A conversation with Yoko Ono
Words: Everett True. Photo collage: Yoko Ono
Reprinted from Careless Talk Costs Lives #11 (2002)
… What motivates you to work?
“What motivates me?”
To still make music …
“Music is the beat of life for me. It’s like my heart. You have to keep on going. Motivation is too light a word for it. It is life itself to me. It’s like I have to keep on breathing, it’s a way of survival, a way of being alive.”
You move between different musical styles on your new album …
“It’s good, isn’t it? I’ve always done that. It’s like my diary, and in your daily life you do go from one thing to another.”
That song where you’re talking about walking in Central Park and it’s got a kind of reggae beat to it. I’m really bad with song titles …
“Isn’t that great? Usually reggae is an upbeat thing. This is kind of upbeat but also down as well.”
It’s kind of sad as well. I felt that the music you were playing was reflecting the sounds of Central Park …
“Well, it’s a woman thing. All women understand it.”
The album seems to have quite a sad mood.
“You feel that?”
Yeah. Not always, but there’s a kind of melancholy …
“Yeah, probably because my life was pretty rough, you know.”
There’s a song on 2001’s Blueprint For A Sunrise, ‘Rising II’ – actually a reprise of a record Yoko made a few years back that ended up being remixed by artists like Tricky and Sonic Youth and the like, people who understand that far and away the most interesting people in rock’n’roll are the outsiders, the ones ostracised, and who could be more outside than Yoko, the woman who emasculated The Beatles and caused the mainstream to come into contact with strange art that it usually never encounters – that is pure beauty. It’s a live track. The NYC hipsters’ voices come whooping in at the song’s end like they appreciate beauty (rather than are merely grabbing another opportunity to prove how cool they are). It builds and builds, and doesn’t let go of its stately melancholy, its grace. Yoko, throughout her reams of experimental albums and occasional pop song – witness Galaxie 500’s icy reading of her ‘Listen The Snow Is Falling’ and Fuzzbox’s disco attempt on the chilling ‘Walking On Thin Ice’ – has always carried herself with considerable dignity.
Or maybe she hasn’t? Maybe she was a gold-digger who got lucky? It’s your call. I’m not going to upset decades of accepted hegemony with a few words here: just remark upon how strange it is all these rock men with their love for the rebel stance of James Dean and Mick fucking Jagger despise Yoko so greatly. My introduction to left field art came through Yoko’s 70s albums and the underground female cartoonists. I’ll admit I’m prejudiced.
And you aren’t?
(continues overleaf)
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You should really, really do interviews again E!
Mmm. I like this one as well. But this is a face-to-face interview. Stuff like that (outside of a few grabbed minutes at soundcheck) is rarely offered here in Brisbane.
Now that I see it again it’s just a small mention, but the bit about you being scared before the interview had an effect on me at the time. God, Yoko’s awesome.
I love Yoko and Bolan. They were both originals.
“Far and away the most interesting people in rock’n’roll are the outsiders, the ones ostracised.” Bull shit. The usual bullshit spouted by the sort of self-absorbed person who likes an artist because he/she is an outsider and abandons that artist as soon as he/she gets (shudder) “popular.”
A brilliant interview with a very brilliant woman! There were moments when I teared up. Could I please have a copy of the unabridged version of the interview? Thanks so much!
“Maybe she was a gold-digger who got lucky?” er… isn’t it pitiful that all the voiceless models in the world are allowed to go out spending their rock star husband’s money, having a baby with them and getting on with it quietly in the background and don’t get the label ‘gold-digger’ applied. Isn’t it funny that of all the people to call gold-diggers, it gets applied to such an obviously prolific artist and self-disclosed workaholic? That’s ignorant of the facts that stare us in the face. Isn’t it also obvious that John Lennon who trained as a fine artist was actually attracted to his natural counterpart. Someone just like him? I thought it was just because people were old fashioned back then that they saw things this way. But this is the private norm in many people’s lives these days. And why so many people begrudged John Lennon of having a clearly satisfying relationship is anyone’s guess. The fans with this attitude seem like the metaphorical gold-diggers here. The whole world wanted something out of him. Yoko at least gave him something in return. Love.
