While the work of Yoko Ono and her late husband John Lennon continue to influence a new generation of rock and pop recording artists, Ono, who turns sixty-nine on February eighteenth, remains to many people in the general public simply, "The woman who broke up The Beatles." Yet it was Ono's influence that inspired and motivated her husband to create some of the most artistically important and definitive music of the Sixties and early Seventies. Their partnership in peaceful, antiwar and political protests, along with the many John and Yoko musical collaborations and their own personal romance, fueled such extensive global media coverage of the couple, that today, over two decades after Lennon's tragic murder, anytime Yoko Ono speaks for the public record, the interview has the potential to become a media event. Still a self described "cutting edge" recording artist, a pioneer of the avant-garde and a key figure in the New York art world, in the following interview, Yoko Ono speaks openly about John their son Sean, her passions and her memories of living in different cultures.
(Q)- In 1980 you had a hit single with the disco, dance song "Walking On Thin Ice". With the release of your latest limited edition "Open Your Box" (The Orange Factory Mixes) remix single, your music is once again being played by DJ's in dance clubs. Why are you into the underground rave and dance scene, some twenty-one years after you first ventured into disco and dance music?
Yoko Ono- Mainly because I just go with the flow in a way. And The Orange Factory was kind enough to approach me and say, "Hey, could we do "Open Your Box"? And I said, "Hmmmm. "Open Your Box".(Note. "Open Your Box" was originally released by Yoko Ono on the single, "Power to the People/Open Your Box" (A-side John Lennon/B-side Yoko Ono in 1971.) If you want to, that's interesting." (she laughs) It was just like that. When I first heard of the idea I thought, great. It is very important that there is an enthusiasm on the other side though. I didn't go to them and say, "Hey would you do this for me?" You know what I mean? It had to be coming from them.
(Q)- So it was pretty much an impulsive thing for you to do? There was the attitude of, "Hey, let's do it right now"?
Yoko Ono- Yeah. It's in the spirit of unfinished music, unfinished paintings. I like the idea of people sort of taking over and then going with it. I wanted to see what they'd do with it.
(Q)- How do you like the completed music?
Yoko Ono-When they said they wanted to do that, then I forgot about it because I was kind of finishing up my album, ""BLUEPRINT FOR A SUNRISE" (2001). And then one day the mix record for "Open Your Box" came. When I heard it I'll admit I was at first totally baffled but later, I became very happy. Then as I listened to the music, I started to get choked up and I started to cry.
(Q)- Why did you begin to cry?
Yoko Ono - Well, first off, it was beautifully done. It was so obvious that they understood my work. They understood "Open Your Box", what I was saying and what I was doing with it and that was nearly thirty years ago. So it was just nice to see that it was revived once again.
(Q)- Were you and John going through the phase of your lives whenever John was taking a serious participation in the primal scream therapy experiences of Dr. Arthur Janov?
Yoko Ono- That is a good question.
(Q)- At the time "Open Your Box" was released (1971) as a B side on one of the John and Yoko singles, primal scream therapy was already a major influence, both in the lives and music of the two of you.
Yoko Ono- "Open Your Box" was recorded very close to the end of 1969 or into 1970. The facts are all there historically, I'd have to check exactly the date when it was actually recorded. But, "Open Your Box", must have been something that I'd written in about 1970. I was working on the song around or shortly before that time. Primal scream was around that time for us too.
(Q)- The original music from the 1971 single release as well as the new remix of "Open Your Box"(The Orange Factory Mixes") both utilize primal scream vocals to the point of an almost soul bearing, cathartic aural experience. That every element of utilizing the primal scream is found on the recordings with John from the classic "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" album. There is a primal, cathartic, venting in the vocal performances, throughout all of the music on all three recordings.
Yoko Ono- Yes. This is funny. The book "THE PRIMAL SCREAM" came to us when we were living in Ascot. (The book title is "THE PRIMAL SCREAM, Primal Therapy: The cure for Neurosis" by Dr Arthur Janov. 1970) John looked at the book and said, ""PRIMAL SCREAM". Sounds like your music Yoko. Now, it sounds like Yoko, OK then, let's read it." So that's why he decided to read the book. And later on when we read it, the book was not just like Yoko music but we saw a close correlation.
(Q)- There is multiple levels of a raw, bearing of one's spirit within the music. "Open Your Box" (The Orange Factory Mixes) captures that rather well.
Yoko Ono- Yes. They (The Orange Factory recording team.) understood all of that and expressed that element in a cutting edge way. They got all of the stuff out in the music. It was cutting edge times two. I think they did an incredible job.
