John Lennon, omitted a song from the new boxset: for fans it is censorship
Yesterday – August 14, with a long presentation and the live video of “Come Together” from the evening show of the 1972 “One to One Concerts”, the new “Power to the People” box was announced to “explore and celebrate” L‘political activism by John Lennon And Yoko Onotogether with their tributes to peace and non -violent protests, retracing the couple’s first years in New York. From the boxsetout on October 10th, the following day to what would have been theeighty -fifth birthday of the late ex Beatle, it was however omitted a fundamental passage of the time. The piece in question is “Woman is the nigger of the world“, Originally published as the first single of the album of Lennon and Ono as a plastic honor”Some time in New York City“of 1972, a fundamental album of the period celebrated by the box, which promises to even include a new version.
The move to exclude “Woman is the nigger of the world“from”Power to the People (Super Deluxe Edition)” was perceived by Lennon fans as an excessive action or decisiondictated by the desire to be “politically correct” or to align with progressive social sensitivity. The song, already at the time of its release, he aroused many disputes for his title that he shakes like a slapbut thanks to its content and meaning it proved to be a sort of fundamental feminist anthem.
The title “Woman is the nigger of the world“I was inspired by a phrase coined by Yoko Ono on 12 December 1968 during an interview, then published in 1969 in the magazine” Nova “and reported on the cover, in which he claimed that women were” the most oppressed group in the world “. Although at the beginning he was not convinced of the sentence, Lennon changed his mind and resumed those words by transforming them In a song of reported report with Yoko herself. When the song came out in 1972, Many do not like the use of the term “nigger”judged offensive and racist, as today we would say “politically incorrect”. That word, however, deliberately chosen in a provocative key, aimed to underline and bring to light the condition of the woman.
“The omission of this controversial song is a huge mistake“, A user from a Beatlesian forum wrote, in a representative commentary of a widespread sentiment among the fans:” It does nothing but attract even more attention to it, and it is a very little thing in line with Lennon. The word was already controversial in 1972, John knew it and made a choice. He even chose her as the first single of ‘Some Time in New York City’. It is also one of the best songs, which this album in particular really needs. I am happy to have the 2010 remaster and the 2005 remix. I can’t support censorship. I am an adult and I can bear to hear that word“.
On X/Twitter, A user even asked for clarifications from Sean Lennonson of John and Yoko, producer of “Power to the People (Super Deluxe Edition)” regarding the omission of “Woman is the nigger of the world” from the box tracklist. “‘Some Time in New York City’ does not have its own boxset, but is buried in a enlarged box of a concert in New York”, reads the post: “‘Woman is the n ***** of the world’ is not even indicated in the tracklist: We can confirm that there is??? “.
Another user, always on the platform once known as Twitter, wrote: “The new boxset on the era of ‘Some Time in New York City’ is hypocritically entitled ‘Power to the People’, but the public cannot listen to the grandiose single of that period, the powerful ‘Woman is the nigger of the world’, excluded from the tracklist. A real bullshit“.
Who knows if and when Sean Lennon decides to respond to fans who ask for clarifications.
The next release boxset for Universal will be composed of 12 discs And I will also be available as a digital collection. The new box was presented in a press release as an “exhaustive collection of 123 tracks, including 90 unpublished songs, which tells the most political era of John and Yoko”. As stated in the note, the box ranges from‘hymn against the 1969 war of Plastic Ono Band “Give Peace in Chance“, to a new version of their 1972 album,”Some time in New York City “to the historian “One to One Concerts “of that year At the Madison Square Garden in New York – John’s only concerts after leaving the Beatles, but also the last concerts in which John and Yoko performed together. From the evening show of the “One to One Concerts”, the second of the two performances of that day, it is dealing with the unpublished and remixed performance of the Beatles classic “As a together“, published Yesterday In video as anticipation.
