Beatles, Bagism, and Bed-Ins:

How John and Yoko Tried To Sell Peace

Hugh Willett
HIST4701
Professor Brown

This essay examines an overlooked part of John Lennons life: as an activist and member of the
protest movement from 1968-1972. Arguing that Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were well
informed and motivated beyond just bandwagon absurdist, avant-garde antics, this essay
examines the usage of celebrity and its inherent commercial aspects as well as the influence of
the avant-garde. Through a chronological narrative, the essay demonstrates the background of
both Lennon and Ono as formative-and in some ways tellingfor their protest period. In doing
so, the essay properly assess Onos influence on Lennons life and her impact on some of
Lennons most inspired protests including the infamous Bed-In for Peace and the War Is Over
(If You Want It) billboard campaign. This essay also shows the import of Lennons work and
reflects upon the reaction from the government and the public eye that ultimately decided the
effectiveness and symbolic resonance of the period.

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Introduction
In the vast amount of literature that covers John Lennons life, his activist period is
largely seen as ill conceived. Many underwrite it as representative of Lennons outspoken
personality without attempting to gauge the politics Lennonand Yoko Ono tried to promote.
The Lennon of this period is characterized as drug-addled and hypocritical, as if to undermine
any serious attempt by Lennon to promote the peace movement. This is in part due to the nature
of the literature; there are those who see Lennon as a man who willfully destroyed The Beatles
and those who deride the peace movement as a hopeless hippie utopia that lacked resonance after
the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Scholars who have addressed the
politics, like Wayne Hampton in Guerilla Minstrels: John Lennon, Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Bob
Dylan (University of Tennessee Press, 1986) do so from a cultural perspective, but Hampton
addresses Lennons peace movement as a fragment of his character rather than a cohesive part of
the whole,. Far more exceptional is John Platoffs work on the reception of John Lennons initial
political foray, Revolution in John Lennon, Revolution, and the Politics of Musical
Reception, as well as Robert J. Kruses Geographies of John and Yokos 1969 Campaign for
Peaee: An Intersection of Celebrity, Space, Art and Activism, which evaluate Lennons
statements in the cultural context and as serious subject matter, rather then highlighting the
whims of a rock-star. Nor is there enough definitive scholarship on Yoko Onos key influence on
Lennons activism. The Bed-In for Peace is billed by biographer Tim Riley as the closest any
Brits came to Yippie media theater,1 without even addressing Onos background in the Fluxus
movement.
In The Beatles, Bagism, and Bed-Ins: How John and Yoko Tried to Sell Peace, I will
argue that John Lennon and Yoko Ono were not merely jumping on the bandwagon of the peace
1 Tim Riley, Lennon: The Man, The Myth, The Music--The Definitive Life (New York: Hyperion, 2011), 808.

3
movement, but rather became some of its most important cultural ambassadors, and that Lennon
and Ono, far from being amateur celebrity dilettantes playing at revolution, were well-versed in
the tactics and cultural practices of the countercultural avant-garde. From this perspective, I will
argue, the potential commercialism inherent to Lennon and Onos media events was an asset
rather than a hindrance in bringing their message to the world. This argument provokes two
important, but distinct questions. First, why did Lennon and Ono give up as they did at the end of
1973? Can celebrity activism really make a difference in promoting abstract ideas and providing
a highly visual front for the public to latch on to? The answer is far more thought-provoking than
Allen Ginsburgs lament of equating the peace movement as a lot of freak-out hippies goofing
around,2 Lennon and Ono were quite serious about their message, but it was the governmentrather than the public-that took their points far more seriously.
To prove this, my essay will go chronologically to assert Lennon and Onos position in the
counterculture. First to be examined will be the The Beatles are bigger than Jesus controversy
of August 1966 where remarks from an interview with Lennon in England were reprinted out of
context in an American teen magazine, sparking outrage along The Bible Belt and the American
South. In this context, this controversy was proof positive for Lennon that not only his
professional output, but his personal feelings could be manipulated into news headlines.
The essay will then address the output during The Summer of Love and the malaise
that was already becoming evident during this period in Lennons songwriting. With the release
of Revolution and Lennons more overtly political work in 1968-1969, the essay will address
the specific commercial aspects of Lennons protests before addressing the summation of
Lennons most political work, Sometime In New York City, along with his steep decline in the
2 Timothy Leary et al, The Houseboat Summit, The San Francisco Oracle 1 no. 7 (1967).
http://www.vallejo.to/articles/summit_pt1.htm.

4
political limelight. Unquestionably, this period of Lennons life has been overlooked in terms of
its cultural relevance. While it remains true that Lennons legacy has largely been as a
representative of peace, that image has been co-opted and de-toothed. Far more importantly
and controversiallyLennons campaign for peace sought an audience that engaged with its
leaders and took full advantage of citizenship. Lennon wanted to build upon the social progress
of the sixties, and in the process transformed his image from influential musician to a celebrity
that used his spotlight to further political causes. Apathy, as he said, wasnt it.
Though this campaign failed to make a positive impactNixon was elected by landslide
in 1972Lennons voice was considered enough of a threat to merit deportation, and the
ensuing legal battle made sure Lennon couldnt continue his political stunts. Why is this
important? However short-lived, this campaign yields an integral legacy of celebrity activism,
Lennons period of protest left an indelible mark on the overall culture by merging his
marketable image with avant-garde performance art to create universally understood and
unforgettable protests. Yet the much more pressing concern is how to increase civic engagement.
In the wake of an oppressive world, Lennon didnt see violence as the answer; he wanted to see
the plan. We still want to change the world, and Lennons blend of peaceful protest and civic
engagement, awareness activism may just be the way it can be done.

Out of Context and Into Infamy

The Beatles were arguably at the top of the pop music world in 1966, already masters of
the teenage pop Mersey beat and members of the cultural zeitgeist appearing in A Hard Days
Night and Help!, movie sensations with critically acclaimed soundtracks. These loveable moptops had come a long way since their rough and tumble Hamburg days, fashioned into
professionals by Brian Epstein, but at least two of the members, John Lennon and George

5
Harrison, bridled under the strict guidelines that management laid upon them. After the release of
Rubber Soul and on the cusp of Revolver, comments from an interview with John Lennon taken
in March of 1966 for the London Evening Standard made their way across the pond to America
in the teenage magazine Datebook. What he said was this: "Christianity will go 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. Jesus was all right
but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."3 Outspoken as
these comments may have been, they made no stir in the British press at the time. Were more
popular than Jesus was the misconstrued sound bite featured in the August edition of Datebook.
WAQY Birmingham DJ Tommy Charles was the man behind one of the first formal protests
against Lennons comments, encouraging young people to burn their Beatle records and to
punish The Beatles,"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, explained Charles.4 On the
eve of a fourteen city U.S. tour, the irascible Lennon appeared before reporters in Chicago to
answer questions:
Lennon: "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have
got away with it, but I just happened to be talking to a friend and I used the words
"Beatles" as a remote thing, not as what I think - as Beatles, as those other Beatles like
other people see us. I just said "they" are having more influence on kids and things than
anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way.
Reporter: Some teenagers have repeated your statements - "I like the Beatles more than
Jesus Christ". What do you think about that?
Lennon: "Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we
meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting
it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not
saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God

