'Burn the Beatles!': Remember When John Lennon Said The Beatles Were More Popular Than ...
KARW was a radio station in Tyler-Longview, Texas. The station broadcasted at 1280 kHz AM for 46 years, ending in 1994. In 1966, the “Beatles Bonfire” was an event that was both retrospectively comical, or extremely disrespectful, depending on how religious or into the Beatles you claim to be.It all started in the fall of 1996. The culprit? John Lennon. It was all due to an offhanded comment in an interview with Maureen Cleave with the London Evening Standard. In the interview in early August, John Lennon stated that his band, The Beatles, was more popular than Jesus Christ. Which, depending on who you ask, the fab four just might have been. Women were screaming, swooning, and passing out at shows, Beatles albums were being printed and sold at lightning speeds, and rock and roll was being changed forever. The comment was printed in Datebook, an American teen magazine and that’s when all hell broke loose. Because the only thing that can rival Jesus’ fandom is a boyband. Most people read the article and just dismissed it as pop music babble.
Source: Moriah Gill, Writer/rare.us
