The Ballad Of John And Yoko | Page 3 | Fab Forum

TheWalrusWasBrian said

its way more lennon than Beatle

If you look at it in the context of its original form, being that it is the A-Side of a single which also featured 'Old Brown Shoe ' on the flipside, it's a pretty concise group effort all around...  George & Ringo dominate the B-Side to offset this latest Lennon/McCartney showcase to the world...

Of course it had to be John who makes 'The Ballad of John & Yoko' the statement song that it is...  Only 3 years had passed since John had first made his "Jesus comments" which had rocked the Bible Belt and many other faithful worldwide...  comments which he had to reluctantly apologize for publicly (and ultimately had him killed, in my opinion)...  here he is in 1969 now, not only declaring to his inner circle that he IS Jesus Christ, but immortalizing it forever on a Beatles' single...  while there were many radio programmers who were not too keen on airing it, it still became a HUGE hit...  seemingly vindicating his controversial views of Christianity...

and as if that wasn't enough...  just over a year later he uncategorically states to the world "I don't believe in Jesus" on, what many believe to be his greatest solo work, the 'Plastic Ono Band' record...  all of this making his 1966 remarks to Maureen Cleave seem tame by comparison...  yet, Lennon's legendary status as a genius only escalated afterwards...  the "family album" portrayal of his union with Yoko on this single is really just a side show to what was really going on with John at the time...  I love the "what do you got to tell me this time old man in the sky!?" attitude that comes across...  excellent...:-)