How John Lennon used the ‘product’ and ‘gimmick’ tactic for Give Peace a Chance

The “product” and “gimmick” tactic made the John Lennon song Give Peace a Chance a massive success.

Lennon’s solo work would range from avant-garde to revolutionary and though The Beatles member would do arguably his best work with the Fab Four, some of his more provocative songs would be massive successes. Give Peace a Chance would be a smash hit for Lennon, peaking at number two on the British singles chart. Not bad for a song which was recorded with Yoko Ono and a small group of friends in a Montreal hotel room, as part of their “bed-in” honeymoon protest. Lennon would insist to reporters who arrived at the hotel room that he was there to encourage people to “give peace a chance”. His repetition of the phrase was all part of a plan to promote the song, which saw Lennon perfect the “product” and “gimmick” release style.

The veteran musician explained: “We knew whatever we did was going to be in the papers. We decided to utilise the space we would occupy anyway, by getting married, with a commercial for peace.

“We would sell our product, which we call ‘peace.’ And to sell a product you need a gimmick, and the gimmick we thought was ‘bed.’ And we thought ‘bed’ because bed was the easiest way of doing it because we’re lazy.”

The song was not without its problems, with the recording taking place at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, it meant the song didn’t have the smoothness of a studio recording. Producer André Perry would share the many difficulties of the song, which eventually required Lennon to leave the bed-in and head to the studio to finish the song.

Perry said: “Originally there were no intentions to have any over-dubs done. But when I left John, he looked at me and I said, ‘Well, I’ll go back to the studio and listen to this and see what it’s like.’ And then I decided that the background was a bit too noisy and needed a little ‘sweeping.’

“By this I mean, we kept all the original stuff, we just improved it a bit by adding if you like, some voices. So we called a bunch of people in the studio that night, I did, actually that was my decision. And that’s probably why John gave me such a credit on the single.

“Nothing was overdubbed in England. The only thing that was overdubbed, like I said, is some of these people, and the reason why I did it, is I wanted to give him some kind of option. You see the point of the matter, it’s not that we wanted to cheat anything, it was a question of like, not usable, the condition was absolutely terrible. [We took] the original stuff that was there, and added a few voices in a cleaner recording environment.”