(Q)- You and John were oftentimes very outspoken regarding global peace. You personally have been for many years, working for and speaking about global peace. The USA is currently at war. What are your feelings regarding this?
Yoko Ono- Of course I do.
(Q)- Do you have any plans through your music or your art to make a statement for peace in 2002?
Yoko Ono- Yes. I think "Open Your Box" is a great place to start.
(Q)- In what way?
Yoko Ono- "Open Your Box" is about opening ourselves to each other and we have to start with that. After all, what are we waiting for? Post September Eleventh, many of us died. OK? And we're still waiting for the time to unleash ourselves, unloosen ourselves, to open up ourselves to each other. I mean that's how I look at it. That is what "Open Your Box" is about. That is what I was saying thirty years ago and now, with the grace and the help from these people, Orange Factory, I'm seeing it occur. Except in a 2002 way. And that's what choked me up I think when I first heard the finished music. I was grateful that I finally got not only an OK sign from someone, but help from somebody.
(Q)- Why do you feel so strongly regarding this music Yoko?
Yoko Ono- Because doing "Open Your Box" thirty years ago was a painful lonely trip. OK? Nobody understood it and it was almost like an incredible loneliness that I was feeling as an artist.
(Q)- In what way? Why did you have such loneliness?
Yoko Ono- Because nobody understood my music and everybody was laughing at me. It was the kind of loneliness that would be almost anemic, it would make you faint. And it was a sensitive recording. "Open Your Box" was sensitive.
(Q)- Were you starved for recognition as a recording artist back then Yoko? And was the fact that "Open Your Box" was not recognized by the general public as well as many music critics, a part of your "loneliness"?
Yoko Ono- No. I don't know that, "starved for recognition", is good way to explain it.
(Q)- Why not?
Yoko Ono- Because it sounds like there's some ego game going on there. It was to be understood, to be appreciated as a person and as an artist. I think that most artists like their work to communicate their ideas. And if they communicate, then it is like, "See there it is, communicated." But I didn't at that time, communicate. It was there, but it was just there. So now finally someone is picking it up and finding it and understanding it in such a way that they can turn it into a 2002 recording.
(Q)- Even though John Lennon many times told the media that your love and your ideas were very influential for his own music, your own work, especially your music, did not receive serious recognition only until recently. Yet you influenced perhaps the greatest rock recording artist of a generation, John Lennon. You have also worked with some of the greatest recording artists in rock history. Why do you feel that, while John believed in your music and your art and other artists also worked with you and continue, to this day, to believe in your music and art, the general public and many critics do not?
Yoko Ono- I think it was sheer luck, I suppose. Being with the top artists, was just sheer luck. This time around or before, I always somehow have had the luck of being with the top artists. The people who approached me and communicated to me were very, very sensitive artists. I would say that I was like an, "artist's artist" and they danced to my work. It didn't get to the public very well. But, the artists did understand, I think.
(Q)- Yet there is a resurgence in your music and work as an artist other then the fact that you were John Lennon's beloved.
Yoko Ono- That is very sweet.
(Q)- But it is true. By the very facts that you have recording artists approaching you to do updated versions of "Open Your Box" and that your art is displayed in prominent art galleries and museums around the world.
Yoko Ono- I'd just say I've been very lucky.
(Q)- You wouldn't say that the time has changed and that possibly public opinion has turned people's attitude's around to reexamine your music and art?
Yoko Ono- I would say that and this sounds grande, but the world is wiser now. In that, they can appreciate things that they have not appreciated before. Period.
(Q)- How will you plan to stay in touch with the underground music scene?
Yoko Ono- Now that I've looked into the scene once again, I realize that by going to disco clubs and looking at the scene, all of that scene is beautiful! It is this whole new kind of culture! And, you know how I am about that, I'm soft for that kind of thing. It's great! So when I go to London, in March I think, of course I'm going to visit a few clubs and do that sort of thing.
(Q)- For many of John's recordings your spirit and love, influenced his music. How did John's music and spirit influence the music you are doing today?
Yoko Ono- Well everything in a way. I mean not literally everything, but you know the basic important thing, which is the beat. That is a big influence for my music. That's very important and I got that from John. The beat comes first of all.
(Q)- Yet Sean is part of a considerably younger generation then your own.
Yoko Ono- Yes. (she laughs)
(Q)- Young people and young recording artists, have always been at the forefront and played a major factor in the vitality of what the pop culture is all about. Yet, much of the pop culture still is as Andy Warhol said, "recycled". The new often is "recycled" from the old. Why, in your opinion, does pop culture borrow so heavily from the past and what has been? Why do older pop fans, want to look back and travel on a nostalgia trip, by let's say, listening to The Beatles music, instead of focusing on what is new in pop and rock culture?
