In January 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed their protest song “Attica State” on The David Frost Show, sparking a rare live debate with the studio audience.The historic exchange, centered on the 1971 Attica prison uprising, is now featured in the first episode of MSNBC’s new docuseries David Frost Vs.In a chilling twist, Lennon’s assassin would later be incarcerated at Attica for more than 30 years following the musician’s 1980 murder.
In September 1971, the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York became the site of the largest prison uprising in U.S. history. After years of brutal living conditions, overcrowding and racial discrimination, more than 1,200 inmates seized control of the maximum-security compound, taking guards and staff hostage and demanding sweeping reforms. The four-day standoff ended in devastating violence when law enforcement stormed the facility — leaving 43 people dead, including both inmates and prison employees. The bloodshed shocked the world, and the word “Attica” became a rallying cry for justice amid systemic brutality in the police system.
Four months later, on Jan. 13, 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared on The David Frost Show, where they performed a new song mourning the deaths on both sides of the conflict. “What a waste of human power, what a waste of human lives,” Lennon sang as he furiously strummed a bluesy riff on his acoustic guitar. “Shoot the prisoners in the towers, 43 poor widowed wives.”
The song fell in line with many other protest anthems Lennon had written during the period that tackled hot-button issues head on. That same year, he would address the conflict in Northern Ireland with “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “The Luck of the Irish,” decry the imprisonment of Black Panther activist Angela Davis with “Angela” and object to draconian drugs charges with “John Sinclair.”
Performing “Attica State” ruffled some feathers in Frost’s New York City television studio, leading to an impromptu debate between the famous couple and members of the audience. “We’re like newspaper men, you know?” Lennon explained. “Only we sing about what’s going on instead of writing about it. We’re just reporters.”
The historic exchange is featured in “David Frost Vs The Beatles,” the first episode of MSNBC’s new docuseries, David Frost Vswhich began airing on April 27. The six-part series chronicles Frost’s most famous interviews from throughout his 50-year career, during which he sat down with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Elton John, Jane Fonda and — most famously — Richard Nixon. The debut episode spotlights his numerous interviews with members of the Beatles, but none were as fraught as Lennon’s 1972 appearance.
Tensions in the studio rose after Lennon and Ono, backed by members of their new band Elephant’s Memory, finished the song. One woman shouted her objections from her seat in the balcony. While most hosts might have had the dissenter escorted out for disrupting the taping, Frost instead invited her to the front row to “join the chat” and engage directly with his guests. He then extended the same offer to anyone else who wanted to join the debate.
“I love ad-libbed situations,” Frost says via voiceover in an archival interview featured in the docuseries, “because you never know what people are going to ask. And you never really know what you’re going to say in reply, either. It’s an extension of something I enjoy, namely: coping with the unpredictable.”
Settling into her new seat, the woman boldly criticized Lennon and Ono’s stance on the uprising. “I agree that Attica State was a tragedy,” she said. “But you’re making it sound as if the only worthwhile people in the world are people who committed crimes.” Another man added, “If they hadn’t done something wrong in the first place, they wouldn’t have been there!”
Lennon calmly replies that his song is mourning the human loss on both sides. “When we say ’43 poor widowed wives,’ we’re not talking about just prisoners’ wives,” he says. “You see, there’s going to be a rally for Attica prisoners. We’ve been invited to play the song there, and it’s just to show that people like us care, and we’re not just living in ivory towers in Hollywood watching movies about ourselves. We care about what’s going on in New York, in Harlem, in Ireland, in England, in Vietnam, in China — everywhere!”
The man in the audience rolled his eyes at Lennon’s earnestness. “Walk through one of those neighborhoods at two in the morning to go home,” he said. “You wouldn’t be singing about the people locked up in jail for mugging you!”
Frost intervened by posing a question to Lennon and Ono: “Don’t you agree that there are people who have just destroyed another life, and ought, in some way, to be restrained from destroying yet another life?”
“I’m not sure about that, but let’s make it human for them while they’re in there,” Lennon responded, eliciting a spontaneous ovation from the studio audience. “Apathy doesn’t count. Even singing is better than doing nothing.” He then launched into a second performance of “Attica State,” taking extra care to enunciate every syllable to ensure his message is heard.
This would be Lennon’s final interview with Frost. Nearly nine years later, on Dec. 8, 1980, the music icon was murdered on the streets of New York while returning home from a late-night recording session. Ironically, his assassin, Mark David Chapman, was incarcerated at Attica State Prison for more than 30 years, before being transferred to nearby Wende Correctional Facility in 2012. Though the prison system does not disclose reasons for inmate transfers, it’s been widely theorized that he faced threats from other prisoners and was moved for safety reasons. It was an eerie full-circle moment, binding Lennon’s fate to the troubled legacy of Attica.
David Frost Vs airs Sundays on MSNBC.
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