Rock History Week Part 3: Give Peace A Chance....

This was one of the most controversial episodes in John Lennon's Career. at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s the movement against the war in Vietnam convulsed American society. On their Honeymoon in 1969 John and Yoko Ono Lennon staged this unusual protest against the war. They stayed in bed and held a press conference, indicating their opposition to the conflict. when asked by a reporter what he was trying to achieve by staying in bed, Lennon answered spontaneously "All we are saying is give peace a chance"



This video is another example of John Lennon's increasing radicalism two years later in 1971. The John Sinclair in question was the manager of punk band MC5, who had been arrested for supplying two joints to an undercover police officer, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Lennon asks the question in the song, was Sinclair arrested and jailed so harshly for a drugs offence or because he represented a culture that was repugnant to the Nixon regime. Many strongly suspected the latter, and it was John Lennon who was approached by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin of the Youth International Party, a counterculture anarcho-syndicalist group, to take part in a benefit conference for Sinclair. John Sinclair was released three days after the concert.