More popular than Jesus to religion in his songs "God" (1970) and "Imagine" (1971). He was murdered in December 1980 by Mark David Chapman, a born-again Christian who was incensed by the "more popular than Jesus" remark. In March 1966, London's "Evening Standard" ran a weekly series of articles titled "How Does a Beatle Live?" that featured, in chronological order, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney. The articles were written by journalist Maureen Cleave, who knew the group well and had interviewed them regularly since the start of Beatlemania in the UK. Three years previously she had described them as "the
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