“They basically declared war on him after these shows were broadcast”: When John Lennon ...

“They basically declared war on him after these shows were broadcast”: When John Lennon alarmed the FBI after platforming radical political ideas in a week-long takeover of American TV.

It’s difficult to conceive of just how shocking it was for the Nixon-led US government of the early '70s, when John Lennon - erstwhile Beatle and now a counterculture firebrand - and his wife Yoko Ono, took over over one of America’s biggest daytime television shows. Recalibrating a family-friendly programming touchpoint into a showcase of progressive, left-wing ideology.

The week allowed many with then-radical ideas to reach millions more ears than ever before. But they were ideas that some saw as an existential threat to the nation.

John and Yoko's aim was to present middle-American viewers to counter-arguments against the government line on numerous social and political themes. Topics spanned feminism, race, the right to protest and government overreach.

Perhaps the most popular daytime television show in America at the time, The Mike Douglas Show reached upwards of 40 million viewers on a regular basis, many of whom lived in the heartlands of the US. Far from the more liberally-minded coastal regions.

Its titular host wasn't unsympathetic to the pair’s politics, but was really more energised by the scale of Lennon’s audience, which could bolster his own viewership considerably…

Envisioned as a fusion of political and social conversation - interspersed with music, of course - the opportunity served as a potential a win-win for both parties. For the Lennons, it provided a much-needed conduit to the deeper parts of America, allowing new intellectual arguments to bypass the conservatively-angled press's editorialising and be presented in a mainstream space.

The week's thrust was an overt rejection of the Nixon administration’s uber-conservative policies, continuing on from Lennon’s fiercely anti-Vietnam stance in the late '60s.

Source: Andy Price/musicradar.com

Read More>>>