3Maureen Cleave, How Does a Beatle Live? John Lives Like This, London Evening Standard, March 4, 1966,
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1966.0304-beatles-john-lennon-were-more-popular-than-jesus-now-maureencleave.html
4 David Leaf, director, The U.S. vs. John Lennon

6
as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken
wrong. And now it's all this.
Reporter: But are you prepared to apologize?
Lennon: "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it
really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you
happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if
you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry."
Regardless of the outcome, Lennon must have realized the potency of his actions as a superstar.
His words would take on larger meaning, and reach a larger audience than he could ever
imagine. Lennon wouldnt stay quiet for long.
Cut Piece
While The Beatles were taking the world by storm, Yoko Ono was starting to make her
name known around the art world in New York City. Born into a wealthy Japanese family before
the Second World War, Ono came to New York to attend Sarah Lawrence College where she
spent three years before dropping out and pursuing an art career. Her first famous contribution to
the art-world was the controversial Cut Piece, which she premiered in Kyoto in 1964. Wearing
what she considered her finest clothes and carrying a pair of scissors, Ono would instruct the
audience that they were to disrobe her, piece by piece, with the scissors to whatever level they
found comfortable. After these simple instructions, Ono would sit silently in a kneeled position
while the audience took turns cutting clothing. Though there were performances that often left
Ono bare, she left in the specific right that the performer could end the exhibit at her own
discretion.
Onos work was both evocative and communicative, and in many ways resembles the
work that she would accomplish with Lennon on a much larger scale. One early example from
1962 finds Ono taking her art pieces, like Smoke Painting and translating them into directions in
Japanese, written by then husband Ichiyanagi Toshi, before photocopying those directions to
create, in the words of Michael Kimmelman, a copy of a thing written by someone else of an

7
idea that required a different person to complete.5 But White Chess Set, also known as Play It
By Trust (1966) is perhaps the clearest indicator of Yokos early foray into the peace movement.
The premise is simple; the pieces are all white and the two players play until they cant
remember which pieces are their own. Yet, as the traditional rules of chess dictate that white
moves first, Ono forces the players to emphasize dialogue and empathy over competition. If the
game is to finish properly, both players must trust the other to recognize the pieces throughout
the game. In Yokos own words, The players lose track of their pieces as the game progresses;
ideally this leads to a shared understanding of their mutual concerns and a new relationship
based on empathy rather than opposition. Peace is then attained on a small scale.6
Onos work was pointed in a very specific direction, audience involvement and
imagination. What she had in respect from the art world she lacked in overall audience. But her
work in the avant-garde made her become involved with the experimental artist collective,
Fluxus, which portrayed everyday life and its natural, often humorous relation to art.7 Fluxus
often articulated its exhibitions through happenings, gatherings filled with the whos who of
their small art world and a smattering of curious folk who wanted to see what these wild folk
were on to. In sixties London, the cultural fusion allowed the rock and roll and art world to
merge, and often strike up friendships, as the importance of appearances was paramount for the
art world to cross over.
In the John and Yoko story, the two officially met at the latters art exhibition at the
Indica Gallery in London on November 6th, 1966. Lennon was friendly with the gallery owner,

5 Michael Kimmelman, Yoko Ono: Painter, Sculptor, Musician, Muse, New York Times, October 27, 2000,
accessed February 5, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/27/arts/art-review-yoko-ono-painter-sculptormusician-muse.html.
6 Yoko Ono, quoted in Arthur C. Danto, "Art: Life In Fluxus." The Nation 271, no. 20 (December 18, 2000): 3436. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost(accessed February 17, 2014).
7 Alexandra Munroe et al, Yes Yoko Ono (New York: Japan Society, 2000), 17.

8
John Dunbar, and had been excited by Dunbars description of a happening, as John would
recall later in an interview:
John: I was looking around the gallery and I saw this ladder and climbed up and got a
look in this spyglass on the top of the ladder... you feel like a fool... and it just said, 'Yes.'
Now, at the time, all the avant-garde was smash the piano with a hammer and break the
sculpture and anti-, anti-, anti-, anti-, anti. It was all boring negative crap, you know. And
just that Yes made me stay in a gallery full of apples and nails.8
John Lennon hadnt completely avoided making a statement about the evolving peace
movement. His first contribution was The Word, a song off of Rubber Soul that would have fit
perfectly into 1967s Summer of Love if it hadnt been released two years earlier. But have you
heard, the word is love9 was tossed aside, not exactly an anthem for the hungry masses even
though it possessed the same invocations for the people to come together in a positive light. Yet
The Word had yet another resonance, as Lennon gave the original lyric sheet to Yoko Ono as a
birthday present to her friend and longtime inspiration, John Cage.
As the premiere pop act, their manager, Brian Epstein, kept The Beatles under a tight lid
and they were specifically ordered not to address the Vietnam conflict. As Lennon recalled, For
years, on the Beatles tours, Brian Epstein had stopped us from saying anything about Vietnam or
the war. And he wouldnt allow questions about it.10 But the conflict was becoming almost
impossible to ignore, and on June 30th, 1966 while on tour in Japan, Lennon would get his chance
to respond:
Q: What are your opinions of Vietnam?
JOHN: "I think its lousy. It should be stopped."
Q: Do you have any plans or ideas on how youd stop war?
JOHN: No, I dont think you can stop war. 11

8 David Sheff, Playboy Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Playboy, January 1981, accessed February
5th, 2014, http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1980.jlpb.beatles.html.
9 The Beatles, The Word, Rubber Soul, EMI, 1966.
10Ibid.
11 Peter Doggett, Theres a Riot Going on: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of the 60s
(Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007), Prologue.

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Certainly, The Beatles were no crusaders when it came to protesting the Vietnam War.
Recognizable organized protests against the war went back as far as July of 1964 where Joan
Baez lent her support and her name to David Dellingers Declaration of Conscience, and April
1965 had seen an anti-war protest organized by the SDS at the Washington Monument that
reached some 20,000 people.12 But, in the words of Doggett, no rock act was followed more
fanatically than The Beatles.13 Protests of the Vietnam War had finally entered into the pop
culture mainstream.
There are other curious beginnings to Lennons evolution as a peacenik, one perhaps being the
black anti-war comedy, How I Won The War. Lennons initial connection to the role was due to
the director Richard Lester, who had previously directed Help! and A Hard Days Night, who
asked Lennon to play the role of Musketeer Gripweed. In the film, the company men are killed
off, one by oneeach death in the film leads to the characters replacement by a plastic toy
soldieruntil the only survivors at the end of the war is the officer in command, Lieutenant
Ernest Goodbody, a charge placed in psychiatric care, and the companys constant deserter.
Given Lennons previous misgivings about the Vietnam War, the bleak destructive take on the
soldiers in WWII reinforced Lennons desire to commit to the anti-war camp. The now famous
photo of Lennon as Musketeer Gripweed would become the first cover for Rolling Stone
Magazine on November 9, 1967.
The Beatles 1967 album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, also bears resemblance
to the ideals of Fluxus and their embrace of the everyday as art. Though the fake band and
Technicolor cover art drew the most attention, the true concept of Sgt. Peppers was elevating the
themes of everyday life; the desire for escapism (Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band,
12 Doggett, Theres A Riot Going On, Prologue.
13 Ibid.

10
Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, Shes Leaving Home, Being For The Benefit of Mr.
Kite), personal empowerment (Getting Better, With A Little Help From My Friends,
Within You Without You) as well as embrace of the humdrum (Good Morning, Good
Morning, A Day In The Life, When Im Sixty-Four, Fixing A Hole). Reading newspaper
headlines was the chief inspiration for Lennons A Day In The Life, where Lennon
incorporated both real stories and his own imagination in an almost Dadaist exercise that would
have made Fluxus proud. Lennon certainly saw no distinction between song-craft and art, as he
told interviewer Jonathan Cott in an interview with Rolling Stone a year later:
Q: "Pop analysts are often trying to read something into songs that isnt there."
JOHN: "It is there. Its like abstract art really. Its just the same really. Its just that when
you have to think about it to write it, it just means that you labored at it. But when you
just say it, man, you know youre saying it, its a continuous flow. The same as when
youre recording or just playing. You come out of a thing and you know 'Ive been there,'
and it was nothing, it was just pure, and thats what were looking for all the time,
really.14
You Say You Want A Revolution
The albums released by The Beatles from 1966 through 1968, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers, and The
Beatles, stand as a triptych of the unfolding counterculture; discovery, celebration, and unsettling
malaise. Beatlemania seemed to have lost its charms on The Beatles, Lennon most of all, and he
was quickly immersing himself in the delights the counterculture had to offer. His work on
Revolver is indicative of a man looking for alternative answers from Im Only Sleeping to
She Said She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing, Dr. Robert and Tomorrow Never Knows.
The latter remains a crowning achievement of 60s psychedelic and The Psychedelic Experience:
A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of The Dead, published by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert,
14 Jonathan Cott, The Rolling Stone Interview with John Lennon, Rolling Stone, November 23, 1968, accessed
February 9, 2014, http://beatlesinterviews.org/db1968.11jl.beatles.html.

11
and Ralph Metzner, inspired it. According to Bob Spitz, Lennon frequently read the book while
consuming LSD, and found the lines Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float
downstream,15 which became the opening lines Turn off your mind, relax and float
downstream. By the end of the recording sessions for Revolver, Lennon was aware ofif not
keenly longing to be involved withthe countercultural scene.
Even the countercultural luminaries were unsure of where everything was going. In
February of 1967 Allan Watts hosted a Houseboat Summit that included Timothy Leary, Gary
Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg to hold court on what the peace movement was to become. Tune in
and drop out was all well and good, but what did it mean? Ginsberg worried about the perception
of the peace movement, that it would be characterized as a lot of freak-out hippies goofing
around and throwing bottles through windows when they flip out on LSD.16 In his opinion
Drop out, turn on, tune in. [meant] get with an activitya manifest activitya worldly
activitythats harmonious with whatever vision.17 Lennons own vision would be promoting
peace.
1968 was a troublesome year for both the establishment and the counterculture; The
Beatles seemed to be almost pass, Sgt. Peppers had represented the hopes and dreams of
counterculture for a brief moment, but the most overt stage of the Vietnam War, the Tet
Offensive, began in January. Student-led riots at Columbia University in March ended with New
York Policeman attacking and injuring hundreds of protesters. Martin Luther Kingthen the
titular leader of nonviolent protestwas gunned down in April; Robert F. KennedyJFKs
15 Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005), 600-601.
16 Timothy Leary et al, The Houseboat Summit, The San Francisco Oracle 1 no. 7 (1967).
http://www.vallejo.to/articles/summit_pt1.htm.
17 Ibid.

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spiritual and familial successorwas assassinated in June. All of the simmering tensions in the
United States came to a battle of anger and futility at the Democratic National Convention in
Chicago in August. At the end of the convention, a distraught Tom Hayden would remark, it
may be that the era of organized, peaceful, and orderly demonstration is coming to an end, and
that other methods will be needed.18
The Beatles titular rivals, The Rolling Stones, had come out with an up-in-arms single to
reflect the times, Street Fighting Man with lines like time is right for rising in the street, and
think the time is right for a palace revolution while Lennon admonished But when you talk
about destruction, dont you know that you can count me out on Revolution. Critics
gravitated towards the former, Richard Merton, a cultural critic writing in the New Left Review,
called Revolution a lamentable petty-bourgeois cry of fear,19 Ellen Willis equivocated
Lennons changing head line to an updated let them eat cake in the New Yorker. Street
Fighting Man wasnt necessarily angrier, in fact, with its refrain there aint no place for a
street-fighting man, Jagger was only reiterating Lennons own point. The difference is part
cultural, and part aural. Lennons maxims of counting him out and its gonna be alright are
prominent in the mix, Jaggers are buried, and The Beatles were already harried for their lyrics,
even the first to print out a lyric sheet for an LP with Sgt. Peppers. The Rolling Stones were not
nearly as successful or noted for their lyrics, but rather their image and posture. John Platoff
almost unconsciously keys in on an integral point that separates Jagger from Lennon in his essay
on the politics of musical reception. Platoff brings up this quote from Tony Sanchez:
18 Jules Witcover, The Year The Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America (New York: Warner Books, 1997) 339,
quoted in John Platoff, John Lennon, Revolution, and the Politics of Musical Reception, The Journal of
Musicology 22 no. 2 (2005): 244, accessed February 6, 2014,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2005.22.2.241.
19 Richard Merton, Comment (Reply to for a Rock Aesthetic, by Andrew Chester), New Left Review, no. 59
(1970), http://www2.hu-berlin.de/fpm/textpool/texte/chester_&_merton_for-a-rock-aesthetic.htm#TII.

13
The most public expression of Jaggers political feelings came on 17 March 1968,
when he joined the massive anti-Vietnam War demonstration in front of the
American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London. Part of a crowd of tens of
thousands, at first Jagger was not noticed, and he linked arms with a young man
on one side and a young woman on the other side as the mob tried to smash their
way through police lines and into the embassy . . . But then he was recognized;
fans demanded autographs; newspapermen scuffled with one another to interview
him, to fire off their flashguns in his face. He fled, realizing bitterly that his fame
and wealth precluded him from the revolutionhe was a distraction, not a
leader.20
Jaggers withdrawal from the spotlight, whatever the intent, was a far cry from the more
contentious Lennon. In October of 1968, John Hoyland wrote an open letter to Lennon in The
Black Dwarf, an underground magazine published by Tariq Ali stating that there was no such
thing as polite revolution. In order to change the world weve got to understand whats wrong
with the world. And thendestroy it. Ruthlessly.21 Lennon replied in the same magazine in
January 1969, with characteristic aplomb:
Youre obviously on a destruction kick. Ill tell you whats wrong with itPeople
so do you want to destroy them? Ruthlessly? Until you/ we change your/ our
headstheres no chance. Tell me of one successful revolution. Who fucked up
communismchristianitycapitalismbuddhism etc? Sick Heads, and nothing
else. Do you think all the enemy wear capitalist badges so you can shoot them?
Its a bit nave, John. You seem to think that its just a class war.22
Jagger seemed resigned by his fame, what can a poor boy do, but sing in a rock and roll band?
Lennon wanted a challenge.
Though the single wasnt released until August, Revolution was first recorded in late
May of 1968 at Kinfauns, George Harrisons house in Esher (later known as the Kinfauns
Demos), before revamped into a slower-paced Revolution 1 recorded in June that would see
20 Tony Sanchez, Up and Down with the Rolling Stones (New York: William Morrow, 1979), 122, quoted in in John
Platoff, John Lennon, Revolution, and the Politics of Musical Reception, The Journal of Musicology 22 no. 2
(2005): 244, accessed February 6, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2005.22.2.241.
21 John Hoyland, An Open Letter to John Lennon, The Black Dwarf, October 1968, accessed February 7th, 2014,
http://www.hardrock.com/images/promo/lennon/BlackDwarf68_p6.jpg.
22 John Lennon, A very open letter to John Hoyland from John Lennon, The Black Dwarf, January 1969,
accessed February 7th, 2014, http://www.hardrock.com/images/promo/lennon/BlackDwarf69_p4a.jpg.