Now I can continue reading the rest of the article. That just pissed me off.
Spot on, Hannah
The most I have read about Yoko Ono is in that book, ‘The Lives of John Lennon’ by that rabid iconoclast Albert Goldman. It is interesting to read something that is coming from a very different point of view.
“Isn’t it pitiful that all the voiceless models in the world are allowed to go out spending their rock star husband’s money, having a baby with them and getting on with it quietly in the background and don’t get the label ‘gold-digger’ applied?”
“Spot on, Hannah.”
No it’s not. Those women are called gold diggers every day in the pages of the Daily Mail and other tabloids. It’s amazing how people see what they want to see. The reality: Yoko rarely if ever gets called a “gold digger.” Those “voiceless models” get called gold diggers all the time. Why is it that Yoko fans continue to feed her need to be seen as the victim? She loves to promote herself as this outsider. A multimillionaire outsider who has been able to used Lennon’s money and name to finance and promote her own career for decades now.
Can the Yoko fans please take off the rose-colored glasses? She’s a highly successful businesswoman who has attached Lennon’s name and image to coffee mugs, umbrellas, T-shirts, European car commercials, and $26,000 Mont blanc pens. But by all means, paint her as the victim. What rot.
I’ve never seen Yoko as a victim. You didn’t read this article, did you?
What better reason to hate a female?
The point, Everett, that you keep missing in your kneejerk attempt to see sexism in my comment where there is none: You called Yoko an outsider and said she’d been ostracized. But Yoko has not been an outsider for 40 years. No mega multimillionaire who can finance any art/music project she wants is EVER an outsider. How can someone who just a year or two ago was awarded an Icon award from Mojo Magazine be considered ostracized? She’s feted wherever she goes these days.
And yes, Yoko has portrayed herself as the victim for decades. And still does. It’s very much part of her myth. And Golightly’s comment (that you seconded) clearly portrays Yoko as a victim who is meanly called a gold digger even though no one EVER refers to her that way.
She’s not an outsider. She’s a marketing genius (her art is self-promotion at its finest) and she’s an established member of the 1%, however much that bothers her fans to admit.
This raises an interesting point: Does Yoko Ono’s wealth eradicate the hardships and struggles of her past? Does it erase the racial epithets that were hurled at her for being involved with a white Beatle? Does it reverse the direction of the crowds walking out of her performances? Does it neutralize living under the shadow of her murdered husband? Does it take away the sting of being called “the ugliest creature on earth”?
In my opinion, I don’t think it does.
Or should we believe Dan—should we believe that none of this really happened?
Of course, the first time I ever heard the words Yoko and Ono was in a punch line. And although the jokes I’ve heard since I was 13 years old have become less racist and less sexist, they haven’t gone away. With the exception of money, she gave up a lot more than she gleaned from marrying John Lennon. You know, dignity, respect, and her own identity. She was a successful artist in her own right before she met her husband and came from a wealthy Japanese family. When she married her equal, she became unequal in the eyes of mainstream culture. People thought she was a weirdo, a freak—even if she was a wealthy one.
I never saw Yoko Ono as a victim of anything. She’s a witch. She doesn’t care what you say. She makes me want to emulate the noises of childbirth and the violence of the universe splitting open. When I listen to Yoko Ono I feel alive, and I feel like everything is going to be OK.
Needless to say, my opinion is biased.
Oh well. Life is messy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfCBFhB_RQs
All you have to do is scroll the comments of this youtube video to see that some love her, and some hate her. Some comments are horrible, and some are wonderful. But nothing is as simple as it appears.
Was looking at Yoko Ono on Wikipedia. She has led a very interesting life. The way we see ourselves and the image that we project into the world is usually rooted in childhood, and she had a difficult and war-torn childhood. I admire her resolve in being herself and following her calling as an avante garde artist despite somewhat different expectations around her growing up.
She is a true artist.
I’ll state it again. I’ve never once in my life seen Yoko Ono as a victim. People like @Dan can try their hardest to turn her into one, sure. Ultimately, he’s going to fail though. If Mark Chapman couldn’t turn her into a victim, if being called “the ugliest creature on earth” couldn’t turn her into a victim, if all the racism and sexism the Western world could throw at her didn’t turn her into a victim, I really don’t see that people like @Dan are going to succeed.
