Net gently weeps for Beatle Harrison
Published: 30 Nov 2001 18:09 GMT
Fans crowded online message boards and chat rooms Friday to express their sadness over the death of former Beatle George Harrison.
Harrison passed away yesterday at the age of 58 in Los Angeles after a prolonged struggle with cancer. Harrison wrote some of the Beatles' best-known songs, including "Here Comes the Sun" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and infused Eastern mysticism into the band's music and trend-setting attitude.
Besides erecting makeshift vigils in Harrison's birthplace of Liverpool, England, and at Strawberry Fields in New York's Central Park, fans have turned to the Internet to express their grief. As of midmorning Friday, America Online members had posted nearly 1,500 messages, 200 messages had been posted on Yahoo!, and a flurry of messages had appeared on news sites around the Net.
Many messages expressed the personal bonds that Beatles fans felt for each of the band members and discussed the influence of their songs.
"George, you were my faithful, kind, gentle, sensitive, smart companion on numerous escapes from an awful reality," one AOL member wrote.
Other fans found solace on the Internet by reliving their first moments of Beatlemania.
"When I first saw Harrison on TV in the '60s, I started dancing around the room, saying, 'Oh my goodness, I'm in love,'" wrote one MSNBC.com reader. "My father came in and said, 'Get that trash off!' I never stopped listening to his music."
But overwhelmingly, Web users displayed feelings of despair and introspection over the loss of another icon from a graying generation.
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