More popular than Jesus are going, They're gonna crucify me." In a BBC interview a few months later, Lennon called himself "One of Christ's biggest fans", talked about the Church of England, his vision of heaven, and unhappiness over being unable to marry Yoko Ono in church. On 3 December 1969, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice asked Lennon to play the part of Jesus in the stage production of "Jesus Christ Superstar", which he declined, although he said he would have been interested if Ono could play the part of Mary Magdalene. Lennon mentioned Jesus again in his 1970 song "God", singing, "I
More popular than Jesus voted to cancel it rather than have "municipal facilities be used as a forum to ridicule anyone's religion", and also saying, "the Beatles are not welcome in Memphis". The Ku Klux Klan nailed a Beatles album to a wooden cross, vowing "vengeance", with conservative groups staging further public burnings of Beatles records. The Reverend Jimmy Stroad stated that a Christian rally in Memphis "would give the youth of the mid-South an opportunity to show Jesus Christ is more popular than the Beatles". The Memphis shows did take place, on 19 August; the afternoon show went as planned, but there was