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# The revolution that changed us forever
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/the-revolution-that-changed-us-forever/
- Published: 2008-08-25T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:48:11.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By John H. Whitehead That Rutherford Guy*

FOLLOWING THE ASSASSINATION OF Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in 1968, the optimism of the Summer of Love quickly evaporated and young people revolted worldwide. In the U.S., the cataclysm came as 10,000 demonstrators descended on the Democratic Party’s national convention in August. Police reacted by beating not only rock-throwing demonstrators but passersby, journalists and volunteers. Violence and revolt were now in vogue.

The Beatles, the most influential pop voice of the time, responded to this shift towards violence with “Revolution,” the first Beatles song with an explicitly political statement. As John Lennon sings in his masterpiece on the need for nonviolent change, “When you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out?”

The underground press — which at the time included such newspapers as the Village Voice — immediately criticized the song and Lennon for not urging outright rebellion against authority. Lennon was quick to point out that if they really wanted a revolution, it had to begin with changing the way people think.

Clearly, the Left had missed the point: violence begets violence. Lennon’s missive in “Revolution” thus sums up the Beatles’ message — peace, love and understanding — that permeated their brief seven-year career. And it helped create one of the few lasting revolutions in history.

The Beatles “presided over an epochal shift comparable in scale to that bridging Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” writes professor Henry Sullivan,“or the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.” Indeed, they played a central role in catalyzing a transition from the Modern to the post-Modern Age and unknowingly set in motion forces that made an entire era what it was and, by extension, is today.

Beatlemania hit the United States with full force on Feb. 9, 1964, by way of television on the Ed Sullivan Show. For a short while, as some 72 million Americans got their first glimpse of the Beatles, with their mop-top haircuts and original music, the streets emptied and crime stopped.

A cultural revolution was obviously at hand.

Elvis Presley may have been revolutionary, but there was no gender revolution until the Beatles came along. With the prominence they accorded women in their songs and the way they spoke to millions of teenaged girls about new possibilities, the Beatles eventually helped feminize the culture and led to the empowerment of young women.

The implications of the Beatles’ relatively androgynous appearance had a far more profound effect on sexual liberation than anyone could have guessed at the time. As Steven Stark points out in his book “Meet The Beatles,” they also “challenged the definition that existed during their time of what it meant to be a man.”

The Beatles converged with their era — the ‘60s generation — in an almost unprecedented way. At no other time in history, or since, has a generation been so connected. The vehicle was rock music. And the Beatles helped create an aural culture.

The religious allure of the Beatles was another vital factor in allowing the group to endure. John Lennon was onto something in 1966 when he compared the group’s popularity with that of Jesus Christ. Multitudes flocked to them and even brought sick children to see if the Beatles could somehow heal them.

Unlike artists before them, the Beatles had power over millions of people world-wide. In 1967, for example, with the release of their “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, as one critic noted, it was the closest Europe had been to unification since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Some have even argued that the Beatles’ influence helped bring down the Iron Curtain.

Checkpoint Charlie, the former crossing point for foreigners and Allied troops at the Berlin Wall, now serves as a reminder of the Beatles’ colossal impact.

The Beatles still impact us because they effected a revolution of spirit and mind. As “Revolution” stresses, it was not a movement about physically overthrowing a regime. It was a spiritual revolution, one aimed at overthrowing preconceived notions. Thus, before you can effect a lasting change, as John Lennon sings, you have to “free your mind.”

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 25, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/082508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)