Yoko Ono- When you are so much a part of an experience and that experience was "US", then looking back is like confirming part of our body or something. And, that's alright, it's not going to kill us in doing that. Also by doing that, you get certain energy and go forward into something that you doing now. Something that you'll be doing later. We can't help it. Time is a man made concept. We don't have to really feel like we're thinking about only the past, the future or the present, because we are the past, the future, in the present. We're sitting on it all. And, we're doing fine.
(Q)- Why does nostalgia often ruin the present experiences in which we are living?
Yoko Ono- I think a lot of all of this is due to the fact that we're too critical of ourselves. Let's be in time together.
(Q)- Yet there remains this circle of recycling, pop culture through pop music, fashion and art from generation to generation?
Yoko Ono- It's fine that we go from past, present, future, to past and again to present. We have rich memories. That's what enriches us in life.
(Q)- One case in point where Beatles nostalgia has really fueled a "recycling" of pop music and pop culture is in Britain, with the popularity of the British rock group Oasis. In the Nineties, Oasis did extremely well for themselves in Britain, recording and performing rock music that in some instances, sounds quite similar to The Beatles. Liam Gallagher, who is Oasis lead singer, has taken his passion for The Beatles to the point where, at times perhaps, he even thinks he is John Lennon.
Yoko Ono- He probably does. (she laughs).
(Q)- Why Yoko, do you believe The Beatles music remains so popular in Britain and around the world and continually influences younger recording artists?
Yoko Ono- I think that a lot of good energy was put out there by The Beatles and by John and John and Yoko too, and all of that. And, all of that good energy is not just going to be a waste. It's just going to always keep giving people some encouragement I think. I hope so.
(Q)- You have lived in many different cities with dramatically different cultures.
Yoko Ono- Yes.
(Q)- For the Japanese, you, John, Sean and your loving relationships, have always had a very special meaning. Why in your opinion has this fascination remained with the Japanese culture and Japanese people?
Yoko Ono- Unwitting, and I say it unwittingly, because that's what it was really and that should be printed in capitol letters, John and I were bridging the two cultures, east and west. And, that was very important, especially for the east, because the east often feel that the west are not thinking about them. And this is after all, One World One People. So, it's good to know that there was a kind of beautiful communication between the east and west except for only war. Like the World War II.
(Q)- You were directly and deeply affected by World War II.
Yoko Ono- It was an amazing thing, isn't it? And it is almost like I was placed in all of these different places and I was meant to have those experiences so that I could do something later for the world and for peace.
(Q)- So John and Yoko's relationship helped to bridge the east and the west in their own way?
Yoko Ono- It's very interesting that somehow naturally, without thinking about, "Oh well, I should do something to bridge the east and west", or something like that, it did happen. And this family, John and I and Sean, for the Japanese, feel that since we were there, our experience is something that they shared with us and that we shared with them.
(Q)- George Harrison died recently after a long illness. Do you have one particular fond memory of George you'd share?
Yoko Ono- The memory of George being a total dedicated musician and an honest craftsman. My fond memory of George, is when he was playing for the recordings for "Imagine". (DVD title "Gimme Some Truth: The Making of John Lennon's "Imagine"") The DVD shows the moment I am talking about. It (The "Imagine" DVD.) is about how we made the recordings. We made the music in a musical studio in our kitchen that we built in Ascot. (Ascot Sound Studios was within the estate that John and Yoko bought in Tittenhurst Park, Ascot, England.) In that, George is there and George is playing guitar. When you see that moment and you see the expression on George's face, you notice what an incredible, sensitive musician he was. He was very into being a totally dedicated musician. There were many moments, when it was all four Beatles together, just feeling cocky and saying, "We're the Beatles OK?". That kind of thing. But when we (John, Yoko and George) were working together at this particular moment of "Imagine", George was very established and accomplished on his own, but he was still a musician who was just doing his work. George was such a sensitive musician. And I appreciated that so that much at the time. I have fond memories of George.
(Q)- Do you have one particular story of a time whenever John taught you a lesson, which you draw strength from to this day?
Yoko Ono- In 1968, when we weren't married yet and we were just known as a boyfriend and girlfriend kind of thing. And everyone was ostracizing us at the time. So, we walked into this place that they were doing an art show in and one of my works was there. It was an opening of a little group art show. So, we walked in and this is a very intellectual, underground, cutting edge group of people. And when we walked in together, they all turned their heads away from us and they showed their backs to us. Isn't that amazing? But then John said, "When this happens we just keep our chins up. We have to do that. That's all." And I always remember that. He said, "Keep your chin up and everything will be fine." I still keep my chin up.
End.