{"id":309,"date":"2011-03-23T09:19:18","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T13:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=309"},"modified":"2012-07-15T19:57:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-15T23:57:37","slug":"john-lennon-were-only-trying-to-get-us-some-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/john-lennon-were-only-trying-to-get-us-some-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lennon: \u2018We\u2019re Only Trying to Get Us Some Peace\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton,
\nTalking in our beds for a week.
\nThe newspaper said, \u201cSay what you doing in bed?\u201d
\nI said, \u201cWe\u2019re only trying to get us some peace.\u201d
\n\u2014John Lennon, \u201cThe Ballad of John and Yoko\u201d (1969)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was 1969, and the Vietnam War was raging. Protests, riots and societal turmoil were ripping at the seams of the western world. Into this political furnace stepped the unlikely characters of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.<\/p>\n

John and Yoko married in March, checked into the Amsterdam Hilton in Holland for their honeymoon and, to the surprise of many, immediately announced that a \u201chappening\u201d was about to take place in their bed. Holland was permissive, but even the chief of Amsterdam\u2019s vice squad issued a warning to anyone planning to attend. Despite this, 50 news people crowded outside John and Yoko\u2019s hotel room, Suite 902. \u201cThese guys were sweating to fight to get in first because they thought we were going to make love in bed. That\u2019s where their minds were at,\u201d Lennon later recalled.<\/p>\n

This week marks the 42nd anniversary of John and Yoko\u2019s first infamous bed-in for peace in Amsterdam. Immortalized in the Beatles\u2019 song \u201cThe Ballad of John and Yoko,\u201d the bed-ins were much more than sensational media events staged by celebrities for whom the \u201ccause\u201d is politically expedient and risk-free, which we see so much of today. Rather, the bed-ins for peace (and against war) were John and Yoko\u2019s way of taking a moral stand on what they considered to be\u00a0the<\/em>issue of their day, and they paid the price for it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John Lennon and Yoko Ono.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The concept of the bed-ins and their \u201corigins lie in Yoko\u2019s days as a performance artist, and the notion that spectacular public action can be an art form in itself,\u201d writes Paul DuNoyer in\u00a0We All Shine On<\/em>(1997). \u201cJohn, too, was shrewdly aware of how the \u2018bed-in\u2019 concept might titillate the press and TV crews with its implicit (though ultimately unfulfilled) promise of sexual exhibitionism.\u201d However, when newsmen entered the room, John and Yoko were sitting in bed, wearing pajamas. And they announced that they would stay in bed for a week as \u201cour protest against all the suffering and violence in the world.\u201d The idea was to use the amazing image that Lennon the Beatle possessed in order to promote peace.<\/p>\n

For seven days, starting on March 26, John and Yoko conducted interviews ten hours a day, starting at ten in the morning. In response to their efforts, a media frenzy ensued. \u201cWe did the bed-in in Amsterdam just to give people the idea that there are many ways of protest,\u201d Lennon said. \u201cProtest by peace in any way, but peacefully. We think peace is only got by peaceful methods. To fight the establishment with their own weapons is no good because they always win, and they\u2019ve been winning for thousands of years. They know how to play the game of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

One interviewer, however, noted that some were not taking John and Yoko and the bed-ins seriously, saying they were humorous. Lennon replied, \u201cWe stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strangely enough, Lennon\u2019s antics raised the ire of both the Left and the Right. Indeed, Lennon\u2019s pacifism seemed misplaced to the Left. As one columnist for the\u00a0Village Voice<\/em> wrote, \u201cLennon would never have achieved enlightenment if thousands of his forbears hadn\u2019t suffered drudgery far worse than protest marches and cared enough about certain ideals\u2014and realities\u2014to risk death for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Left was hostile, the establishment press was outraged by the bed-ins. \u201cThis must rank as the most self-indulgent demonstration of all time,\u201d one columnist wrote. To John and Yoko, for whom the bed-ins were deeply personal, the stark criticism cut deeply. As Lennon later lamented in \u201cThe Ballad of John and Yoko\u201d:<\/p>\n

