Power To The People

Album: Shaved Fish (1971)
Charted: 7 11
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Power to the People" was a popular phrase in the 1960s and early '70. It indicated a need for individuals to take control from governments and institutions, which is something Lennon advocated. He said of the song: "I wrote 'Power to the People' the same way I wrote 'Give Peace A Chance,' as something for the people to sing. I make singles like broadsheets. It was another quickie."
  • Around the time this song was recorded and released, film cameras were constantly recording John and Yoko for the Imagine documentary. Among the footage is John Lennon giving this concise explanation of the song's meaning: "The people are the government, and the people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people."
  • This was released as a single credited to "John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band." Phil Spector produced it with Lennon.
  • Lennon was on to something with his title: a month after this song entered the US charts, (For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People by The Chi-Lites became a hit.
  • Lennon discussed this song in an interview with BBC Radio 1 DJ Andy Peebles on December 6, 1980, four days before his death. He recalled: "(British Pakistani activist and writer) Tariq Ali kept coming round wanting money for Red Mole or some magazine or other. I was thinking, Well I'm working class and I am not one of them, but I am rich and therefore I have to. So any time anybody said something like that, I would fork out. He was hustling for whatever he was hustling for and I wrote 'Power To The People' as a sort of guilt song. It's like a newspaper song, where you write about something instant that's going on right now. It's the news headlines with misprints and everything." (Source Q magazine November 2010)

Comments: 1

  • Real Curious from NevadaIt’s been played at The Bernie Sanders and AOC (Bernie-Man and AOCochella) rallies against oligarchy.

    The lyrics are not right on sites I have look at. It sounds like he is singing “a million women working for nothin’”, but they have “workers working for nothing”

    And the last two lines I always see ”she got to be herself so she can free herself”, but the last part sounds like he is singing “so she can inhale dope’ maybe I’m tripping’, tho.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17Songwriter Interviews

Martyn talks about producing Tina Turner, some Heaven 17 hits, and his work with the British Electric Foundation.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.