Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S
REPORT
TO THE MINISTRY OF THE
WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
VOL.2, N0.48
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
HOW THE BEATLES CHANGED THE CULTURE
OF THE WESTERN WORLD
DECEMBER 12, 1980
News coverage virtually equal to a Presidential
assassination. What was it that changed life
styles
and social
values of America?
by Herbert W. Armstrong
On Tuesday night, December 9, I tuned in to the Walter Cronkite even
ing news. I was shocked--alrnost dumbfounded! I had been up late the night
before, near midnight, and turned on TV just before going to bed. A spe
cial news update announced the murder of Beatle "star" John Lennon. To
me it carried no significance. I never was a Beatle fan--nor a "rock'' fan.
I had dismissed it from my mind.
Then next night, Tuesday, on Cronkite's 5:30 evening news on the
Tucson CBS channel, the newscaster I had regarded as "top" in the field
shoved aside all news about the Polish crisis, Soviet possible interven
tion, the war between Iraq and Iran and the threatened war between Syria
and Jordan, and started on a long news story of a one-man murder that had
occurred after his news program the night before.
I wasn't interested, but due to amazement that the great Cronkite was
giving it so much time on national television, I stayed with him. When
more than half his half-hour was past, I flipped over to NBC Nightly News.
They had not yet come to the Lennon shooting apparently, but in about one
minute they did, and announced a whole special program to come on about
the ''rock" murder later. Nevertheless, NBC still gave it considerable
time in the remainder of their regular nightly news. To get something
different I turned to the public television channel for the MacNeil-Lehre�
Report--always a long, solid national or international-interest subject.
But sure enough, here, also, this John Lennon was stealing their show-
although they turned it into a more serious discussion about whether the
nation should make gun sales illegal.
In disgust, I left TV, but at 10 p.m. tuned in for the LOCAL news.
It was all eulogizing the "rock" "musician." A local Tucson crowd of
2,000 had flocked to Reid Park bandshell to leave roses, and mourn for
their dead idol. The local station had a lot about the "man and his
'music'" (I had never thought of it as music, but a loud raucous SQUAWK
and SCREAM with a fast beat--just an irritating noise).
Pardon me, please! Perhaps I never had any musical education, al
though I have played the piano since eight years old. I must have been
terribly misled, for I supposed that the singing of a Caruso or a Galli
Curci of my father's time or a Pavarotti or Beverly Sills, or an Arthur
Rubinstein of our day produced music. I guess I'm terribly out of date.