John lennon power to the people7/25/2023 ![]() ![]() Pro-democracy students used it to protest America's military campaign in Vietnam. The Black Panthers used the slogan "All Power to the People" to protest the rich, ruling class domination of society. The sentiment is just as important now as when it was written and released 50 years ago.”Ī limited edition vinyl version of the Imagine album is being released this week, featuring outtakes including the original demo of the title track." Power to the people" is a cultural expression and political slogan that has been used in a wide variety of contexts.ĭuring the 1960s in the United States, young people began speaking and writing this phrase as a form of rebellion against what they perceived as the oppression by the older generation, especially The Establishment. We are still together now and we still believe this. Imagine embodied what we believed together at the time. ![]() Ono, 88, said: “John would have loved this. ![]() The occasion is being celebrated with the lyric “imagine all the people living life in peace” being projected on landmarks around the world, including St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Berlin Wall, and in New York’s Times Square. This week also marks the 50th anniversary of Lennon’s song Imagine, first released on 9 September 1971. Paul Fairweather, of Omega Auctions in Merseyside, said: “John’s witty insight and proclamations are vintage Lennon and there is much in here that will greatly excite Beatles fans. And once there was nobody making plans for us, we didn’t want any plans, so we don’t make them.” “The Beatles never made plans after they stopped touring,” Lennon says. The imminent end of the Beatles, who broke up in mid-1970, is presaged when he is asked for their future plans. He can only hope, he can only sort of judge it … people are wasting their time writing about music. Lennon describes fame in dark terms, comparing himself to a pilgrim that is constantly tempted: “We became possessed by a spirit of people adoring us … having all that energy that people gave to us … we lose the way.” He is also disparaging of music critics: “The critic can never be the artist and so never understand what is going on. Zeilig asks him why he originally accepted and Lennon replies: “Well, I was a hypocrite, and I was on the make … if you get a medal for killing, you should certainly get a medal for singing, and keeping Britain’s economics in good nick.” I had to write three letters: one to the Queen, one to Harold Wilson, and one to the … something of the Chancellery.” He explains why he returned his MBE in 1969: “A protest against Britain’s involvement in Biafra and Nigeria, and about Britain’s backing of the United States morally and verbally in Vietnam. But we really believe in prevention rather than cure.” If we have enough money we will do both, we will try and do both. Speaking to Zeilig, Lennon gives his reasoning for protesting rather than giving financial aid: “People will probably say: ‘Why didn’t you give rice?’ and our answer is, we are trying to prevent cancer and not cure it after it’s happened. Lennon and Ono had recently staged a pair of peace protests, in beds in Montreal and Amsterdam hotel rooms, against the Vietnam war. It’s like a pet cat … nurtured like a very sensitive animal, because that’s what it is.” On love itself, he says: “It has its storms to go through, and snow, but you have to protect it. made me myself.” He longs to die at “exactly the same minute” as her, “otherwise, even if it’s three minutes later, it’s gonna be hell. Ono, he says, “recultivated the natural John Lennon … that had been lost in the Beatles thing, in the worldwide thing, and all that. Lennon is interviewed alongside Ono, who he had married in March 1969, and speaks with great tenderness of his love for her. John Lennon and Yoko Ono protest at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam in March 1969. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |