Everything about Yoko Ono totally explained
Yoko Ono Lennon (小野 洋子
Ono Yōko; however, in Japan her name is generally rendered in
katakana as オノ・ヨーコ rather than in
kanji), born in
Tokyo on
February 18,
1933, is a
Japanese artist and
musician. She is known for her work as an
avant-garde artist and musician, and her marriage and works with world famous
English musician
John Lennon.
Early life
Yoko Ono's mother was Isoko Ono, of the
Yasuda banking family, and her father was Eisuke Ono, who worked for the Yokohama Specie Bank. Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to
San Francisco. The rest of the family followed soon after. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Japan and Ono was enrolled at
Tokyo's
Gakushuin University, the most exclusive school in
Japan, open only to those descended from aristocrats (in the
House of Peers) or the imperial family.
In 1940, the family moved to
New York where Ono's father was working. In 1941, her father was transferred to
Hanoi and the family returned to Japan. Ono was then enrolled in an exclusive
Christian primary school run by the
Mitsui family. She remained in Tokyo through the great
fire-bombing of
March 9,
1945. During the fire-bombing, she was sheltered with other members of her family in a special bunker in the
Azabu district of Tokyo, far from the heavy bombing. After the bombing, Ono went to the
Karuizawa mountain resort with members of her family. The younger members of the imperial family were sent to the same resort area.
Ono has said that she and her family were forced to beg for food while pulling their belongings in a
wheelbarrow; and it was during this period in her life that Ono says she developed her "aggressive" attitude and understanding of "outsider" status when children taunted her and her brother, who were once well-to-do. Other stories have her mother bringing a large amount of property with them to the countryside which they bartered for food. One often quoted story has her mother bartering a German-made sewing machine for sixty kilograms of rice with which to feed the family. Her father remained in the city and, unbeknownst to them, was eventually
incarcerated in a
prisoner of war camp in
China. In an interview by
Democracy Now's
Amy Goodman on
October 16 2007, Ono said of her father "He was in
French Indo-China which is
Vietnam actually...in Saigon. He was in a concentration camp."
By April 1946, the Peers' school was reopened and Ono was enrolled. The school, located near the
imperial palace, hadn't been damaged by the war. She graduated in 1951 and was accepted into the philosophy program of
Gakushuin University , the first woman ever to be accepted into that department of the exclusive university. However, after two semesters, she left the school.
Education, marriage, and family
Ono's family moved to
Scarsdale in the suburbs of New York City after the war. She left Japan to rejoin the family and enrolled in nearby
Sarah Lawrence College. While her parents approved of her college choice, they were dismayed at her lifestyle, and, according to Ono, chastised her for befriending people they considered to be "beneath" her. In spite of this, Ono loved meeting artists, poets and others who represented the "
Bohemian" freedom she longed for herself. Visiting galleries and art "
happenings" in the city whetted her desire to publicly display her own artistic endeavors.
La Monte Young, her first important contact in the New York art world, helped Ono start her career by using her
Lower East Side loft as a concert hall. At one concert, Ono set a painting on fire; fortunately
John Cage had advised her to treat the paper with
flame retardant.
In 1956, she married
composer Toshi Ichiyanagi. They divorced in 1962 after living apart for several years. On
November 28 that same year, Ono married
American Anthony Cox. Cox was a
jazz musician,
film producer and art promoter. He had heard of Ono in New York and tracked her down to a
mental institution in Japan, where her family had placed her following a
suicide attempt. Ono had neglected to finalize her divorce from Ichiyanagi, so their marriage was
annulled on
March 1,
1963 and Cox and Ono married on
June 6. Their daughter,
Kyoko Chan Cox, was born on
August 8,
1963.
The marriage quickly fell apart (as observers describe Tony and Ono threatening each other with kitchen knives) but the Coxes stayed together for the sake of their joint career. They performed at Tokyo's Sogetsu Hall with Ono lying atop a piano played by
John Cage. Soon the Coxes returned to New York with Kyoko. In the early years of this marriage, Ono left most of Kyoko's
parenting to Cox while she pursued her art full-time and Tony managed publicity. After she divorced Cox for John Lennon on
February 2,
1969, Ono and Cox engaged in a bitter legal battle for custody of Kyoko, which resulted in Ono being awarded full custody. However, in 1971, Cox disappeared with eight-year-old Kyoko, in violation of the custody order. Cox subsequently became a
Christian and raised Kyoko in a Christian group known as the
Church of the Living Word (or "the Walk"). Cox left the group with Kyoko in 1977. Living an underground existence, Cox changed the girl's name to Rosemary. In 1980, Cox and Kyoko sent a sympathy message to Ono after the death of John Lennon. Afterward, the bitterness between the parents lessened slightly and Ono publicly announced in
People Magazine that she'd no longer seek out the now-adult Kyoko but still wished to make contact with her.
Ono and Kyoko were finally reunited in 1994. Kyoko lives quietly in
Colorado and avoids publicity.
