“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.”—John

I love the Beatles, who as a sort of first postmodern band, spoke through avatars about their real life (they weren’t the Beatles, they were “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” when Paul wrote a song for John Lennon’s first son when his parents were getting divorced it wasn’t “Hey Julian,” but “Hey Jude”). This has been important for me speaking through appropriation and allegory, but also John and Yoko, post-Beatles, were like post-postmodernists, speaking about each other and reality to also speak about the world—the personal is political… Through it all love, peace, and hope were their throughline, what has given their music such joy and longevity, despite the times they were born to inspire…

This image is from the ticker-tape parade that never happened, in 1964, staged for the press for what would be the last public concert (despite the Apple Records rooftop concert) at a time that feels a bit like now.

“There were riots in every city. Students rioting, blacks rioting; in Canada the French were trying to split from the British. Every place we went, there seemed to be something going on. All the time, constantly, I felt frightened by things. I remember when we were going for that trip to America and they were saying, ’Oh, yeah, we’re going to start in San Francisco with a ticker-tape parade.’ That was once when I said, ’I’m not going.’ I mean, it was less than a year since they’d assassinated Kennedy, and you know how made it is in America. And with ticker tape, somebody must sweep it up later. I don’t like littering the streets, so I just said: ’I’m not doing that, I don’t want a ticker-tape parade; it’s silly.’” —George

Even though the concert itself at Candlestick Park was bittersweet, short with bad acoustics, thank goodness they didn’t give up, turning the bad politics of their era into beautiful music that inspires hope today…

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make!”