The history of rock and roll is filled with rock artists who abandoned, at least on vinyl, their political commitment. Bob Dylan, who, by intro- ducing the explicit politics of folk music to rock and roll, can be credited with introducing the political rock and roll of the sixties, quickly aban- doned politics for more personal issues. John Lennon, who was perhaps more successful than any other rock and roll artist at getting political material to the popular audience, still had a hard time walking the line between being overtly polit- ical but unpopular and being apolitical and extremely popular. In 1969 “Give Peace a Chance” reached number fourteen on the Billboard singles charts. 1971 saw “Power to the People” at number eleven. But the apolitical “Instant Karma” reached number three on the charts one year earlier. “Imagine,” which mixed personal and political concerns, also reached number three one year later. Lennon’s most polit- ical album, Some Time in New York City , pro- duced no hits. His biggest hits, “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” and “Starting Over,” which both reached number one on the charts, are apolitical. Jon Wiener, in his biography of Lennon, argues that on “Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” “it seemed like John was turning himself into Paul, the person without political values, who put out Number One songs and who managed to sleep soundly. Maybe that’s why John (Lennon) told Elton John that ‘What- ever Gets You Through the Night’ was ‘one of my least favorites.’” When, after leaving music for five years, Lennon returned in 1980 with the best-selling Double Fantasy album, the subject of his writing was “caring, sharing, and being a whole person.”