Happy Christmas (War Is Over) is a song written
by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was published on 6th December 1971
on the B-side of a record, with, on the A-side, Listen the snow is falling, written by Yoko Ono. Happy Christmas (War Is Over) is one of
the most important and best known Christmas songs.
The authors
recorded this song as a protest against the war in Vietnam and they wanted to
attract interest on it. The war had started in 1955, sixteen years before and
it would continue until 1975.
In that war the USA used chemical weapons such as napalm, a substance, containing petrol, which can cause serious burns. This incendiary mixture killed a lot of people and it made the war incredibly bloody.
However, with
their song, Yoko Ono and John Lennon did not want to describe the terrible
situation in Vietnam; instead, they composed a laic prayer to invoke the
Christmas spirit to fight the dread and the war in the world.
Indeed, they
wanted to wish peace everywhere and to express their hope that everyone could
be happy. Moreover, this song is important because not only it is against the
war, but also it desires to end discrimination. John Lennon wrote:
So happy Christmas for black and for white
For yellow and red ones let's stop all the fights
They wanted
to help people understand that Christmas is for everybody and that we should
ensure that everyone can enjoy Christmas in peace. To do this, we must stop
every conflict, every war and every discrimination.
In addition, the authors used a children’s choir to
make the message of this song more intense. Lennon
made the choir sing the most significant and meaningful phrase of the whole
song:
War is over,
if you want it
War is over
now.
Although the war had not finished yet, John Lennon
wrote this sentence because according to
him each person can make the difference to stop every war and he
encouraged to do it, saying Let’s stop
all the fight.
In conclusion, Happy
Christmas (War Is Over) speaks about the real Christmas spirit because this
song is a eulogy to peace. The message of this song is always current, because
we often hear and see hateful words and acts; nowadays, it happens in much more
ways than in the past, for example on social media.
John Lennon
John Lennon
was born in Liverpool on 9th October 1940 and he died in New York on
8th December 1980. He has been part of Beatles since 1960, but in
1970, this band, formed by Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison,
broke up. He got married twice; the second time, he married Yoko Ono. In 1975,
they had a son, Sean Lennon Ono, while Lennon had have Julian and his wife had
have Kyoko from their previous marriages. To the two of them, Lennon and Yoko
Ono wished Happy Christmas in the video of their song, in 1971.
On 8 December
1980, while he and his wife were coming back home, a mad boy called Mark David
Chapman shot five times at John Lennon who died.
On 14
December, many people stopped their jobs and activities for 10 minutes, as Yoko
Ono wanted.
There was no
funeral, and a part of his ashes was scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
However, in
spite of his death, his ideals and his music continue to live.
Angelica Tozzi, 3scB
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