Wednesday, March 03, 2010

This Week in Music History: John Lennon > Jesus

In this new weekly column from DJ Alexa West (Host, "Roanoke," Mondays 12-2 am on WGTB, we'll revisit some of music's best (and worst) moments in history. This inaugural post of TWIMH takes us to 1966. Stay tuned!

It’s 1966. Beatlemania is in full swing, “Drive my Car” is blasting nonstop on the radio, and John Lennon has created yet another scandal when he told the London Evening Standard that the Beatles “are more popular than Jesus.” (He’s lucky he didn’t say Jack the Bulldog!) There may be a lot of Beatles fans, but there are also a lot of Jesus fans, and their backlash hurt our four Liverpoolian friends and their tour that year. Radio stations in the South banned Beatles music. There were rallies of boys and girls stomping on their records and bonfires of Beatles material. John received death threats. Of course, Lennon appoligized, and the  Beatles went on to release Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, and all our other favorites.

Below, a clip of Lennon's public apology:


-- Alexa West
Host of "ROANOKE" Mondays 12am-2am

2 comments:

igs said...

"Of course, Lennon appoligized, and the Beatles went on to release Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour..." and various other things better than Jesus.

Alex Podkul the Christian Rock Guy said...

I respectfully disagree. hahahahahah