be feisty about.

"He would have had a lot to say about the current conflicts in this world."

David Baker, of Wildcat Records, York

MORE of a soul fan himself, David says his customers cannot get enough of the Fab Four back catalogue.

"We get a lot of interest in The Beatles, but not specifically in Lennon," he said. "We don't sell him very well, but Beatles LPs are massively in demand.

"There's more interest in Lennon than McCartney, though. We can't shift him at all."

Keith Howe, of Track Records, York

KEITH was never really a big Beatles fan. Lennon, he agrees, was a great songwriter and a good singer, and many of his songs have stood the test of time. "But while I was born in the Sixties and grew up through most of their stuff, it never really appealed to me, big time."

As a solo artist, Lennon produced some good stuff, Keith admits, though he also recorded some turkeys. "Have you ever heard Ya Ya off the 1974 album Walls and Bridges? It sounds like a kids' novelty song. It was probably him being tongue in cheek."

Other songs are almost as bad. Every time he hears Imagine or Happy Christmas, War Is Over, he is "bored painless", Keith says. Imagine is a great song, but it has been killed by over-exposure. "These days I just can't stand it."

Lennon was the most colourful of The Beatles. "But I'm not really one for megastars. I was a big Zeppelin fan." He doesn't think Lennon was a particularly pleasant man - he saw a recent TV programme in which someone who knew the group described Lennon giving Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who died in 1967, a "right b******ing". "It didn't help that Lennon was suffering with his sexuality, with depression, with all this c***," says Keith.

Yes, he admits, there is no doubt that Lennon is a legend. "But would he have been such a legend if he hadn't got shot? I don't know."

Updated: 11:00 Thursday, December 08, 2005