All You Need is Love

By Carol Silva 

I have a little cultural whiplash over this one.

The Vatican says it's over. Its fight with the Beatles.

The Holy See is marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles White Album - by saying they're over John Lennons' 1966 comment. That's the one where Lennon said the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus."

That bent a lot of people out of shape at the time. But now the Vatican newspaper (L'Osservatore Romano) says it was really the remark of a young man - with unexpected success - shooting off his mouth.

In fact, the Vatican has gone so far as to say the "White Album" shows the Beatles were a heck of a lot more creative than what you hear in what they call today's "standardized stereotypical" music.

Do you think 40-years from now, the Vatican will be saying "sorry" to Kanye West, Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears for that "standardized stereotypical" comment!?!

Comments

[John]

Goodness, no!

I'm not much of a Beatles fan, but I recognize that their work is extremely well-structured and subtle. Decades later, there are still people analyzing their work, down to wondering what notes were actually played (Jason Brown recently finished his work on "Hard Day's Night").

Miley Cyrus? Not so much. Billy Joel, maybe, with all his neoclassical influences, but even that's a stretch.

Meanwhile, I'm tempted to wonder if the Beatles really were more popular than Jesus at that time in history. Declining church attendance and an upswing in people finding it an imposition versus screaming teenagers getting jobs to pay for tickets?

They weren't better-known, more influential, or anything like that, but he might have been right about popularity.

Now, what's the deal with the Vatican always waiting until people are long dead before apologizing...?