John Lennon Said 1 Banned Beatles’ Song Was ‘Beautiful’
John Lennon wrote a number of songs that radio stations banned. He said censors completely misinterpreted the point of one banned song.
Though The Beatles were the biggest band in the world in the 1960s, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr still faced censure. Several Beatles songs were banned around the world. One song Lennon wrote did not receive playtime on the radio because some believed it referenced drugs. Lennon rolled his eyes at this interpretation and called the song beautiful.
John Lennon admired a banned Beatles song
In 1968, The Beatles released “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” Every member of the band was incredibly proud of the song, but some censors were not. The BBC banned the song, believing it referenced heroin use.
“‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ was another one which was banned on the radio — they said it was about shooting up drugs. But they were advertising guns and I thought it was so crazy that I made a song out of it,” Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology. “It wasn’t about ‘H’ at all. George Martin showed me the cover of a magazine that said: ‘Happiness is a warm gun.’ I thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you’ve just shot something!”
Though the BBC banned the song, it was one of Lennon’s favorites. He said he loved it.
“I think it’s a beautiful song,” he said, adding, “I like all the different things that are happening in it. I had put together three sections of different songs, it seemed to run through all the different kinds of rock music.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
