The Beatles' 1966 US tour tour, the band returned to Shea Stadium in New York, where they performed to an audience of 45,000, compared with the 56,000 world record attendance they had achieved the previous year. After the 1966 tour, they would become a studio band and focused exclusively on record production. In March 1966, Maureen Cleave interviewed John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles as part of a "London Evening Standard" series on the theme "How Does a Beatle Live?" During the Lennon interview at Kenwood, Cleave noted Lennon's interest in Christianity and religions, to which he replied: Although the article went largely
More popular than Jesus came into contact with the Revd Ronald Gibbons, who told reporters that a Beatles version of "O Come, All Ye Faithful" might provide the Church of England with "the very shot in the arm it needs". The day after Cleave's article appeared in the "Evening Standard", Beatles press officer Tony Barrow offered "Datebook", a US teen magazine, rights to all four interviews. Barrow believed the pieces were important to show fans that the Beatles were progressing beyond simple pop music and producing more intellectually challenging work. As "Datebook" was a socially progressive magazine that addressed subjects such as interracial dating