52 years ago

[mac56]

John Lennon made an off-the-cuff, flippant exaggeration that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus Christ."

Heads exploded, men gasped, women screamed, children wailed, and dogs howled.

52 years later, Kanye West made a serious statement that the captivity and slavery of Africans in America was just their choice.

* crickets *

[unblock]

1. in all fairness, kanye west is not remotely as popular as jesus christ.

and he's certainly no john lennon.

52 years ago, huge throngs of people were eagerly anticipating anything the beatles did.

today, kanye?

meh.

we just don't care as much about what he said because we don't care as much about him.


plus, we already knew he was an idiot.

[Sailor65x1]

2. I think there is a difference behind it.

I think very few people take Kanye seriously. The stuff he said just seems to flow with his every day schtick. As silly as I thought his statement was, I wasn't terribly surprised that he said it.

[karynnj]

3. Lennon's comment was not "off the cuff" or flippant, it was from a long

interview with Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard. It raised little controversy in England, but when that interview and others were printed in a US teen magazine, Datebook, it led to a fury.

Years later, John Lennon wrote:

In an autobiographical fragment, he writes: “I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn’t said 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.” And thank you, John, for writing that.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/the-beatles/6769205/Nowhere-Boy-Maureen-Cleave-remembers-John-Lennon.html

(The link is worth reading - it was written when the movie "Nowhere Boy" based on Lennon as a teenager was done - written by the same reporter. I had never read this and found it googling the remembered name of the reporter to make sure a name remembered from nearly 5 decades ago was right.)

The comment is fascinating in view of the current time period, where the hypocrisy of the religious right is even more blatant or at least more openly displayed.

[mac56]

6. Except that Nowhere Boy came out in 2009

And Lennon had been dead for 29 years.

[karynnj]

7. Maureen Cleave did some in depth interviews in 1965/1966 of the then living Beatles

The article I linked to was from when Nowhere Boy came out. I linked to it because I thought the 1970s vintage John quote was timely relating to the response.

As I said, I had remembered the name of the reporter, but given that it was about 5 decades ago -- I googled the name to make sure I had it, the London paper and the US Teen magazine correct. I did -- but thought the 1970s comment an interesting perspective on the entire thing.

As someone who was 13/14 in 1964, this was something I was very aware of. I went to the Chicago concert with a friend.

[fescuerescue]

4. 52.5 years from today

John Lennon will still be discussed and considered great.

Kayne. Long forgotten.

[TomSlick]

5. Yeah, but

Lennon was intelligent so his comments were taken seriously.

[LeftInTX]

8. 1966 we were pretty tame society

I remember being shocked by John's statement.
(I was 10)

Nowadays, nothing celebs say is shocking.

Kanye???