What did John Lennon actually say about Jesus?
“Christianity will go,” Lennon said, according to Cleave’s article. “It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.
When did John Lennon compare the Beatles to Jesus?
Whatever the reason, it was only after the American press got hold of his words some five months later that the John Lennon comment that first appeared in the London Evening Standard on March 4, 1966, erupted into the “Bigger than Jesus” scandal that brought a semi-official end to the giddy phenomenon known as …
Did John Lennon think Jesus?
The late John Lennon is well known for causing huge controversy in 1966 when he said that The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”. And according to Tony Bramwell, who grew up with the Fab Four in Liverpool, the singer-songwriter once got high on LSD and actually believe he was the Son of God.
Who said they are more popular than Jesus?
Fifty years ago today, the London Evening Standard published an interview with John Lennon that became an enduring part of the Beatles’ legacy. “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” Lennon told the rock journalist Maureen Cleave.
Did John Lennon compare himself to Jesus?
Lennon apologised at a series of press conferences and explained that he was not comparing himself to Christ. The controversy exacerbated the band’s unhappiness with touring, which they never undertook again; Lennon also refrained from touring in his solo career.
Did John Lennon apologize?
On This Day In Chicago, 1966: John Lennon Apologized For ‘Jesus’ Comment. Lennon explained that while he wasn’t a practicing Christian, he wasn’t anti-Christ or anti-religion. “I didn’t mean it the way they said it,” he said at the news conference held at the Astor Tower Hotel on Chicago’s Gold Coast.
Why was Beatlemania so big?
When the group played Shea Stadium in 1965, the New York Times reported, the crowd’s “immature lungs produced a sound so staggering, so massive, so shrill and sustained that it crossed the line from enthusiasm into hysteria and soon it was in the area of the classic Greek meaning of the word pandemonium—the region of …
How did John and Yoko Ono protest the Vietnam War?
As the Vietnam War raged in 1969, John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono held two week-long Bed-ins for Peace, one at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and one at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, each of which were intended to be nonviolent protests against wars, and experimental tests of new ways to promote peace.
Did John Lennon really say the Beatles were more popular than Jesus?
“More popular than Jesus” is part of a remark made by John Lennon of the Beatles in a March 1966 interview, in which he argued that the public were more infatuated with the band than with Jesus, and that Christian faith was declining to the extent that it might be outlasted by rock music.
What caused Beatles hysteria?
When did John Lennon say he lives like Jesus?
John Lennon Lives Like This,” arrived on March 4th, 1966. If the Jesus comment was regarded at all in the 2000-word profile, it was mostly met with bemusement. “In England, nobody took any notice,” Lennon reflected in 1974.
When did John Lennon say the Beatles were more popular than Jesus?
CHICAGO (CBS) — When John Lennon first said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, nobody took any notice. Lennon made those remarks to a British journalist in March, 1966. It wasn’t until five months later, when the interview was published in the U.S. magazine Datebook, that the commentary sparked protests in America.
When did John Lennon do the interview with Cleave?
The interview Lennon conducted with Cleave on March 4, 1966, was no different to the hundreds he had done prior to this moment. The conversation fell part of Cleave’s weekly series titled “How Does a Beatle Live?” in which she would speak to each member of the band and publish a two-page piece in the newspaper.
Why was John Lennon so depressed in 1966?
His malaise had been triggered by an extended spell of self-reflection. The early months of 1966 were unusually free of Beatle commitments, giving Lennon his first substantial break since achieving worldwide fame. A habitual homebody, he spent the time expanding his mind with a regimen of psychedelic drugs, newspapers and books.