Channeling John Lennon

By Craig Gillette

I’ve been involved in many successful projects over the years and the reasons for the success consisted of a myriad of things such the people involved, timing, and of course a dash of good luck. Many times I can sense success as the project is unfolding, but other times I don’t know it until it blossoms.

Then there are those projects where everything just clicks as if preordained. I’ve just been finished up such a project with Justice Through Music where we actually felt like we were being channeled by John Lennon. We set out to make a “peace song and video” to help inspire the peace movement. We had all the right stuff; we had musicians, studio, video set and vision.

We decided to do a remake of the John Lennon song, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” with new lyrics and a modern sound, and to release a “viral-video” to go round the world. The song is called “Happy Springtime, Bush is Over.”

I was there and had a ringside seat from the inception, the creation, the production, and the eventual release of the song and video, and it was a remarkable event. Everyone worked together so well, and fortune stepped in at a pivotal point when we needed a children’s choir to sing the chorus. In the original, Lennon used the Harlem Children’s Choir, but we had to find a choir with courage and supportive parents, and we lucked out with the Harmonic Angels, who took the song over the top.

Op-Critical, a well-known activist band, laid down the music in a few hours while I filmed them in the studio. A few weeks later, I filmed the choir at a beautiful home with high ceilings and skylights that added to the acoustics and color. When the choir first started to sing, we knew it was going to be great, and they do sound like angels.

The song and video then went into postproduction and was finished the following week. We created the video to be very positive, and included footage of Yoko Ono’s giant Imagine Peace billboard and her Peace Prayer Trees on the Washington Mall. In editing the video, I got chills from how beautiful everything was turning out. These kind of great events don’t come everyday, and I wanted to make sure I took moments to stop and appreciate it.

On April 24th, we uploaded the video to our website, www.jtmp.org, and also to YouTube, where in the first 48 hours it shot up to #8 on the favorite political video section. We are getting scores of positive comments, which is rare in the YouTube world where 90% of the videos get no comments. People are so moved by the song and video they are compelled to leave something behind, such as, “From your lips to God’s ears.” After less than two weeks, the video has had 25,000 plays on YouTube, and over 60,000 plays on MySpace.

I believe this project was created not only to promote peace but to declare peace. Although there is a mention of Bush in the song, it is not partisan or even “political”. Bush Is Over is meant to portray the end of an era of darkness more than an end to the person. It is a song and movement driven by moral values that most people believe in their hearts. Peace, not war. Think of the future, our children, other people. Try to leave a better world behind.

This project was a success because of many ingredients including a good and timely vision by professional people, and the spirit of John Lennon helping us Imagine Peace.

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