http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jul/10/yoko-ono-beatles
She's put up with years of abuse from Beatles fans, yet Yoko Ono is a
dignified keeper of her husband's legacy and continues to surprise
with creative works that her peers would never dream of
7/10/09
Growing up, I heard nothing but bad things about Yoko Ono. She was
and often still is portrayed as a destructive force among "our
boys". I never understood it. The age-old tedious argument rolled out
by Beatles diehards is that Ono was responsible for the Beatles'
split something John Lennon, who would have had a better take on it
than most of us, denied and dismissed. And if she was, then they
can't have been a very strong unit in the first place. Looking at
recent comments on numerous Beatles and Ono YouTube clips, the
Yoko-hate continues today.
Perhaps the widespread anti-Yoko invective stems from her creative
obtuseness and the difficulty people have had in pigeonholing her
since she first met Lennon in 1966 or, indeed before that, when her
art career was turning heads. Most people have little time for modern
art so why would they have any respect for a modern artist? Or
perhaps it is because, when her relationship began with Lennon in
1968, Ono was an unapologetic and determined woman in a man's world
one where many female performers were either "allowed" into the boy's
club (Marianne Faithful, Cilla Black) or were simply dolly bird
accoutrements. Ono was neither while John was declaring his band
more popular than Jesus, she was making silent movies about bare
bottoms and lighting matches as part of her involvement in the Fluxus movement.
Last month, the Plastic Ono Band's appearance at the recent Ornette
Coleman-curated Meltdown festival offered many surprises: Antony
Hegarty, audience interaction and film footage of "a fly slowly
navigating a woman's naked crotch". Oh, and the annoyingly
unavoidable Mark Ronson on bass. Let's remind ourselves that the
band's singer/facilitator is a 76-year-old artist who has been
creatively active for more than half a century, and who continues to
surprise in ways that performers of the same age (she's older than
Leonard Cohen and Jerry Lee Lewis) would never dream of.
She continues to divide opinion and provoke a wider range of emotions
than any of the former Beatles have. Granted, her singing has on
occasions been terrible and has tainted as many songs as it has
enhanced, though on tracks such as We're All Water her voice is no
worse than the turgid bar-room blues rock it accompanies. It is these
moments that anti-Ono opinions seem to have formed, yet when she got
it right as she did on 1981's Walking On Thin Ice, which wouldn't
sound out of place in clubs today she proved herself to be cutting
edge. And, yes, Lennon and Ono shared many a cheesy public moment.
But, alas, that's what love does. It makes you cheesy.
Maybe it boils down to this: we've all heard the stories about how
angry, bitter and manipulative Lennon could be behaviour that's
usually excused as artistic temperament. We've also heard how,
following his songwriting partner's death, Paul McCartney tried to
change songwriting credits from "Lennon/McCartney" to
"McCartney/Lennon". But have you ever actually heard anything bad
said about Ono as a person? People I know who have met her say she is
warm, generous and possibly slightly regal.
Despite putting up with years of abuse from a pretty sizable number
of Beatles fans, she remains a good ambassador for her late husband's
work and legacy something that is no more important than her own
creative output. I'd say Yoko Ono was dignity personified. I'm not
sure I could say the same about McCartney these days.
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