John Lennon Said The Beatles Accepted an Honor From the Queen to ‘Annoy’ People
John Lennon was surprised when Queen Elizabeth awarded The Beatles MBEs. He wasn’t the only one. The decision to designate The Beatles as Members of the Order of the British Empire rubbed some people the wrong way because they were musicians. Lennon explained that the band initially thought about refusing the honors, but they decided to accept. He said that they wanted to annoy people.
The Beatles’ MBE caused some controversy
In 1965, The Beatles received MBEs, and the decision to nominate them caused controversy. In the past, the award had typically been bestowed to military veterans and civic leaders. Some people, including past recipients, believed giving MBEs to a band cheapened its worth. Lennon added fuel to the fire by saying The Beatles deserved it more.
“They got them for killing people,” he said, per the Mirror. “We got ours fo r entertaining. I’d say we deserve ours more.”
John Lennon said they accepted the honor from the queen to annoy people
When Lennon first learned he would receive an MBE, he considered refusing.
“We thought getting the MBE was as funny as everybody else thought it was. Why? What for? We didn’t believe it,” Lennon said, per The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “It was a part we didn’t want. We all met and agreed it was daft. What do you think, we all said. Let’s not.”
Eventually, though, they decided to accept the honors. It felt like a game to them, and it helped that they would be annoying those opposed to it.
“Then it all just seemed part of the game we’d agreed to play, like getting the Ivor Novello awards,” Lennon said. “We’d nothing to lose, except that bit of you which said you didn’t believe in it. We agreed in order to annoy even more the people who were annoyed, like John Gordon. We were just getting at the people who believe in such things.”
Lennon said that while he was glad to annoy people, he hated the ceremony itself.
“I always hated all the social things,” he said. “All the horrible events and presentations we had to go to. All false. You could see right through them all and all the people there. I despised them. Perhaps it was partly from class. No, it wasn’t. It was because they really were all false.”
John Lennon later wrote a letter to the queen to return his MBE
Lennon only kept the award for four years. Per The Guardian, Lennon wrote three identical letters to the queen, the prime minister, and the Central Chancery of the Orders of the Knighthood in 1969 explaining that he was returning his MBE in protest.
“In protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts,” he wrote.
He signed each of the letters, “With love, John Lennon.”
