It’s no exaggeration to say that John Lennon and Yoko Ono had one of the most iconic (and controversial) love stories of all time…or that the couple’s relationship was the target of one of the biggest media frenzies in history. One of the most turbulent periods on Lennon and Ono’s timeline happened over a two-week span in 1969 when the pair got married in Gibraltar and held their first “bed-in” in Amsterdam, being hounded by the press all the while. To top it all off, the now-classic Beatles song Lennon wrote about the experience ended up getting banned.
Recorded on April 14, 1969, and released as a non-album single on May 30, “The Ballad of John and Yoko” chronicled Lennon and Ono’s journey in a funny, sort of exasperated way:
“Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton / Talkin’ in our beds for a week / The newspeople said: ‘Say what’re you doin’ in bed?’ / I said: ‘We’re only try to get us some peace’ / Christ you know it ain’t easy / You know how hard it can be / The way things are goin’ / They’re gonna crucify me”
The song was recorded by just Lennon and Paul McCartney, as George Harrison and Ringo Starr were away at the time and Lennon was in a hurry to get the track out.
“Paul knew that people were being nasty to John, and he just wanted to make it well for him,” Ono said later, per Rolling Stone. “Paul has a very brotherly side to him.”
Since Lennon had gotten into a bit of hot water previously when he compared the popularity of the Beatles to that of Jesus, he anticipated that the lyrics about “Christ” and being crucified might ruffle a few feathers. According to the official Beatles website, he even sent a note warning record exec Tony Bramwell.
“No pre-publicity on ‘Ballad Of John And Yoko’ especially the ‘Christ’ bit,” Lennon wrote. “So don’t play it round too much or you’ll frighten people — get it pressed first.”
Alas, even after it was pressed, the song encountered plenty of backlash. In fact, “The Ballad of John and Yoko” was banned by over 100 U.S. radio stations, with radio program directors calling it “profane,” “sacrilegious,” “offensive,” and “objectionable,” according to a Rolling Stone article at the time.
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From another bed-in, this time in Montreal, Lennon attempted to explain the meaning of the lyrics during a phone call with Bob Lewis of WABC-FM in New York.
“It has two meanings,” he said. “It’s like a prayer. You know, ‘Jesus, you alone should know it ain’t easy.’ And it has that street language connotation, too. But even when it’s used irreverently, it’s in effect a prayer, too. It’s a gospel song. I’m a big Christ fan — the song is a prayer.”
When asked why he thought it was banned, Lennon quipped, “Man, you know why.”
Of course, even a widespread radio ban wasn’t enough to stop “The Ballad of John and Yoko” from becoming a classic. While it peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., it became the Beatles’ 17th #1 hit in the U.K., where it was the band’s last chart-topper until “Now and Then” in 2023.
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