July 31, 1966. Elvis couldnt do it. The Rolling Stones couldnt do it. The Beach Boys couldnt do it. By the middle of 1966, The Beatles were the most influential and successful band in the world. They were proving that a band could be both commercially and artistically successful at the same time. The previous year they had broken concert records, playing the first show ever in a stadium setting, and were coming off the release of their greatest album to date Rubber Soul. To say they were unstoppable would be an understatement. The only thing that could destroy The Beatles were the members themselves. And this is what almost happened, from a quote that John Lennon had given a few months earlier to a journalist at his home. A journalist by the name of Maureen Cleave who had been a friend of all of the members of The Band had wanted to do stories about the home life of each member. On March 4, 1966 she arrived at John Lennons home to interview him in a friendly setting. It wasnt an article to get dirt or gossip, that wasnt her intention at all. In fact, since John considered her a friend he felt very comfortable with the interview, and had no problem opening up. At one point in the article the subject of religion came up and John made the now famous statement about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus. He wasnt bragging, he was talking about the state of religion and churches of the times. When the article was released in the UK it didnt cause any uproar at all. In fact Maureen didnt even bring attention to the quote. The headline was How Does A Beatle Live ?. A few months later an American teen magazine called Datebook got a hold of the story, and put the Bigger In Jesus statement in the headlines. Once the story was released on July 31, 1966 two Alabama disc jockeys ran with it in the Bible Belt, and set up protests to burn all Beatles related material. Thousands of records, tapes, books, magazines, etc were burned and destroyed. The Beatles would come back to America for a final leg of their American tour, which would turn out to be their last tour ever to protests to death threats. Finally Beatles manger Brian Epstein started damage control, including an apology from John. The comments would haunt John the rest of his life. Years later most of those people who burned their records would buy them again, and realize how rediculous the whole thing was. Especially when shown in context. Thank goodness that scandal would not destroy them. How many of you remember while that was happening ? And how many of you (be honest) burned those records and then bought them again. Watching those bonfires is torture for me. Can you imagine what some of that stuff would be worth now ???
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 02:04:38 +0000
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