Infamous Rock Quotes -- John Lennon

"We're more popular than Jesus."
                                                                                                                        -- John Lennon, 1966

Two years after they first invaded America, the Beatles were used to being accosted by screaming teenage girls -- not by screaming middle-aged Bible thumpers. That changed on the eve of their third U.S. tour when American teen rag DATEbook printed John Lennon's comparison of his band to a somewhat more revered pop-culture figure. Mass protests ensued: The Vatican denounced John Lennon's remarks, Alabama radio station WAQY provided a giant tree-grinding machine for listeners to destroy Beatles records, the Ku Klux Klan organized similar Beatles bonfires and tried to stop a Memphis concert, and the love-song-singing lads even received death threats.

Two weeks into the tour -- at an Aug. 11 press conference in Chicago that found the Fab Four hanging their heads like reprimanded schoolboys -- Lennon explained that he had merely been referring to the worldwide frenzy of Beatlemania and that his words were "never meant to be a lousy anti-religion thing." The Vatican accepted his apology, but the death threats -- and, of course, all those screaming girls -- had taken their toll. The Beatles' Aug. 29 concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park would be their last.


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