Vatican: Beatles music better than today's songs
AP VATICAN CITY – Vatican media are praising the Beatles' musical legacy and sounding philosophical about John Lennon's boast that the British band was more popular than Jesus.
Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano recalls that Lennon's comment outraged many when he made it in 1966.
But it says in its Saturday edition that the remark can be written off now as the bragging of a young man wrestling with unexpected success.
The newspaper as well as Vatican Radio last week noted the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' "White Album
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That lil load of crap came out today....
It doesn't help the Vatican's case that so many of us were alive and listening when that first statement of popularity came tumbling out of John's mouth.
In fact, the Vatican didn't react nearly as vocally or violently as the evangelistic American South did. The Beatles probably made a mint off the records bought to just be burned. And I am certain a fair number of people then went out later trying to replace the music they had flung into "holy" fires on an ecstatical whim.
Wouldn't it be ironic to find out that the Beatles' hit # 1 with a few albums or 45s BECAUSE people had bought them to destroy or replace what had been destroyed.
And as for the statement, yes, John had a fair amount of arrogance as well as being confused a bit by the extremes of the fanatasism the band was exposed to, but he was also John Lennon. He never ever had a problem mouthing his opinion...just had a little trouble with discression. The Beatles were quite possibly bigger than any religion at the time. They might actually be looked upon as a new religion, one than people still follow to this day- I know of a few myself. There is no way I could possibly know as much as I do today about the Fab Four (or the Pre-Fab Four!) without having been the friend for more than 30 years of a Beatles fanatic.
I heard bootlegs of almost every live concert the band did, outtakes from recording sessions (in a studio in London I got to visit in 1980- no, not Abbey Road- the Decca studios where they recorded their first demos!), got to learn details about the lives of the Beatles that were never really anyone else's business, ...
And lastly on a trip to the UK that tested our friendship to the hilt, I stood at Strawberry Fields, Menlove Ave., "the roundabout where the nurse was selling poppies from a tray," ...and Crackerbox Palace gate. I stood in front of Paul's london house and walked across the street in front o Abbey Road Studios.....
If none of that means a thing to you, you are not a Beatles fanatic.
Trust me, the Vatican may be trying to be "cool" by kind of forgiving John for his forthright statement but I don't think anyone there quite understands how very much the Beatles changed the world. Recording techniques, live concert needs, songwriting approach.....the list is nearly endless. I must agree that much of the current "popular" music absolutely sucks, but I don't think for a minute that the Vatican has any business trying to "absolve" John or the other Beatles for being "confused young men." John Ono Lennon and the Beatles legacy have become "gods" of a sort, and will remain so a long as their music can reach ears.
It goes beyond rules and regulations. It goes beyond religion. It came from the heart, which is why it touched so many, and still does.
It is also why we miss John, and George, so very much. The world will be a colder place indeed, if the Beatles are allowed to fade away.
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