Top Ten Protest Songs and the Events that Inspired Them – 3

[Music]
the other type of song to come out of
the Vietnam War was what we’ll call the
the hopeful protest song and also kind
of the type of song where an artist for
the first time says okay well here’s
what we’re gonna do about it as opposed
to just saying this is horrible this is
horrible this is horrible look around
our societies falling apart for the
first time we’re sort of given other
options in another form of song and a
great example of that is John Lennon’s
give peace a chance now I was very
excited to finally find a place to get
John Lennon on this list because it
seems ridiculous to talk about about
protesting and opening up one’s mine and
not mention the man who wrote imagine
but I think the most quintessential song
that we need to associate with John
Lennon it to do with the Vietnam War is
his anthem give peace a chance now John
Lennon got married to Yoko Ono and when
he did instead of a honeymoon John
Lennon and Yoko Ono decided to stage
what they called a bed-in for peace and
it actually happened in Montreal at the
ritz-carlton hotel and essentially John
and Yoko went to Montreal for their
honeymoon they invited all the press
along and they stayed in bed for a week
laughing talking about love and singing
about peace and they have little
billboards in their beds and they
invited the media join them and they
said come to our bedding and that’s
really fantastic I think it’s great it’s
very indicative of John Lennon and John
Lennon’s give peace a chance essentially
he goes through any he calls it a lot of
people but the the central lyric is just
give peace a chance change it over and
over and over because that was John
Lennon’s message just give peace a
chance a great fun fact about this is
November 16th 1959 Pete Seeger led a
crowd of 250,000 people through
Washington chanting give peace a chance
John Lennon’s give peace a chance over
at over at over