Christ you know it ain\u2019t easy,
\nYou know how hard it can be.
\nThe way things are going
\nThey\u2019re gonna crucify me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite the criticism levied against the bed-ins, they represented an astute exercise in media politics. \u201cJohn and Yoko rejected the view held by many in the antiwar movement,\u201d writes professor Jan Wiener in\u00a0Come Together: John Lennon in His Time<\/em> (1991), \u201cthat the newspapers and TV were necessarily and exclusively the instruments of corporate domination of popular consciousness. The two of them sought to work within the mass media, to undermine their basis, to use them, briefly and sporadically, against the system in which they functioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a media event, the Amsterdam bed-in and subsequent ones held by John and Yoko certainly made headlines, but were they effective in helping the anti-war movement? It was a question that frustrated Lennon to no end. For example, when asked about the success of the bed-ins, an irritated Lennon responded, \u201cSome guy wrote, \u2018Now, because of your event in Amsterdam, I\u2019m not joining the RAF, I\u2019m growing my hair.\u2019\u201d And when a skeptical reporter asked whether staying in bed meant anything, Lennon replied, \u201cImagine if the American army stayed in bed for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the first bed-in in Amsterdam was historically significant , the second one in Montreal was musically significant, resulting in one of the great peace anthems of the 20th century when Lennon composed and recorded \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d in his hotel room. As DuNoyer writes:<\/p>\n

By 1 June John felt he had a powerful peace anthem on his hands, and ordered up a tape machine. Still in bed with Yoko, with a placard behind them proclaiming \u201cHair Peace\u201d, he invited all his varied guests (including the LSD guru Timothy Leary, comedian Tommy Smothers on guitar, singer Petula Clark, a local rabbi and several members of the Montreal Radha Krishna Temple) to sing along to his new composition. \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d was a chugging, repetitive mantra, interspersed with John\u2019s impromptu rapping, a babbled litany of random name-checks (ranging from the novelist Norman Mailer to the English comedian Tommy Cooper) and impatient dismissals of \u201cthis-ism, that-ism\u201d. The rapping was a decade ahead of its time. But it was not of primary importance, for this was another of John\u2019s \u201cheadline\u201d songs (in the tradition of \u201cAll You Need Is Love\u201d and \u201cPower to the People\u201d) whose deliberately simplistic chorus mattered far more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Years later, Lennon said, \u201cIn my heart, I wanted to write something that would take over \u2018We Shall Overcome.\u2019\u201d With \u201cGive Peace a Chance,\u201d he succeeded. In fact, within several months of recording the song it was being played on radio stations around the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their Bed-in for Peace in Amsterdam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By October of 1969, \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d was a universal chant at anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. On November 15, during a peace rally in Washington, DC, the legendary folk singer Pete Seeger led nearly half a million demonstrators in singing \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d at the Washington Monument. \u201cThe people started swaying their bodies and banners and flags in time,\u201d Seeger later recalled, \u201cseveral hundred thousand people, parents with their small children on their shoulders. It was a tremendously moving thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Lennon was asked what he thought about that day. \u201cI saw pictures of that Washington demonstration on British TV, with all those people singing it, forever and not stopping,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was one of the biggest moments of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

At year\u2019s end, Lennon told interviewer Barry Miles: \u201cThere\u2019s a mass of propaganda gone out from those two bed-ins… Every garden party this summer in Britain, every small village everywhere, the winning couple was the kids doing John and Yoko in bed with the posters around… Instead of everybody singing \u2018Yeah Yeah Yeah\u2019 they\u2019re just singing \u2018Peace\u2019 instead. And I believe in the power of the mantra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just before leaving Great Britain in 1971 to live in America, Lennon told biographer Ray Coleman, \u201cI\u2019d like everyone to remember us with a smile. But, if possible, just as John and Yoko who created world peace forever. The whole of life is a preparation for death. I\u2019m not worried about dying. When we go, we\u2019d like to leave behind a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGive Peace a Chance,\u201d the one lasting remnant of the bed-ins, was to enter the world\u2019s consciousness more completely than any other song Lennon wrote. Eleven years after the infamous bed-ins, as tearful mourners gathered outside the Dakota Building on the night of Lennon\u2019s murder, this was the song that they instinctively chose to express their grief and commemorate his life.<\/p>\n

When the management at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel heard the news of John Lennon\u2019s death, they turned out all the lights in the building as a mark of respect\u2014that is, with the exception of Suite 902, which shone like a beacon over the city. That room is now a museum of sorts with a collection of books, videos and paraphernalia on both Lennon and the Beatles. And fittingly, on the ceiling are the opening words to \u201cAll You Need Is Love\u201d:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing you can do that can\u2019t be done.
\nNothing you can sing that can\u2019t be sung.
\nNothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
\nIt\u2019s easy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John W. Whitehead explores the bed-in for peace this week, the 42nd anniversary of the event. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,214],"tags":[24,69,23,8,91],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3057,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/3057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}