14
release on The Beatles in November. In a BBC interview conducted on June 6, 1968 about a play
based on Lennons In His Own Write Lennon laid out his philosophy:
Q: "The boy (in the play) hates a lot of things and, in a way, you could say you were attacking these things
-- like, organized religion, and the way people teach you in school."
JOHN: "I feel the same now, really, about organized religion, education, and all those things that
everybody is still laughing at. But I mean, I expressed it THAT way THEN. I don't know how I'd express it
now, you know. It'd be slightly different really. I've always sort of suspected that there was a God, even
when I thought I was an atheist. But I believe it, so I am full of compassion, really, even still. I just hate
things less strenuously than I did. I haven't got as big of a chip about it, because maybe I've escaped out of
it a bit. I think our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. And I think that's what I sussed
when I was sixteen and twelve, way down the line. But I expressed it differently all through my life. It's the
same thing I'm expressing all the time. But NOW I can put it into that sentence that I think we're being run
by maniacs for maniacal ends, you know. If anybody can put on paper what our government, and the
American government, and the Russian, Chinese... what they are all trying to do, and what they THINK
they're doing, I'd be very pleased to know what they think they're doing. I think they're all insane. But I am
liable to be put away as insane for expressing that, you know. That's what is insane about it. I mean, don't
you agree?23

The message, and interpretation of Revolution was so important for Lennon that the song
stands as the only song in Beatles (and Lennons) history that would be released as both a single
and on an album, and with two vastly different iterations.
Selling Peace Like Soap
1969 was a year of rebirth for Lennonhe had successfully divorced his first wife
Cynthia in November 1968and he was looking to marry his new companion, Yoko Ono. He
would do so on March 20, 1969 in Gibraltar. Any Beatle marriage would have been a press
event at the time, but Lennons was even more controversial. The reason was Unfinished Music
No. 1: Two Virgins. The album was not only sensational for being released by a Beatle outside of
his group, but the cover and content. The cover was a simple and unadorned black and white
photo of Lennon and Ono completely naked staring straight on into the camera. Upon playing the
record, the listener wasnt granted with anything familiar, but rather tape-loops and vocal
screeches and sonic manipulations by the odd couple. Any passing hope that this was just
23 John Lennon, Interview with Peter Lewis. Release, BBC-2, June 6, 1968,
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1968.0606.beatles.html.

15
Lennon on a lark was finished when they announced their wedding in March, and knowing the
press was eager to follow, Lennon later recalled We sent out a card: Come to John and Yokes
honeymoon: a bed-in, Amsterdam Hotel.24 Given their album cover, the press was also titillated
by the prospect of seeing the newly-weds consummate their marriage. Instead, what they would
find was the Lennons mining for world peace.
From March 25 through March 31, John and Yoko held court at the Amsterdam Hilton as
a promotion for peace. Lennon relished the role, finally being able to expand out from the Beatle
mythos, and engaged with anyone and everyone as he sat in his bathrobe in a publicized
honeymoon that was more chaste than the Two Virgins album cover that had been their calling
carda well planted canard. In reality, the Bed-In was a planned event. Yoko would recall some
years later:
We worked for three months thinking out the most functional approach to boosting peace
before we got married . . . [We decided to spend] our honeymoon talking to the press in
bed in Amsterdam. For us it was the only way. We cant go out in Trafalgar Square
because it would create a riot. We cant lead a parade or march because of all the
autograph hunters. We had to find our own way of doing it and for now, bed-ins seems to
be the most logical way. We think the bed-in can be effective.25
Lennon and Ono didnt profess to have the strategies or policies that made world peace tangible,
but they seized upon the media fascination with celebrities to promote an important cause.26 At
this point, Lennon was still a member of The Beatles and thus he was able to forever immortalize
the event in The Ballad of John and Yoko.
The Ballad of John and Yoko is the song equivalent of the Lennons invitation to join
them on their honeymoon, with the whole tale of how Lennon and Ono got married. Finally
24 The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000).
25 Yoko Ono, quoted by Anthony Fawcett, John Lennon: One Day At a Time (New York: New York Grove Press,
1976): 45, quoted in Robert J. Kruse II, Geographies of John and Yokos 1969 Campaign for Peace: An Intersection
of Celebrity, Space, Art, and Activism, in Sound, Society and the Geography of Popular Music, eds Ola Johannson
and Thomas L. Bell (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009), 15.
26 Robert J. Kruse II, Geographies of John and Yokos 1969 Campaign for Peace: An Intersection of Celebrity,
Space, Art, and Activism, in Sound, Society and the Geography of Popular Music, eds Ola Johannson and Thomas
L. Bell (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009), 16.

16
made the plane into Paris, honeymooning down by the Seine, Peter Brown called to say, you can
make it ok, you can get married in Gibraltar near Spain,27 and the Bed-In itself, Drove from
Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton, talking in our beds for a week, the newspapers said, say what
youre doing in bed, I said were only trying to get us some peace.28 Lennon wanted it recorded
almost immediately. He arrived at McCartneys house on April 15th, 1969, with the song mostly
completed, and at Lennons insistence, the two drove down to the studio to complete the song. It
was no coincidence that The Ballad of John and Yoko was released May 30, 1969. This time,
Lennon and Ono were having a Bed-In in North America.
The original plan had been to stage their next Bed-In in the Bahamas, though they left
after one night due to the uncomfortably warm weather. Though they had hoped for New York, a
place near Broadway, Lennons cannabis possession charge kept him out of the United States.
In Lennons mind this was an excuse, and not the real reason. When asked why he wasnt talking
directly to the government policy makers, Lennon jabbed In the US [sic], the government is too
busy talking about how to keep me out. If Im a joke, as they say, and not important, why dont
they just let me in?29 With such complaints in mind, John and Yoko chose Montreal because
they understood the citys strategic location in relation to the media industry of the United
States,30 Rather than encapsulate all the events in a brief three-minute pop song, Lennon and
Ono chose to film the event, called Bed Peace that presented an in-depth, though edited,
document of the dynamics that filled the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The first interaction in the film
takes place between Lennon, Ono, and Andy Capp, with Capp fighting Lennon at every turn.
27 The Beatles, The Ballad of John and Yoko, The Beatles 1967-70, EMI, 1987.
28 Ibid.
29 John Lennon, quoted by Anthony Fawcett, John Lennon: One Day At a Time (New York: New York Grove Press,
1976): 53, quoted in Robert J. Kruse II, Geographies of John and Yokos 1969 Campaign for Peace: An Intersection
of Celebrity, Space, Art, and Activism, in Sound, Society and the Geography of Popular Music, eds. Ola Johannson
and Thomas L. Bell (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009), 17.
30 Kruse, Geographies of John and Yokos 1969 Campaign for Peace,16.

