YOKO ONO'S AUSTRALIAN
INTERVIEW |
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They took the form of either purely aesthetic statements like the clear glass Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through, or as highly political performance pieces such as the 1964 feminist work Cut, in which audience members were instructed to come on stage and cut off pieces of Yoko's clothing. This combination of artistic simplicity and political demonstration became hugely influential on Lennon: to oppose intellectualism with the literalness of Happy Christmas (War Is Over). How much of this inspired Imagine? "Well, the idea of making a word in your head is something which I made in many instruction pieces, so 'imagine' is the word which was used a lot in my (1964) book Grapefruit," Yoko says. "And as artists, living together, we inspired each other. But I would sooner leave that to individual critics. I do think John, through his particular background, was different to the London intellectuals. He had a wisdom which came from his struggle to survive. I came from a background which was totally opposite, in many ways, but it was also a background where one needed to exert an incredible amount of energy to rebel - so that you could come out and breathe in a larger world, so to speak. We had both shared that experience." The "literalness" of John and Yoko's artistic technique brought them back to a wider public. At the time of its release, Imagine was far more of a commercially acceptable pop record than any of Lennon's previous solo albums. Spending weeks at No. 1 and remaining in the charts for months, it seemed to be more of a Top 40 record than an underground record. It could sit comfortably beside the latest LPs by David Bowie or T Rex, and it returned John Lennon to the mass audience which had felt alienated by his advant-garde recordings with Yoko, his use of the word "f---" on Working Class Hero or the couple's controversial "happenings". Paul McCartney, whose determinedly whimsical Uncle Albert had been a huge hit at the same time as Imagine, made a comment to the media that "he liked Imagine ... but there was too much political stuff on the other albums". And John responded with a letter to Melody Maker magazine: "So you think Imagine ain't political? It's Working Class Hero with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself!" Ironically, it was this "sugar" which made Imagine such an enduring success. "Working Class Hero was not taken well," Yoko says, "regardless of the fact that John was an ex-Beatle and so on. But, Imagine fulfilled people's dreams in a way. I think it was pretty courageous, because religion is still a source of fanaticism and violence.
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"John
and I are still partners, in many ways, because we believed in the same kind of things and
we were working for them together. And the songs he has written are still in people's
minds, as well as his statements, his ideas and his spirit - they haven't been forgotten.
More than that, they're growing. And maybe that's why Imagine is a song for the
millennium, that there's a kind of silent conspiracy growing, if you like, between all the
people who believed that we can all make a difference." Oasis, with its massive fan base, has introduced a new generation to the significance of John Lennon. Anyone who has watched the video of Oasis playing at Manchester City football ground will have caught the moment when Liam prostrates himself on the stage before a monolithic back-projection of Lennon, and the group has been evangelical about the Beatles since its very first interview. For Yoko, the younger generations are an inspiration and indication that social and spiritual change are not only possible, but already happening. "I think young people have a great faith, but just now they're more concerned with anger." she says. "And that's an anger towards a bad generation before them, maybe, for being so dumb. We have to accept that our generation has made mistakes: we're still cynical, we're still busy making money and we don't really care about ecology or the planet. So, of course, the younger generation will be angry at us. If they can't forget about us, then they can go on and do what's right fro them. And maybe we can join them." As she is talking and sipping her tea, Yoko seems to grow more confident. She is softly spoken, but her Japanese-American accent lends her speech an authority. She admits to being amazed at just how edgy she still becomes when giving an interview, and her initial few statements are delivered in a series of faltering clauses, punctuated by short, nervous coughs. "I am also very concerned as a mother," she continues, "that I could become a very over-powering parent if I tried to share my experience too much with my children. I don't want to do that with my son Sean (Yoko also has a daughter, Kyoko, from an earlier marriage). I think he should have breathing space where he can find out for himself. John and I felt the same about Sean's development, that he shouldn't go to school until he wanted to go to school and so on. But he wanted to go right away, so off he went. I didn't want to cram him with my ideas and I'm surprised he knows so much about John and his music. Also, he is a very New Age man - very considerate to the position of women in society and so forth which, again, I didn't force on him."
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