More popular than Jesus he was "very big on Christ. I've always fancied him. He was right." In 1978, he thanked Jesus for an end to the Beatles' touring, saying "if I hadn't said [that] and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus." In 1993, Michael Medved wrote in "The Sunday Times" that "today, comments like Lennon's could never cause controversy; a contemptuous attitude to religion is all but expected from all mainstream pop performers." In 1997, Noel Gallagher claimed that his band Oasis
Send In the Clowns and uses a complex compound meter. It became Sondheim's most popular song after Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1973 and Judy Collins' version charted in 1975 and 1977. Subsequently, numerous other artists recorded the song, and it has become a jazz standard. The "clowns" in the title do not refer to circus clowns. Instead, they symbolize fools, as Sondheim explained in a 1990 interview: In a 2008 interview, Sondheim further clarified: Judi Dench, who performed the role of Desirée in London, commented on the context of the song during an interview with Alan Titchmarsh. The play is "a dark play