The 1970s line John Lennon said would never go out of style: “Just keep doin’ it”
In 1969, when The Beatles finally broke up, it felt like a global dream had just ended.
As fans across the world frantically woke up to the news, it really did feel like a definitive ending. The band were simply so prolific in not only their output but their genius, that an abrupt end to that supply was truly unprecedented, not only for music, but for culture as a whole.
But as sore as it was to process, the everlasting truth began to ring out. In that decade of global domination, they had injected kaleidoscopic colour into the world and soundtracked this bright era of liberal resistance that so many of its allies believed would permanently shape the future.
With that, people could grapple with the loss of their favourite band, albeit painfully, knowing that their music would endure and that a precedent for a revolutionary attitude was set. While ‘69 may have marked the end of The Beatles, in many ways, it served as the start of the counterculture movement.
The 1970s thrived off the blueprint laid down by The Fab Four, which saw bands diving further into the realms of musical diversity and its activists doubling down on their mission for change. Peace and love were no longer a branded tag that the band were attaching to their music, but a fundamental ethos that so many people were abiding by.
This step change was most liberating for John Lennon. Of course, of all the Beatles, it was he who suffered most from the claustrophobic levels of fame and expectation, and so his newfound solitude had set him free from any of those obligations. But crucially, that removal of commercial pressure had allowed him to focus wholly on his activism, which by the ‘70s was one of his biggest focuses.
After exercising some long-overdue personal demons on Plastic Ono Band, Lennon faced outwards again with Imagine and Mind Games, aligning his artistry with his activism, which was now more pointed and purposeful than ever before. The latter album was an exercise in simplicity, seeing Lennon lay down tracks that served a simple message to those waning under the criticism of their movement.
“When this came out in the early ’70s,” Lennon explained, “Everybody was starting to say the ’60s was a joke, it didn’t mean anything, those love-and-peaceniks were idiots. ‘We all have to face the reality of being nasty human beings who are born evil, and everything’s gonna be lousy and rotten so boo-hoo-hoo…'”
Adding, “‘We had fun in the ’60s,’ they said, ‘but the others took it away from us and spoiled it all for us.’ And I was trying to say, ‘No, just keep doin’ it.'”
The album was originally going to be titled Make Love Not War to align with that principle, but he instead opted for something more subliminal. But the messaging within the record was anything but, with lyrics like “As you slip and you slide down the hill / On the blood of the people you kill” from ‘Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)’.
Lennon’s approach, however, was distinctly less ideal than that of the ‘60s, and so despite his efforts, things had changed. The love-in protests had turned into something more violent, and as liberals desperately tried to resist, they got caught up in the sort of muddy knife fight that their enemies wanted, and come the end of the ‘70s, the swirling colour of liberal optimism felt worlds away.
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