“The performing fleas”: the one reason John Lennon wanted to quit touring
No artist can manage to be on the road forever and manage to be as good as they once were. Although there are always living legends that should be celebrated from bringing their music to new generations over the years, no one’s looking at the latest incarnation of what Bob Dylan is doing and thinking that he is as engaging as he was when he was belting out ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ in the 1960s. But while The Beatles were desensitised to fame by the time they broke up, John Lennon knew that the idea of touring was something he never saw doing again.
Even when working on his solo ventures, Lennon’s live performances were usually limited to one-off shows rather than one massive travelling tour. A lot of what he did had to do with making performance art, and the idea of playing the same setlist every time he took the stage would have ruined the kind of mystique that he set up for himself when making some of his new material.
If anything, it looked like Paul McCartney was the one person willing to carry on The Beatles’ tradition on the live stage. Wings was certainly not going to be looked at as a surrogate Beatles by any stretch of the imagination, but hearing him throw a handful of his old tunes in there like ‘Yesterday’ was a fine substitute for fans who held onto hope that the Fab Four would put their past behind them.
But even the most hardened Beatles fans knew not to expect a tour if they got back together. They had been forced off the road after things got too out of hand, and since many of their songs wouldn’t translate to a live setting any more, it was about time that they hung it up and not have to worry about whether or not they could make a track work in front of a crowd instead of in the studio.
“I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days.”
John Lennon
It’s not like the band didn’t have their fair share of problems at the end of their run, either. History likes to paint them as the most lovable faces in the world throughout the 1960s, but as soon as John Lennon made comments about the band being more popular than Jesus, it didn’t take long for the religious fanatics to throw a fit over it, to the point where the band faced multiple death threats once they started coming through the Bible Belt in America on their final tour.
Despite the pressure, the commitment, and the money that comes out of everyone’s pockets when touring, Lennon pointed the finger squarely at the controversy as for why he stopped playing live, saying, “I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn’t said that The Beatles were ‘bigger than Jesus’ and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas!”
If some fans were already pissed at Lennon for that innocent remark, they weren’t going to be too happy with what would be coming later. Plastic Ono Band was already a heavy listen, but hearing him renounce every god-like figure in his life until he’s stripped as bare as he could get was enough to leave even non-religious Beatles fans in shock once the record was over.
Then again, that was the whole point of Lennon going solo as well. It was time for everyone to move on from the dream that they had of the four biggest pop stars in the world going on forever, and that meant Lennon making the studio his home and only saving live performances for special occasions.
