The Beatles, one of the most popular bands in the 20th century, were also the most banned. In a 1966 interview with British journalist Maureen Cleave, Beatles member John Lennon said "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue that, I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now." (Sterngold 1) The remarks were published in London's Evening Standard on March 4, 1966 as part of Cleave's article, "How Does A Beatle Live." It provoked little comment, but when it was reprinted in the U.S. teen magazine Datebook, it caused outrage, especially in the southern states. (Inglis 168) The first protest took place in Birmingham, Alabama, where disc jockey Tommy Charles encouraged protestors to throw Beatles' albums in a giant tree-grinding machine. (Inglis 170) Throughout the states, Beatle records were shredded, burned, and many radio stations refused to play their songs. (Inglis)
It was so bad, the Beatles were "musically trash, inanity, long-haired slobs who twang, screech, and thump in a mixture of unrelated noise that would insult the ear of any self-respecting orangutan," according to possibily the most notorious anti-Beatles campaigner Reverend David A. Noebel of the Christian Crusade, an evangelical anti-communist group. (Jansen 45) He attacked the Beatles, accusing them of being Communists, telling Newsweek that the Beatles "were propelling U.S. youngsters into an excited state in which they would do whatever they were told, and that when the revolution was ripe, the Communists would put the Beatles on television on order to hypnotise U.S. youth." (Inglis 172) He also told everyone, "let's make sure four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks don't destroy our nation." He claimed that Russian scientists had used artifical neurosis to break down animals, and that this was what the Bealtes, and popular music generally, were now repeating (Inglis). He argued that "The Beatles' ability to make teenagers take off their clothes and riot is labortary tested and approved. It is scientifically labelled mass hypnosis and artificial neurosis." (Inglis 173) He advised fans to throw their Bealtes' albums away and forced radio statiosn to stop playing "the devil's songs"...and many surprisingly did. In addition, Noebel accused the Beatles of putting subliminal messages in several of their songs, including "Ob La Di, Ob La Da," where he claimed that if you played it backwards, it is "I devil, he devil." (Inglis) He also argued that the song "Helter Skelter" contained the message, "I like Satan yeah...and I always like the way you live." (Inglis 175)
Another Christian fundamentalist, Jeff Godwin, referred to Lennon as a "Communist needle junkie and as a communist dopehead and a drug abuser, wife beater, a heroin addict, a Communist sympathiser, a habitual liar and drunkard, not to mention being an adulteer and an arrogant, foul mouthed blasphemer of Jesus Christ." (Jansen 46)
The reaction was so bad, the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein considered cancelling the U.S. tour, in fear that one of the Beatles might be assissinated. The Beatles received hate mail and death threats, and the US media demanded that Lennon apologized to the nation. (Szatmary 131)
On Auguest 11, 1966, five months after Lennon's comments about contemporary religion were made in the Evening Standard, he apologized in a press conference in Chicago. He said, "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not knocking it. I was not saying we are greater or better..." (Inglis 192) The media and the public, for the most part, accepted the apology, although some did not and showed their anger by throwing firecrackers on stage and telephoning death threats on the band's concerts. Anti-Beatle fever spread through Spain and South Africa, where they were banned from the airwaves. (Inglis 200)
The Beatles' 1966 album Yesterday and Today was heavily censored by critics because it shows the Beatles wearing butcher's smocks and covered with bloody meat and decapitated babies. (Inglis) Why did they do this? During the zenith of their popularity in the 60s, Capitol Records had regularly took off one or two songs from each of their albums to create an "extra" Beatles album, like Yesterday and Today. The Beatles hated this, but were contractually unable to do anything about it. (Inglis) So as a form of protest, they ordered the photographer to take a picture of them with the ripped apart babies and meat. (Nuzum "Parental") The idea was to show the band as "butchers", hinting at how their American record companies had butchered their British albums to make these "extra" records. Many people complained about the horrific cover and Capitol was forced to replace the cover with a much tamer one. (Inglis) Time called the cover "a serios lapse in taste," while Lennon thought that the cover was as relevant as the US involvement in Vietnam. Capitol Records, however, had made thousands of these "butcher" covers, and throwing them all away would be costly. (Nuzum "Radio Suckers")
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