"Bed Peace" starring John Lennon and Yoko Ono

In May 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took their “Bed-In” protest to Montreal. The world peace-promoting concept, which was designed to take a stand against the Vietnam War, saw John and Yoko sitting in a bed in a Montreal hotel room, taking questions and discussing peace with various figureheads of American and Canadian media.

Last week, Yoko put the documentary “Bed Peace”, which documents the Montreal events, on YouTube. In the film, which is just over an hour long, Lennon and Ono field a chaotic frenzy of questions with their feet up, sitting beneath signs which read “BED PEACE” and “HAIR PEACE”, taking the time between passionate debates to feed babies and receive gifts. Lennon says at one point, “we’re selling it [peace] like soap” – that much is apparent from the couple’s continuous use of slogans like “make love, not war”. “Don’t be snobs about it,” Lennon says when urging his listeners to abandon intellectualism, “get down, get your trousers off and sell.”

See below for the personal message which Yoko Ono included with the upload of the documentary:

Dear Friends,

In 1969, John and I were so naïve to think that doing the Bed-In would help change the world.
Well, it might have. But at the time, we didn’t know.

It was good that we filmed it, though.
The film is powerful now.
What we said then could have been said now.

In fact, there are things that we said then in the film, which may give some encouragement and inspiration to the activists of today. Good luck to us all.

Let’s remember WAR IS OVER if we want it.
It’s up to us, and nobody else.
John would have wanted to say that.

Love, yoko

Yoko Ono Lennon
London, UK
August 2011

‘Bed Peace’ will be taken offline on the 21st August 2011.