17
Tim Riley recounts one particular exchange. After hearing Yoko describe themselves as shy,
Capp brandished the vinyl of Two Virgins, Only the shyest people in the world would take
pictures like this, Lennon shot back, What, you dont think shy people ever get naked?31 At
the climax of the festivities, Lennon exhorted the crowd to join along with him in a song inspired
by the happening. In his own telling, Lennon wanted to create a song that would succeed Pete
Seegers We Shall Overcome. Using his message all were saying is give peace a chance,
Lennon turned it into an anthem, assisted by Tommy Smothers (of the Smothers Brothers), and
the large audience that had gathered to watch Lennon and Ono hold court, Give Peace A
Chance was born on June 1,1969. The song is not Lennons first anthem, that distinction lies on
All You Need Is Love, but nevertheless, Give Peace A Chance featured what would become
Lennons songwriting trademarks during his early solo years, a universal call to action that
everyone could join in on. Further still, making Give Peace A Chance a single wasnt used in
the traditional sense as a selling point, but as a means to increase exposure as quickly as possible.
Certainly the most rag-tag song that Lennon ever produced, and the enduring legacy of
the Bed-In, Give Peace A Chance is less fascinating than the discussions that we are made
privy to during the film Bed Peace that featured Andy Capp, Dick Gregory, Timothy Leary and
his wife Rosemary, along with peace activists both locally and as far as Berkeley, California. But
more than the performance and the pageantry, Lennon hewed onto a key component of his
platform, Im selling peace, and Yoko and I are just one big advertising campaign. It may make
people laugh, but it may make them think, too.32 Sure enough, others were taking notice.
A particularly powerful, yet under-covered moment of protest came with John Winston
Lennons name change to John Ono Lennon (the Winston would stay on legally) on April 22nd,
31 Tim Riley, Lennon: The Man, The Myth, The MusicThe Definitive Life (New York, Hyperion, 2011) 827-828.
32 John Lennon, quoted in Anthony Fawcett, John Lennon: One Day at A Time, 54.

18
1969. Yoko changed hers for me, Ive changed mine for her. One for both, both for each
other.33 Such a move, in Rileys words, stripped Lennon of much British history and tradition
and the very idea of class respectability he held in such scorn the act crystallized a keen
sense of cultural betrayal,34 for his once loyal musical audience. On the contrary, the move
wasnt selfish, but Lennons first foray into feminism. In one of the stranger effects of celebrity
remembrance, the modern view of Lennon is that of a wife-beaterhe did hit Cynthia once
without accounting for the majority of his later actions, and his sincere repentance:
I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically - any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and
I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent
people who go for love and peace. Everything's the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am
a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before
I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.35

Lennons embrace of feminism helps explain a lot of his actions with Yoko Ono, their desire to
be inseparable and Lennons treatment of Ono as an equal, a business partner, a lover, and a cocreator.
Writing from a jail cell in 1970, Jerry Rubin remarked, Being a celebrity is a powerful
weapon, people listen to you and tell other people about you. You are myth. You are media.36
Lennon and Ono knew this too. Rubin would be quick to seize on this celebrity connection when
Lennon would get his entry into New York City in the more radical, less seriocomic stage of his
protest career. For now, Lennon wanted to expand this world peace drive even further with a
concert, Live Peace in Toronto, which took place September 13, 1969. Lennon gathered Eric
Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, slapped on the label Plastic Ono Band, and played before
25,000 people. The reception was mostly hostile, as audiences were not expecting a full 15
33 John Lennon, quoted in Tim Riley, Lennon: The Man, The Myth, The MusicThe Definitive Life, 820.
34 Tim Riley, Lennon: The Man, The Myth, The Music, 821.
35 John Lennon, Interview with David Sheff, Playboy, January 1981, http://beatlesinterviews.org/dbjypb.int3.html.
36 Jerry Rubin, quoted in Peter Doggett, Theres a Riot Going on: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and
Fall of the 60s (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007), 18.

19
minutes of Yoko Onos vocal performances, they wanted to see John Lennon and Eric Clapton,
and even that part was a disappointment as the bandnever having played togetherstruggled
to put together a set-list in under 24 hours. But Lennon was bringing attention to the peace
movement. Give Peace A Chance was fast becoming the adopted anthem for the Vietnam War
protests. On November 15, 1969, half a million people gathered outside the White House to sing
Lennons Give Peace A Chance led by Pete Seeger. Some ten days later on November 25,
1969, Lennon returned his MBE to the Queen of England with a note in his trademark half
serious, half joking prose:
Your Majesty,
I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britains involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra
thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping
down the charts.
With Love,
John Lennon37
Few entertainers had achieved the rank of MBE, and fewer have dared to return it. By doing so,
Lennon made a statement that the press seized upon, making it clear that Lennons ability o
attract the attention of the media was a key element of the campaign for peace.38 Selling peace
however, was only just beginning.
On Christmas Day, 1969, John and Yoko unveiled the War Is Over (If You Want It)
billboard campaign. Using, as Kruse notes the convention of outdoor mass advertising,39
Lennon and Ono bought billboards in Paris, Rome, Berlin, Athens, Tokyo, New York, Los
Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Port-of-Spain, and Trinidad. Uniform in design, the sheer white
billboard spelled out WAR IS OVER! in black block Helvetica, while in smaller type underneath
(If You Want It), Happy Christmas from John and Yoko. When asked about cost at the billboard
press conference, Lennon remarked that it was mostly out of pocket and regardless, less than a
37 The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 184.
38 Kruse, Geographies of John and Yokos 1969 Campaign for Peace,13.
39 Ibid, 20.

20
single human life.40 Lennon thought that the best way to challenge the establishment was to use
their own conventions against them, as he remarked in a later interview, they sell war
beautifully. I mean they've really got it sown up you know. TV and everything we're interested
in building 'round it. I don't see the point of smashing it down and then trying to build it up again
for the next generation because we haven't got time and it doesn't work. I don't think it works.41
Putting their message in what traditionally served as commercial space, Lennon and Ono werent
only exposing their message to more people, they were defying the establishment.
Lennon and Onos next move brought their commercial peace approach to music once again,
with Instant Karma!(We All Shine On).

A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

Mirroring the iconography of the billboard campaign, Lennon connected the two when
asked by David Sheff in a later interview for Playboy, I'm fascinated by commercials and
promotion as an art form. I enjoy them, Lennon remarked, So the idea of instant karma was
like the idea of instant coffee: presenting something in a new form. I just liked it. It was another
Lennon anthem, this time calling for everyone to take responsibility for his or her actions.
Further adding to the instant credo, Lennon wrote the song in an hour, recorded, and released
the song to the public in a matter of ten days. It remains one of the fastest-released songs in pop
music history, as Lennon crowed, wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and were putting
it out for dinner42. Armed with a simple and catchy chord progression, one that evoked All
You Need Is Love, the song peaked at number three in the Billboard charts. Its still regarded as
40 John Lennon, quoted in David Leaf, director, The U.S. vs. John Lennon (Lionsgate, 2006), DVD.
41 Richard Robinson, Our London Interview, Hit Parader, August 1970
(http://www.instantkarma.com/magarchive1_99.html)

42 John Lennon: Instant Karma!, The Beatles Bible, accessed February 3, 2014,
http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/john-lennon/songs/instant-karma/.

