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Yoko, Sean and Julian Lennon celebrate 40th anniversary of "Give Peace A Chance" with UN donation
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In keeping with the spirit of the Plastic Ono Band’s peace anthem “Give Peace A Chance,” Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Julian Lennon, in conjunction with EMI Music and Sony/ATV Music Publishing, are donating the net proceeds from the sale of a commemorative 40th Anniversary digital single to the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF).
The special edition single is being sold for download exclusively at iTunes starting today, with the sales benefiting the PBF through Dec. 31.
“I am thrilled that so many in the music business are readily supporting 'Give Peace a Chance' on its 40th anniversary,” said Ono, in a press statement. “It is indeed a time when we are all getting more aware of the necessity of doing something to achieve world peace, no matter how small. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I feel deeply that we are all one, regardless of where we stand."
Originally credited to Lennon-McCartney, “Give Peace A Chance” was John Lennon’s first single as a solo artist (he released it as the Plastic Ono Band, and it reached No. 14 in 1969). He later stated that Ono had actually co-written the song with him. It was recorded live on June 1, 1969, in a room at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel during the couple’s second week-long 1969 honeymoon bed-in protest against the Vietnam War (the first had taken place in March at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel).
The song was inspired by Lennon’s answer to a reporter’s questioning of the purpose behind the couple’s highly publicized public bedroom protest against the war. The recording session was attended by several well-known friends who also joined in during the chorus and included Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory, Allen Ginsberg, Murray the K, Al Capp and Derek Taylor. Tommy Smothers played acoustic guitar along with Lennon.
“Give Peace A Chance” swiftly became the world’s leading peace anthem. It was sung at the massive Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam protest in Washington, D.C. on November 15, 1969, and remains a staple of antiwar protests.
“I am delighted to see that a song so closely identified with the pursuit of peace, will shine a light on the United Nations’ peacebuilding efforts and financially support PBF projects,” said Chile’s U.N. ambassador Heraldo Muñoz, also chairperson of the U.N.’s Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). Both the PBC and the PBF were established following the 2005 World Summit to create methods of sustaining peace efforts in post-conflict countries.
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