The Beatles & The Christian Ku Klux Klan

 

 

The Beatles' "Bigger Than Jesus" controversy

"I apologize if that will make you happy" -John Lennon

It was the most infamous and disruptive moment in a Beatles history that was filled with them: the magazine interview where John Lennon, in predicting Christianity's decline, declared the band to be "more popular than Jesus now." The ensuing outrage helped kick the band offstage for good, jump start the youth counterculture of the '60s in America -- and almost get the band killed.The following explains the controversy's origins, its scope, its aftermath, and influence.

What was the source of the original "Bigger Than Jesus" quote?

Answer: On March 4, 1966, John's friend Maureen Cleave, a reporter for the London Evening Standard who'd first met the Beatle in 1963, met Lennon at his Tudor mansion in Weybridge for an article on his daily life, part of a four-part series where she interviewed each Beatle separately. The rather slight result revealed a bored, isolated, and somewhat jaded Lennon living at home with wife Cynthia and restlessly searching for new artistic directions; perhaps as part of that restlessness, it also found him questioning many established ideas he'd grown up with. The quote about Jesus, in full, comes in the context of a paragraph that reads as follows:

Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in him: not that his mind is closed, but it's closed round whatever he believes at the time. "Christianity will go," he said. "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." He is reading extensively about religion.

How did the controversy begin?

Answer: The full article, entitled "How Does A Beatle Live?" was published in the London Evening Standard on March 4, 1966. John's pronouncements stirred little interest in an already-polarized England; Cleave herself has said that the staff of the Standard assumed John meant the Jesus quote "ironically." However, in August 1966, the American teen magazine Datebook published Lennon's Jesus quote on its cover, as part of a series of quotes from pop idols of the day. John's quote -- "I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity" -- was immediately seized upon by American audiences as sacrilegious, especially in the South. (Oddly, there was no complaint over Paul's uncensored quote on the same cover: "It's a lousy country where anyone black is a dirty n*****!")

What was the public's response?

Answer: WAQY-AM in Birmingham, AL was the first to announce an on-air ban of Beatles records, followed closely by Memphis' WREB. Texas was especially indignant, with KMIL, KZEE, and KTEO all announcing lifetime no-forgiveness bans. All told, approximately three dozen stations across the country banned the Beatles, leading to bans in other nations with pronounced Christian heritages like Mexico, Italy, and South Africa. Public bonfires of Beatles records became popular in the South, and listeners were encouraged to boycott all stops on the band's upcoming fall 1966 tour. The Memphis city council itself attempted to ban the Beatles' scheduled appearance, while a South Carolina chapter of the KKK nailed a Beatles album to a wooden cross in protest and burned it.

The Vatican was quick to denounce the group for John's comments; its paper of record, L'Osservatore Romano, noted "some subjects must not be dealt with profanely, even in the world of beatniks." One Baptist preacher in Cleveland threatened anyone who went to the next Beatle concert with excommunication.

How did the controversy affect their next tour?

Answer: Although all the band's planned concerts went on as scheduled, the tour turned out to be a miserable one for the Beatles. Although the furor more or less died down after the press conference, diehard Beatle haters phoned death threats in at several stops on the tour. In Memphis on August 14, the entire group flinched when someone threw a lit firecracker on stage; all were sure someone had been shot. Some stations also kept their Beatle ban, especially in Texas, where about two dozen station managers, apparently egged on by listeners, refused to budge.

The controversy is seen as one of if not the deciding factor in the Beatles' decision to stop touring. In his 1978 book Skywriting By Word Of Mouth, John declares, "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."

Are the Beatles bigger than Jesus?

Answer: No.

Google Trends proves that Jesus, year in and year out, is more popular of a search term than "Beatles" -- about 2 1/2 times more popular, in fact. However, during the remastered albums release in September 2009, the Beatles did spike in search popularity, becoming more popular than Jesus for about a week.

For one thing, 72 percent of Americans and 76 percent of Britons self-identify as Christians, the same number would probably claim to be Beatle fans. 600 million Beatles albums have been sold worldwide, but the number of Bibles sold, while impossible to know exactly, is probably above that.

Even in the time and place John was speaking from -- mid-60s Britain -- Jesus probably had a higher approval rating. Assuming of course, you included adults, most of whom still loathed all forms of rock, in that figure.

However, John's comment about Christianity being on the wane appears to have been correct: in both the UK and the US, numbers of Christians have been on a steady decline since the 1950s.

What did John Lennon really think of Jesus and God?

Answer: Quotes from John Lennon:

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain."

"We're all Christ and we`re all Hitler. We are trying to make Christ's message contemporary. We want Christ to win. What would he have done if he had advertisements, TV, records, films and newspapers? The miracle today is communication. So let`s use it."

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammad and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

How did the Beatles themselves respond to the controversy?

Answer: Sensing the mounting outrage, and on the eve of a world tour at that, Beatles manager Brian Epstein convinced the band to hold an apologetic press conference in Chicago at the start of the American leg. Held on August 11, 1966, it showed the other members of the group standing up for Lennon's remarks:

Paul: "Well, I think it's a bit silly. It seems a bit like a publicity stunt on their part, you know. I think they're not going to gain anything by doing that."

George: "It's the same old wrong mess. They've just taken it the wrong way, and that's just the pity that... It's this misunderstanding which shouldn't be... Well, in the context that it was meant -- it was the fact that Christianity is declining, and everybody knows about that, and that was the fact that was trying to be made... I agree that it's on the wane."

Ringo: "Well, I just hope it's all over now, you know. I hope everyone's straightened out, and it's finished."

For his part, John seemed pained and genuinely confused as to why America had responded so negatively to his statement, but there was a hint of defiance as well:

"I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it, but I just happened to be talking to a friend and I used the word '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...

"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 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...

"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."

Later that day, at a second, more private presser with hand-picked reporters, the atmosphere was less tense:

John: "When I first heard [of the controversy], I thought it can't be true... but when I realized it was serious, I was worried stiff because I knew how it would go on. All the nasty things that would get said about it and all those miserable looking pictures of me looking like a cynic. And they'd go on and on and on until it would get out of hand and I couldn't control it. I really can't answer for it when it gets this big. It's nothing to do with me now.

"'Cause we could've just sort of hidden in England and said, 'We're not going, we're not going!' You know, that occured to me when I heard it all. I couldn't remember saying it. I couldn't remember the article. I was panicking, saying, 'I'm not going at all,' you know. But if they sort of straighten it out, it will be worth it, and good. Isn't that right, Ringo?...

"I don't profess to be a practicing Christian, and Christ was what he was and anything anybody says great about him I believe. I'm not a practicing Christian, but I don't have any un-Christian thoughts."

Paul: "Yeah. The thing is that they seem to think that by saying that, you know, John's gettin' at them. But he isn't at all, you know. It's just a straight comment on something, which may be right and may be wrong, but he's gotta answer as he feels honestly, you know. And if they think that for him to say that is wrong then they don't believe in free speech, you know. And I thought everyone here did."