Yoko Ono is herself.
P.S. “She’s a highly successful businesswoman … ” is a sexist remark if you’re using it as a putdown of women specifically. Would it be used as a putdown of a man in a similar context? Is Mick Jagger’s art denigrated because he earns millions, does Chris Martin get called a gold-digger for marrying an incredibly successful actress? Fuck no.
@Brigette I love the comment beneath the YouTube video that states:
Of course! The most important requisite for any female – No 2: Stand By Your Man.
During Athens Popfest, they had a record fair in the convention center. One of the vendors specializing in Beatles memorabilia had this t-shirt for sale:
I STILL HATE YOKO
People who hate Yoko are people who hate real women. Not media plastic man-invented portrayals of women, but real women in their natural state. People don’t have to love her or anything, but the passionate hate of her is appalling.
Women can’t win, the world sets them up to lose. If women win, they lose reputation. If they lose, they lose reputation. If they do well, it’s thanks to their husbands, if they do badly, it’s because they are female. If none of this applies, you can criticise them on their weight. If that still doesn’t work, you can say their work is rubbish because it’s female.
Basically: Fuck. You. And your world. *the people this refers to know who you are.
Some of you are as blind as Beatles fanatics in your fan love for Yoko. That you don’t recognize you’re worshipping a well-financed marketing operation is funny. My point still stands and it’s one that all of you avoided addressing: Yoko markets herself as an “outsider” but that’s all her image is: marketing. Multimillionaire artists who can finance any art they want are not outsiders or ostracized.
And for the record: I’ve never thought Yoko was a victim. She does. She’s the one who plays the widow card, the Beatles-fans-were-mean-to-me card whenever it’s convenient. She goes up to Iceland to celebrate what would have been John’s 70th and plays a concert that features HER songs, not his. Nothing like using your dead husband’s 70th to promote yourself.
Golightly: If you want women to be treated equally, then evaluate them with the same skepticism as you would men.
Dan, you clearly came to this article with a specific agenda in mind. It must be nice to have your worldview reaffirmed wherever you turn, however cliched and sexist.
I’ll state it again. I have never once in my life seen Yoko Ono as a victim. People like @Dan can try their hardest to turn her into one, sure. Ultimately, he’s going to fail though. If Mark Chapman couldn’t turn her into a victim, if being called “the ugliest creature on earth” couldn’t turn her into a victim, if all the racism and sexism the Western world could throw at her didn’t turn her into a victim, I really don’t see that people like @Dan are going to succeed.
I’m starting to think it’s incredibly rude of ‘Dan’ to leave comments on an article he so clearly hasn’t read.
As for the “I Still Hate Yoko” shirt, it’s funny. You know, humor?
I bet you think it was funny and/or cool when Johnny Rotten wore his famous “I hate Pink Floyd” T-shirt. You just don’t like it when people poke fun at your own sacred cows.
If it’s perfectly OK to hate the Beatles, it’s OK to hate Yoko. To each his/her own hate.
Doubtless you also found these T-shirts a laugh riot.
@ Scott: I saw that Beatles vendor at Athens Popfest, but I didn’t see the shirt. It makes me even happier that the only thing I bought from him was an LP of Yoko’s Plastic Ono Band.
Hi Dan, Yoko stands as an equal to her husband as an artist, and together they formed a partnership. She is the one who carried his legacy over the years after his death, as well as continuing to do her own thing. John pushed her into the limelight when he was alive, and his final album featured her songs and his songs back to back. He was trying to make a point with that album. Here we are more than 20 years later and you still don’t get it.
30 years later, actually.
Erika, this dude has come along to Collapse Board with a specific agenda, one that he’s held for at least 40 years (to judge from the age of the Johnny Rotten/Pink Floyd reference). Amazing the grudges some folk will harbour from their teenage years … me, I still don’t like Phil Collins. Not sure that would drive me to cite his business dealings and personal life in an attempted putdown of his art, but some folk have no shame. Especially when it comes to prominent female artists.