wellRED podcast - This Week In Southern History #2: Bigger Than Jesus (From Through The Screen Door With Corey Ryan Forrester)

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Hey y'all! Here is a little bonus segment for ya that can be found over on my NEW podcast Through The Screen Door W/ Corey Ryan Forrester! In This installment of TWISH we look back at the backlash the Beatles faced after John Lennon's infamous "Bigger Than Jesus" comment!The new podcast should be available on all your favorite platforms soon, but if it isn't yet, just go to screendoorpod.com !

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They're the. Hey everybody. It's your boy. The show Corey Ryan Forster. Here's a little bonus content from you from my new podcast through the screen door with Cory Ryan Forster. This is a little segment that I do every week called This Week in Southern History. where I take a look back at something that happened, well, this week in the South, and I review it and I write a little story about it.

This week, the story that I wrote about was the time that two Birmingham DJs encouraged everyone to burn their Beatles records, because John Lennon had told everyone, or at least made a comment in an English newspaper, that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Of course, there was a little bit more to it than that, as people know. but if you don't know, then take a listen to this. And if you like it, please subscribe to my new podcast, through the screen door with Corey Ryan Forster, rate review, give it five stars if you think we deserve it, and tell your friends.

Ski-you. For this edition of This Week in Southern History, we're going to go back to 1966. And what a year it was. Medicare officially went into effect. Batman, starring Adam West, Bert Ward, and Caesar Romero, premiered on television,

and a Buddhist set himself on, fire at the U.S. consulate in South Vietnam. You've all seen the picture. But before we get to this week in Southern history, we will need to go back a few months and discuss that week in British history. It was March of 1966, and a London newspaper called the Evening Standard had just done an interview with John Lennon. Now, that isn't unusual or of any note of its own. I mean, this was the newspaper in London, and this was John Freaking Lennon. They're going to chat from time to time. What did, however, cause quite a stir is what John Lennon said in the interview, when he argued that the public were more infatuated with the Beatles than they were with Jesus,

and subsequently, by his estimation, rock and roll would outlast Christianity. Now, you may be asking, well, Corey, if this happened in March of 1966, then why are you covering it for the last week of July? And first off, I'd like to say, How dare you? But secondly, I'll tell you why. It's because it took until July 29, 1966, for that interview to make its way into the hands of two Birmingham, Alabama disc jockeys who, regardless of intention, were about to cause a ripple effect that would affect rock and roll forever, and depending on how far you were willing to reach, aid in ending the life of one of its true pioneers. You see, the interview didn't really get that much heat when it was published in England. I mean, it seems that as much as we make fun of them for their hot, unsweetened tea, their cucumber sandwiches,

and the way they say things like theater and laboratory, our friends from across the pond aren't really that sensitive about Jesus talk. The same, of course, cannot be said when it comes to the people from the religious rural South in 1966. So, on July 29th, when Doug Layton informed his co-host Tommy Charles that some loud-mouthed, long-haired and worst of all, foreign hippie-dippy dip-dip shit was jawing off about being bigger than their lord and savior. Well, that was the last straw. We just felt it was so absurd and sacrilegious

that something ought to be done to show them that they can't get away with this sort of thing, said Tommy Charles. And what was that something that ought to be done? It was destroying Beatles' records on air. Some might say, like petulant fucking children. I would never say that, Some might. And not only that, they would take this obtuse teenage temper tantrum a step further

by encouraging their listeners to burn their Beatles records. That's right. Across the south, bonfires were held where teenagers would show up in masses to set fire to the music they once loved, like a Viking funeral for their childhood, which had been stolen from them by the bad man saying no-no words about their sky friend. Right before the comments made waves in the States, the Beatles were preparing for their fourth concert tour of America, a concert tour that they hated. Between protests and album burnings and death threats, coupled with the fact that ticket sales, while still financially tremendous, were on the decline from the previous year, the Beatles had finally had enough. The group that drove women crazy, that inspired a haircut, that exploded

on Ed Sullivan and later changed music as we know it, the Beatles. Stop touring forever. Sure, that didn't mean the Beatles were done making music. I mean, hell-fired later that year they recorded Sergeant Pepper as the Lonely Hearts Club band. And of course, when the Beatles finally did break up, they all went on to have tremendous solo careers. I mean, you know, they were the fucking Beatles, man. Paul would go on to form wings. George Harrison would release a plethora of feel-good psychedelic tunes,

and later, with Tom Petty and Roy Orbison formed the Travel and Will. And, you know, Ringo did a bunch of shit, too. John Lennon, of course, went on to marry Yoko Ono, who was famously accused of Yoko Onoing the Beatles. Man, that's such a crazy coincidence. Together, they made music, art, and love until one night when John would make the news once again. But this time, not for something he said. John Lennon was returning to his New York apartment after a night out doing, you know, John Lennon. and shit and eating at the stage deli when from across the street behind him, a crazed lunatic

put five hollow points in his back. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival, and then, during Monday night football, Howard Coasell told the world. One person who didn't hear Howard Coasell was Mark David Chapman, the crazed gunman who was arrested moments later as he sat reading from his copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Chapman gave several reasons as to why he did what he did. He was upset by John Lennon's lifestyle, and he was upset by some song lyrics. And notably, he was upset by a statement John Lennon made that hit American airwaves on July 29, 1966, when he was interpreted as saying that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Now, look, I'll admit that Mark David Chapman was a crazy person, so no, I shouldn't go back and blame

these two Alabama DJs for the death of John Lennon, but I will say this. The next time you find yourself saying, Oh, the world has gotten so politically correct, you can't say anything anymore without people getting offended. Just stop and think to yourself. Who set my records on fire today? Hell, hell, rock and roll. Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening.

Hope you enjoyed. Like I said, if you did enjoy it, please subscribe to the new podcast through the screen door with Corey Ryan Forster and leave us a five-star review. If you can't find it on your favorite podcast platform, it's on its way. That just means it's taken a little bit longer, but you can find it at screendoorpod.com. Hope you enjoyed this, and I hope you continue to enjoy all the content we're putting out here on the well-read feed. Love you guys and skew.