21
one of Lennons best solo releases, and universally praised for its message. Lennon biographer
Phillip Norman called the song quintessential Lennon the age-old Buddhist law of cause and
effect turned into something as modern and synthetic as instant coffee and, simultaneously, into a
bogey under the stairs that can get you if you don't watch out.43 Five days after the single
release, John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared on Top of the Pops to promote the single, a now
infamous performance that has two versions; the knitting version, with Yoko blindfolded and
knitting on a piano bench during the performance, and the cue card version, where Yoko shuffles
through cue cards.44
And yet, The Beatles were still officially together even though Lennon was all but overtly
moving on. In April 1970, The Beatles came to an end. John and Yoko disappeared from the
public spotlight for a few months to enroll in Arthur Janovs Primal Scream Therapy. For all
their work in the 1968-1969 period, Lennon hadnt recorded or released a conventional solo
album. His first, Plastic Ono Band, would come out December 1970.
If Lennon had begun to gain back the good graces of rock critics with Instant Karma!
(We All Shine On), Plastic Ono Band cemented his reputation as a capable artist outside the
shadow of The Beatles. Griel Marcus, who had erred on the side of caution when he assessed
Revolution, spared no hyperbole when he commented, John's singing in the last verse of 'God'
may be the finest in all of rock.45 Even today, the minimalism and self-assessment contained
within Plastic Ono Band remains palpable, emotive, and resonant. Though surely record sales
were boosted by the listening audience curiosity in what a ex-Beatle would sound like on his
own, the album was reassuring as proving Lennon capable of not just acting a spokesman, but
being one.
43 Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 635.
44 Ibid, 635-636.
45 Griel Marcus, quoted in John Blaney, John Lennon: Listen To This Book, (S.I: Paper Jukebox, 2005), 56.

22
Vastly influenced by his therapy sessions with Arthur Janov, God featured one of Lennons
more controversial lines about religion, God is a concept, by which we measure our pain, a
lyric brought about by deep conversation, as Janov remembered He said: 'What about God?'
and I would go on and on about [how] people who have deep pain generally tend to believe in
God with a fervency. And he said: 'Oh, you mean God is a concept by which we measure our
pain.' Just bang.46 Plastic Ono Band also featured Remember, a hard-hitting piano-driven
number that subtly digs at a parents expectation and morality before closing with the childhood
nursery rhyme Remember, the fifth of November and an explosion. Even with the climactic
finish, Remember is subtle in its critique of the establishment compared to Working Class
Hero. As soon as youre born, they make you feel small, by giving you no time instead of it
all,47 began the track, a diatonic both in message and melody, as the chords remain stuck
between A minor and G. Lennon doesnt shy from the profane either, as he sings plaintively til
youre so fucking crazy you cant follow their rules and But youre still fucking peasants as far
as I can see. Talk was all well and good, Lennon seemed to say, but lets actually do something.
January 1971 saw Lennon and Ono join the political fray again as Lennon sat down for an
interview with Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn for their underground Communist magazine, Red
Mole. Though Lennon was firmly against violent revolution, this interview gives tremendous
insight into what his ideas were beyond peace. Speaking rather cynically about the end of the
Sixties, Lennon commented Of course, there are a lot of people walking around with long hair
now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all

46 Arthur Janov, quoted in Matthew Longfellow, director, Classic Albums: John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band (SBSTV, 2008).
47 John Lennon, Working Class Hero, Imagine, Apple, 1971.

23
dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything."48 Lennon even went to address
the bad reception of Revolution as a means to clear the air:
On the version released as a single I said 'when you talk about destruction you can count
me out'. I didn't want to get killed. I didn't really know that much about the Maoists, but I
just knew that they seemed to be so few and yet they painted themselves green and stood
in front of the police waiting to get picked off. I just thought it was unsubtle, you know. I
thought the original Communist revolutionaries coordinated themselves a bit better and
didn't go around shouting about it.49
If Lennon wasnt truly a Communistand there is nothing to suggest he washe was apt at
adapting to whatever worldview his audience held, especially if he considered them worthy of
respect. He continued, "That's what I'm trying to do on my albums and in these interviews . . .
influence all the people I can influence. All those who are still under the dream . . . The acid
dream is over, that is what I'm trying to tell them."50 Lennon even challenged Ali, How do you
keep everything going and keep up revolutionary fervour after you've achieved what you set out
to achieve? Of course Mao has kept them up to it in China, but what happens after Mao goes?
Also he uses a personality cult. Perhaps that's necessary; like I said, everybody seems to need a
father figure.51 Lennon came out of the interview inspired.
The very next day he wrote Power to the People, another anthem along the lines of
Give Peace A Chance and Instant Karma! (We All Shine On). As Lennon would recall I just
felt inspired by what they said, although a lot of it is gobbledygook. So I wrote 'Power to the
People' the same way I wrote 'Give Peace a Chance,' as something for the people to sing. I make
singles like broadsheets.52 Though not as successful as Instant Karma! (We All Shine On),
Power to the People still peaked at number ten on the Billboard Charts.
48 John Lennon, Interview with Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn, Red Mole, January 21, 1971,
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1971.0121.beatles.html.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 John Lennon, quoted in Richard Williams, Phil Spector: Out of His Head (London: Omnibus Press, 2003), 160.

24
Referencing his own Revolution, Power to the People begins, you say you want a
revolution, we better get on it right away, well get you on your feet, and into the street, singin
power to the people, not for nothing, the song also includes Lennons first pro-feminist lyric
when he sings I gotta ask you comrades and brothers, how do you treat your own woman back
home? She got to be herself, so she can give herself, singin Its a rip-roaring, energetic, footpounding single. Where Revolutionthough wildhad studio polish, Power to the People
with its handclaps, choral chants, and boot-stomps, had the feel of overwhelming will.
Lennon didnt take long to jump into recording a new album that would eventually become
Imagine, which is mainly remembered for its optimistic, utilitarian title track, but contains songs
just as darkly politically minded as Plastic Ono Bands Working Class Hero in I Dont Wanna
Be A Soldier Mama I Dont Wanna Die and Gimme Some Truth. Yet it was Imagine that
would become the most subversive pop song to achieve classic status,53 and Lennons greatest
combined achievement as a balladeer and agitator.54 Lennon remarked "'Imagine', which says:
'Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,' is virtually the
Communist manifesto, even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any
movement.55 Commenting on its success later, he acknowledged that Imagine worked because
it was putting your political message across with a little honey.56 This is the chief reason that
Imagine is lauded and remembered, while I Dont Wanna Be A Soldier and Gimme Some
Truth are largely forgotten.

