Give Peace A Chance

Give Peace A Chance is a song credited to both John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles. It was recorded in 1969 at a "Bed-In" for Peace, (the second one) that John Lennon staged in Montreal with his wife, Yoko Ono. The song is about peace, a statement made at an event in protest to war. "Make love, not war" was the concept behind the demonstration.

John and Yoko stayed in bed for 8 days, but they were not alone. The media didn't miss covering the project, and they had help from various celebrities and hotel staff in the recording of the song. In attendance was psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary, comedian Tommy Smothers of The Smothers Brothers, singer, and actress and composer Petula Clark. They also had the assistance of Rabbi Abraham Feinberg from Montreal and members of the local Hare Krishna Temple, news reporters, and various hotelworkers who gave thie aid in banging on doors and tabletops for background rhythm in the recording. The song reached number 14 on the pop record charts and became a sort of anthem for the “peace movement” of the 70’s.

The lyrics of the song are: “Everybody’s talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, that-ism.... is-m.... is-m....is-m. All we are saying is give peace a chance. Everybody’s talking about Ministers, Sinisters, Banisters and canisters Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes, And bye bye, bye byes…. All we are saying is give peace a chance.” When the tune was used in a 1988 DreamWorks film called Antz. The words were changed to, “All we are saying, is give Zee a chance…”