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
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