53 Ben Urish and Ken Bielen, The Words and Music of John Lennon (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2007), 27.
54 David Fricke, The Making of Imagine, in John Lennon: The Ultimate Guide to His Life, Music, and Legend,
ed. Jann Wenner (New York: Rolling Stone Magazine, 2012), 59.
55 John Lennon, quoted in John Blaney, Lennon and McCartney: Together Alone (London: Jawbone Press, 2007),
52.
56 John Lennon, quoted in Joe Levy, ed., Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (New York: Wenner
Books, 2005), 87.

25
Imagine was a short, hymn-like, three-minute ballad, I Dont Wanna Be A Soldier
latter a six-minute epimone without a chorus to grab on to, and Gimme Some Truth spews out
like a litany of complaints against the political establishment. Though Gimme Some Truth
does feature some cleverand tongue-twistingreferences, the people were less likely to latch
onto No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope, money for dope, money for rope,57 as something to shout in the
streets. Just as Ono had called for audience participation in her artwork, Lennon was zeroing in
on self-realization, that the universal feel intrinsic to well-written song-craft could be used to
propel people to action. The U.S. government noticed.

All I Want Is The Truth

John Lennon had felt like the British government wasnt taking him seriously, and that the U.S.,
New York City specifically, was the place to be. Unfortunately, as a British subject, he was an
immigrant to U.S. shores, and the government control that he had rallied against had a direct
means to keep him out. On September 1, 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono left their Tittenhurst
Estate for New York City, the new Rome, and full of grand ideas of how they could contribute
to the anti-establishment.
Lennon recollected, I'll tell you what happened literally. I got off the boat, only it was an
airplane, and landed in New York, and the first people who got in touch with me was Jerry Rubin
and Abbie Hoffman. It's as simple as that.58 Yoko had lived in New York City before, and so
Lennon and Ono wasted no time in getting an apartment in the Lower West Side at 105 Bank

57 John Lennon, Gimme Some Truth, Imagine, Apple, 1971.

58 John Lennon, Interview with Pete Hamill. Rolling Stone, June 5, 1975,
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1975.0605.beatles.html.

26
Street. James Mitchell wrote of the location, the downtown neighborhood suited Lennons
frame of mind: a gritty yet colorful free-for-all of music, radical politics, art, and dope smoked
openly on the streets; an atmosphere worthy of the finest psychedelic Sgt. Pepper vibes.59
Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, however, had a much more assiduous reputation than anyone
Lennon had been with before. It was Rubin and Hoffman, as founders of the Youth International
PartyYippieswho had incited the demonstration-turned-riot at the Chicago Democratic
Convention in 1968, both were part of the infamous Chicago Seven60 who stood trial. They
may have accepted Lennon with open arms as Lennon originally suggested, but Lennons
celebrity was a decisive influence, a man who could revitalize a fading antiwar movement.61
Lennon wasnt nave, As an individual I still have a lot of power, I can always get on the
media . . . because of the BeatlesOur job now is to tell them there is still hope and we still have
things to do,62 What struck Lennon first was Rubins story about a friend of theirs stuck in a
prison in Michigan, John Sinclair. Sinclair had been a radical activist in the sixties, manager of
the Detroit group MC5, and a founder of the White Panther Party. The White Panthers were a
revolutionary, anti-racist group that had formed in response to Huey P. Newton asking for white
people to form their own Panther Party, and followed many of the same principles of the Black
Panther Manifesto. Sinclair had a recurring problem, marijuana convictions, and in 1969 he was
arrested for giving two joints to undercover police officersand as a third-time offenderhe
was given ten years imprisonment for his troubles.

59 James Mitchell, The Walrus and the Elephants: John Lennons Years of Revolution (New York: Seven Stories
Press, 2013), 14.
60 Ibid, 21-22.
61 Ibid, 24.
62 Ibid, 30.

27
For his part, Lennon seemed ready to just pick up the guitar and help out through music,
compose songs for the revolution63, and when the possibility of a benefit concert was floated
mainly through Sinclairs insistenceJohn and Yoko acquiesced. The pair had yet to make a
single concert appearance after the release of their two successful albums, Plastic Ono Band and
Imagine, and for the left wing Rubin and Sinclair, netting Lennon for a benefit concerthis first
post-Beatle concertseemed like a dream. The concert promoter, Peter Andrews, even got
confirmation from the Lennons recorded on tape:
This is John and Im with Yoko here. I just want to say were coming along to the John
Sinclair bust fund or rally or whatever it is to say hello. I wont be bringing a band or
nothing like that because Im only here as a tourist, but Ill probably fetch me guitar and
we have a song that we wrote for John. Thats that64
The song that Lennon is referring to, John Sinclair, finds Lennon reaching back to his
anthemic hallmark, with a simple and catchy guitar melodic hook, and one of Lennons more
clever brusque summations They gave him ten for two, what else could those bastards do?
Though John Sinclair still hadnt found public release, John and Yoko did release Happy
Xmas (War Is Over) while in New York City in December, evoking both the holiday season,
and the billboard campaign they had done two years prior, a song that still lingers today as a
powerful holidayand antiwarsentiment. When Lennon stood onstage in Ann Arbor on
December 10 at the concert for Sinclair, he announced to the crowd We came here to say to all
of you, apathy isnt it, and we can do something.65 That something became one of Lennons
biggest press junkets of his lifetime. It wasnt a Bed-In, or a concert, but a series of high-profile
appearances across the television. John Lennon and Yoko were bringing their message to
everybodys television set.

63 Mitchell, The Walrus and The Elephants, 27.

64 John Lennon, quoted by Mitchell, The Walrus and The Elephants, 41.
65 David Leaf, The U.S. vs. John Lennon

28
A mere week after the event, John and Yoko were on the David Frost Show, where Revolution
had debuted three years prior, to preform Attica State, an abrasive protest number about a
recent prison riot. What a waste of human power, what a waste of human lives, sang Lennon
Shoot the prisoners in the towers, forty-three poor widowed wives.66 The audience reception
was not enthusiastic. Mitchell sympathizes, for many New Yorkers, the suggestion that all they
need is love and care was not a practical solution, not in a city with crime rates that ranked
among the highest in the world.67 Not to back away from a challenge, Lennon invited the
audience to come down and question him about the song.68 The audience seemed uncomfortable
about glorifying criminals, and Lennon agreed remarking, were like newspapermen, only we
sing about it.69
Eager to demonstrate their credibility as activists in the United States, John and Yoko
reached out to the Mike Douglas Show with an unusual request: let them co-host the show for a
week. To Douglass everlasting credit, he not only said yesit was a ratings coup after allbut
he allowed John and Yoko almost carte blanche in picking guests for the week. Lennon and Ono
wanted to bring on Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Ralph Nader, John Blatchford, even Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger, but the last request fell short.
Of all the guests who appeared that week on the show, it was Jerry Rubin that gave
Douglas the most fits, but Lennon was an able co-host and switched the conversation over to the
recent passage of eighteen year-olds being given the vote. Rubin called for the young people to
vote as a bloc against Nixon and encouraged young people to attend both the Democratic and
Republican conventions. 70 Strom Thurmond must have been apprised of these performances, as
66 John Lennon, Attica State, Sometime in New York City, Apple, 1972.
67 Mitchell, The Walrus and The Elephants, 78.
68 Ibid, 79-80.
69 Ibid, 82.
70 Mitchell, The Walrus and the Elephants, 148.

