Jerry Garcia and John Lennon, summarized by Dennis McNally

On December 8, Garcia was at Front Street working on Dead Set when get got a call that told him of the assassination of John Lennon. Work was impossible. He sat down at Keith Godchaux's old Steinway (more pain: Keith had died in a car accident that summer) and noodled for many hours, lost in thought.

But here's the analytical money shot:

Both had emerged from childhoods damaged by deeply flawed relationships with their mothers, and through their losses had found a stunning creativity which put them in the prison of celebrity.

Friends disagree about such psychological speculation (which can only be projection), but I think it's all a reasonable part of a serious analysis. I accept Dennis's Freudian piece, and I love the simple causal chain he forges. Quite right, IMO.

! ref: McNally 2002, 541.