Populärer als Jesus

Vorlage:EngvarB Vorlage:The Beatles history A furore occurred in August 1966 after John Lennon's remark that The Beatles had become "bigger than Jesus" was quoted by American teen magazine Datebook. Lennon originally made the remark when English newspaper reporter Maureen Cleave interviewed him for her series on the lifestyles of the four individual Beatles. When published in the United Kingdom in March 1966, Lennon's words provoked no public reaction.

When Datebook quoted Lennon's comments five months later in August 1966, a violent protest broke out in the United States. Beatles records were publicly burned, concerts were cancelled and threats were made. The protest spread to other countries including Mexico, South Africa and Spain; there were anti-Beatles demonstrations and Beatles music was banned from being played on radio stations.

The controversy erupted on the eve of the band's 1966 US tour. The strength and scale of the reaction against the Beatles led their manager, Brian Epstein, to consider cancelling the tour for fear of their lives. Two press conferences were held in the US, where both Epstein and Lennon expressed their regret at words taken out of context and offence taken. Christian spokesmen pointed out that Lennon had only stated what the church was itself saying about the decline of Christianity. The US tour went ahead but there was disruption and intimidation, including picketing of concerts by the Ku Klux Klan. At one concert the band believed they were the target of gunfire. From the close of the 1966 tour until their break-up in 1970, the group never played another commercial concert.

Background

John Lennon on the tarmac at JFK Airport, New York in February 1964, two years before the controversy, when the Beatles' US popularity catapulted them to international superstardom.

A series of weekly articles entitled "How Does a Beatle Live?" appeared in the London Evening Standard during March 1966. Devoted, respectively, to John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney, the four articles were written by journalist Maureen Cleave. Well known by the Beatles, Cleave had interviewed the group regularly since the start of Beatlemania three years previously, when she had written of them as "the darlings of Merseyside". She was well thought of by the group and had accompanied them on the plane to the US when they first toured there in January 1964. For her March 1966 lifestyle series, rather than interviewing the band together and recording a collective response, Cleave made an intentional departure from what was then the norm amongst journalists and interviewed each individual alone.

Cleave interviewed Lennon on 4 March 1966. After encountering a full-size crucifix, a gorilla costume and a medieval suit of armour on her excursion through his Weybridge house, she found a well-organised library, with works by Alfred Tennyson, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley among others. In her article she observed that Lennon was "reading extensively about religion", and quoted his words on Christianity:

The decline of Christianity had been the subject of regular discussion in the UK since the First World War. Experiencing ever-falling levels of attendance, the Christian church was making no secret of its efforts to transform its image into something more relevant to modern times. As music historian Jonathan Gould puts it, "The Satire comedians had had a field day with the increasingly desperate attempts of the Church to make itself seem more relevant ('Don't call me vicar, call me Dick ... '), while the Beatles themselves had experienced the ministrations of the Rev. Ronald Gibbons, who told reporters at the height of Beatlemania that a Fab Four version of 'O Come All Ye Faithful' might provide the Church of England with 'the very shot in the arm it needs.'" In 1963 the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich John A. T. Robinson had published a controversial and popular book, Honest to God, urging the nation to reject traditional church teachings on morality and the concept of God as an "Old Man in the Sky", and instead embrace a universal ethic of Love. Lennon's words, published in the Evening Standard in March 1966, provoked no public reaction in the UK.

The controversy

In August 1966, five months after Cleave's article appeared in the Evening Standard, American teen magazine Datebook printed a quote from Lennon's words on its front cover. There was uproar in response, starting with an announcement by two radio stations in Alabama and Texas that they had banned Beatles music from their playlists. WAQY DJ Tommy Charles said, "We just felt it was so absurd and sacrilegious that something ought to be done to show them that they can't get away with this sort of thing." Around two dozen other stations followed suit with similar announcements. Some stations in the South went further, organising demonstrations with bonfires, drawing hordes of teenagers to publicly burn their Beatles records and other memorabilia. The Memphis city council, aware that a Beatles concert was scheduled at the Mid-South Coliseum during the band's imminent US tour, voted to cancel it rather than have "municipal facilities be used as a forum to ridicule anyone's religion." The Ku Klux Klan nailed a Beatles album to a wooden cross, vowing "vengeance", and conservative groups staged further public burnings of Beatles records.

The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, was so concerned by the US reaction that he considered cancelling the tour for fear people would try to kill them. He flew to the US and held a press conference in New York, where he publicly criticised Datebook, saying they had taken Lennon's words out of context, and expressed regret on behalf of the band that "people with certain religious beliefs should have been offended in any way." Epstein's efforts had little effect. The controversy quickly spread beyond the US; in Mexico City there were demonstrations against the Beatles, and a number of countries, including South Africa and Spain, took the decision to ban national radio stations from playing Beatles music. Further concert performances scheduled for the US tour were cancelled by the venues. Even the Vatican got involved with a public denouncement of Lennon's comments. Shortly before the tour began, on 11 August 1966, the Beatles held a press conference in Chicago, Illinois to address the growing furore.

At the press conference Lennon described his own belief in God by quoting the Bishop of Woolwich, saying, "... not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us." When the tour began, it was marred by protests, cancellation of concerts, and disturbances. Telephone threats were received, and concerts were picketed by the Ku Klux Klan. The "cancelled" Memphis concert was held anyway, but a firecracker thrown during the performance led the band to believe they were the target of gunfire. After completing the tour, the Beatles never performed a commercial concert again.

Daily Express writer Robert Pitman, responding to the US outcry, wrote, "It seems a nerve for Americans to hold up shocked hands, when week in, week out, America is exporting to us a subculture that makes the Beatles seem like four stern old churchwardens." In the US too there was criticism of the reaction; a Kentucky radio station declared that it would start to give Beatles music airplay to show its "contempt for hypocrisy personified", and the Jesuit magazine America wrote that "Lennon was simply stating what many a Christian educator would readily admit."

Later years

Asked about the controversy during a 1969 trip to Canada, Lennon replied, "I think I said that the Beatles have more influence on young people than Jesus Christ. Yes, I still think it. Kids are influenced more by us than Jesus. Christ, some ministers even stood up and agreed with it. It was another piece of truth that the fascist Christians picked on. I'm all for Christ, I'm very big on Christ. I've always fancied him. He was right. As he said in his book, you'll get knocked if you follow my ways." Lennon wrote in 1978, "I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn't said that the Beatles were 'bigger than Jesus' and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus."

Lennon was murdered on 8 December 1980 by Mark David Chapman. Chapman, who became a born-again Christian in 1970, was incensed by Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" remark, calling it blasphemy. He was further enraged by Lennon's songs "God" and "Imagine"—even singing the latter with the altered lyric: "Imagine John Lennon dead."

In a 2008 article marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' "White Album" release, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, issued the statement: "The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation, mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis and rock and roll. The fact remains that 38 years after breaking up, the songs of the Lennon-McCartney brand have shown an extraordinary resistance to the passage of time, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians".

See also

• The Beatles in 1966

References

• Jonathan Gould: Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. Piatkus, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-7499-2988-6. 
• Bill Harry: The John Lennon Encyclopedia. Virgin, London 2000, ISBN 0-7355-0404-9(?!). 
• Jack Jones: Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John. Villard Books, 1992, ISBN 0-679-41144-5. 
• Barry Miles: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. Henry Holt & Company, New York 1997, ISBN 0-8050-5249-6. 
• Gareth L Pawlowski: How They Became The Beatles. McDonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd, 1990, ISBN 0-356-19052-8.