29
he drafted a memo in February, the same month of the Mike Douglas Show performances, to
Attorney General John Mitchell. The memo detailed:
This group has been strong advocates of the program to dump Nixon . . . They have
devised a plan to hold rock concerts in various primary election states . . . to recruit
persons to come to San Diego during the Republican National Convention in August . .
.the same persons who were instrumental in disrupting the Democratic National
Convention in Chicago in 1968 . . . Davis and his cohorts intend to use John Lennon as a
drawing card to promote their success . . . If Lennons visa were terminated it would be a
strategic countermeasure.71
No longer just a superstar, Lennon was seen as a legitimate political threat. When the Attorney
General passed on the memo to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) head Raymond
Farrell, and on March 6, Lennons visa was revoked.
At least since his first flight into the United States after Imagine, the FBI had been keeping close
tabs on Lennon, a lingering hangover of his disparaging comments towards the U.S. government
during his Bed-In in Montreal. When he performed at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in
December, FBI members had been in the audience to take down lyrics in notebooks.72 Though he
had already been living in the states for six months, The INS gave Lennons cannabis bust as the
reason for his visa being revoked. Yet there remains a record of White House aide William
Timmons responding to Thurmonds memo stating You may be assured the information you
previously furnished has been appropriately noted.73 Lennon was shaken, he had been
challenged as an artist before, but this was an entirely different violation. Lennon used his
renewed relations with the media to press his case, with his first public appearance after the visa
debacle coming on the Dick Cavett Show. Cavett had been a good friend, and John and Yoko had
originally appeared on his show back in September 1971 to promote Imagine and found Cavett

71 Jon Weiner, Come Together: John Lennon in His Time (New York: Random House, 1984), 225.
72 David Leaf, The U.S. vs. John Lennon
73 Timmons, quoted in Mitchell, The Walrus and The Elephants, 159.

30
to be polite, humorous, and engaging, the kind of person they could trust. Besides, Lennon had a
song to promote.
If there was ever a moment that proved Lennon was no bandwagon peacenik, it was his
choice of Woman Is The Nigger Of The World as his first and only single for his upcoming LP,
Sometime In New York City. This was a crucial time to make friends and avoid making waves,
but Lennon instead went with a number that was sure to be controversial. Premiering it on the
Dick Cavett Show, Lennon took questions on the topic, pointing to Irish revolutionary James
Connolly, and his idea of the female worker is the slave of the slave74 and that his choice of
profanity reflected the words of then co-founder and chairman of the Congressional Black
Caucus, Ron Dellums:
If you define 'niggers' as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose
opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society are defined by others, then
Good News! You don't have to be black to be a 'nigger' in this society. Most of the people
in America are 'niggers'. 75
No matter his intentions, Woman Is The Nigger Of The World was vastly unlikely to receive
airplay. It would be the lowest charting single of Lennons career, peaking at number fifty-three
on the Billboard Chart. The album that followed, Sometime In New York City, wouldnt give
Lennon anymore commercial, or even critical leeway. Where Imagine had hid some of its
politics with honeyed melodies and shared space with personal, introspective songs, Sometime In
New York City was singing the news just as Lennon promised. Woman Is The Nigger of the
World, Attica State, New York City, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Luck of the Irish,
John Sinclair, and Angela. It wasnt that the songwriting wasnt strong, but fans were less
than thrilled that Yoko shared half of the album with Lennon, contributing songs like Sisters, O

74 John Lennon, Interview with Dick Cavett, Dick Cavett Show, May 11, 1972.
75 Ron Dellums, quoted by John Lennon, Interview with Dick Cavett, Dick Cavett Show, May 11, 1972

31
Sisters, Born In A Prison, and Were All Water a decision further marred by the inclusion of
two live performances.
Stephen Holden wrote a scathing review in Rolling Stone only a monomaniacal
smugness could allow the Lennons to think that this witless doggerel wouldn't insult the
intelligence and feelings of any audience.76, a feeling that even when he returned to the album
after Lennons death still came across as agitprop rhetoric that numbed the mind. 77 Lennon
thought he had lost his way, after all he considered himself an artist first, politician second and
he was further discouraged by the re-election of Nixon in 1972. The movement around him
was collapsing, Jerry Rubin seemed more concerned with his own celebrity than of the cause,
and the vaunted youth vote had only resulted in a landslide victory for Nixon, if they had
bothered showing up at all. Deeply discouraged, Lennon would remove himself from the
political scene entirely, but not before lashing out at Rubin at a post-election wake, blaming
Rubin for using him to meet his own selfish goals.
Conclusion
But for a brief period in time, John Lennon and Yoko Ono represented the alternative, the
last stronghold of 60s exuberance and counterculture, individuals who had both the influence
and financial might to achieve something greater than personal wealth. Writing after his
assassination, Holden tried to sum up the walking contradiction, and inimitable personality that
was Lennon:
More than any other rock musician (with the possible exception of Bob Dylan), John
Lennon personalized the political and politicized the personal, often making the two
stances interchangeable but sometimes ripping out the seams altogether. He not only
attacked the war any war but questioned and confronted the very methods and
76 John Holden, Sometime In New York City, Rolling Stone, July 20, 1972.
77 John Holden, Lennons Music: A Range of Genius, Rolling Stone, January 22, 1981
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lennons-music-a-range-of-genius-20101207.

32
structures he'd utilized in his attack, thereby pushing rock & roll up against the wall to
test limits and demand answers. John Lennon believed passionately that popular music
could and should do more than merely entertain, and by acting out this conviction, he
changed the face of rock & roll forever. By taking such huge risks, he sometimes failed or
seemed silly. Yet, in retrospect, even his failures take on the glow of nobility: the fact that
he cared so much shines through his occasional shortcomings.78
Certainly Lennon and Ono were far from the only ones to contribute protest music during the
60s and 70s, but of that group, only Lennon and Ono expanded into performance art and in
doing so became the cultural representatives of the peace movement. Despite leaving the public
eye in the mid seventies, and in 1980, leaving this world for good, Lennon is a permanent fixture
as a peace activist because of what he hoped he could accomplish, and what he was able to do.
Lennon and Ono tried to translate the feel-good flower-power era into a cultural unity, that the
evils of the world could be banished if people realized they werent so different. When the U.S.
government threatened Lennon and Ono with deportation, Joan Baez wrote. Keeping people
confined to certain areas of the world was one of the reasons weve had six thousand years of
war instead of six thousand years of peace.79 Lennon, with tremendous help from Ono, tried to
broach the concept of peace with the thought-provoking and audience-captivating types of pieces
that had made Ono a name in the art world. To this day, their symbols live on, but their work is
far from over. Lennons campaign was unfinished, frustrated by the very concerns he voiced in
Revolution. The Yippies had taken his celebrity to advance their own spotlightJerry Rubin
had been entranced by the trappings of power that he had originally railed against and for all his
faults, the organization collapsed without such energetic leadership. But the failed outcomethe
election of Nixonshouldnt be seen as an abject failure of Lennons activism. Rather, Lennons
protests were seen as so potent that the United States made a conscious effort to remove him

78 John Holden, Lennons Music: A Range of Genius

79 Joan Baez, quoted in Mitchell, The Walrus and the Elephants, 197.

33
from the playing field. The structure, and import of Lennons work remains vital and shouldnt
be overlookedor criticizedby political activists.
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