Artwork
Ono was a reluctant member of
Fluxus, a loose association of
Dada-inspired
avant-garde artists that developed in the early 1960s. Fluxus founder
George Maciunas, a friend of Ono's during the 60s, admired her work and promoted it with enthusiasm. Maciunus invited Ono to help him promote the Fluxus movement, but she declined because she didn't necessarily consider Fluxus a movement and she wanted to remain an independent artist. John Cage was one of the most important influences on Ono's performance art. It was her relationship to Ichiyanagi Toshi, a pupil of John Cage’s legendary class of Experimental Composition at the
New School that would introduce her to the unconventional avant-garde, neo-Dadaism of John Cage and his protégés in New York City.
Almost immediately after John Cage finished teaching at the New School of Social Research in the Summer of 1960, Yoko Ono was determined to rent a place to present her works along with works of other New York avant-garde artists. She eventually found a cheap loft in downtown Manhattan at 112 Chambers Street that she used as studio and a living space.
Composer La Monte Young urged Yoko Ono to let him organize concerts in the loft, and Ono acquiesced. Both artists began organizing a series of events in Ono’s loft at 112 Chambers Street, and both Young and Ono claimed to have been the primary curator of these events, but Ono claims to have been eventually pushed into a subsidiary role by Young. The Chambers Street series hosted some of Yoko Ono’s earliest conceptual artwork including Painting to Be Stepped On, which was a scrap of canvas on the floor that became a completed artwork upon the accrual of footprints. Participants faced a moral dilemma presented by Ono that a work of art no longer needed to be mounted on a wall, inaccessible, but an irregular piece of canvas as low and dirty as to have to be completed by being stepped on.
Some critics have described Ono's art as a synthesis between John Cage's Zen-influenced musical ideas, incorporating silence and natural sounds, and Maciunas' earthier and more macabre wit, which found an echo in Ono's readiness to shock and dramatizations of her mental pain as well as her shared appreciation of gags (she once said, "Every artist is a conceptual artist. I'm a con artist" ). Another influence cited by art critics was Ono's Japanese contemporary
Yayoi Kusama. Kusama's events involving
nudity may have inspired the famous cover of Ono and John Lennon's record, where both appear nude. Kusama was also an organizer of
pacifist events similar to Ono and Lennon's "
bed-in" interviews.
Ono was an explorer of
conceptual art and
performance art. An example of her
performance art is "Cut Piece", performed in 1964 at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo. Cut Piece had one destructive verb as its instruction: “Cut.” Yoko Ono executed the performance in Kyoko by walking on stage and casually kneeling on the floor in a draped garment. Audience members were requested to come on stage and begin cutting until she was
naked. Cut Piece was one of Yoko Ono’s many opportunities to outwardly communicate her internal suffering through her art. Ono had originally been exposed to Jean-Paul Sartre’s theories of existentialism in college, and in order to appease her own humanly suffering, Ono enlisted her viewers to complete her works of art in order to complete her identity as well. Besides a commentary on identity, Cut Piece was a commentary on the need for social unity and love. It was also a piece that touched on issues of gender and sexism as well as the greater, universal affliction of human suffering and loneliness. Ono performed this piece again in London and other venues, garnering drastically different attention dependent on the audience. In Japan, the audience was shy and cautious. In London, the audience participators became zealous to get a piece of her clothing and became violent to the point where she'd to be protected by security. She did it again in 2003. An example of her
conceptual art includes her book of instructions called
Grapefruit. This book, first produced in 1964, includes surreal, Zen-like instructions that are to be completed in the mind of the reader, for example: "
Hide and seek Piece: Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies." The book, an example of
Heuristic art, was published several times, most widely distributed by
Simon and Schuster in 1971, and reprinted by them again in 2000. Many of the scenarios in the book would be enacted as performance pieces throughout Ono's career and have formed the basis for her art exhibitions, including one highly publicized show at the
Everson Museum in
Syracuse,
New York that was nearly closed by a fan riot.
Ono was also an experimental
filmmaker who made sixteen films between 1964 and 1972, and gained particular renown for a 1966 film called simply
No. 4, but often referred to as "Bottoms". The film consists of a series of close-ups of human
buttocks as the subject walks on a
treadmill. The screen is divided into four almost equal sections by the elements of the
gluteal cleft and the
horizontal gluteal crease. The
soundtrack consists of
interviews with those who are being filmed as well as those considering joining the project. In 1996, the watch manufacturing company
Swatch produced a limited edition watch that commemorates this film. (Ono also acted in an obscure exploitation film of the sixties,
Satan's Bed.)
John Lennon once described her as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does." Her friends and lovers in the New York art world have included
Kate Millett,
Nam June Paik,
Dan Richter,
Jonas Mekas,
Merce Cunningham,
Judith Malina,
Erica Abeel,
Fred DeAsis,
Peggy Guggenheim,
Betty Rollin,
Shusaku Arakawa,
Adrian Morris,
Stefan Wolpe,
Keith Haring, and
Andy Warhol, as well as Maciunas and Young.
In a lecture at
Wesleyan University, January 1966, Ono explained the inspiration behind her conceptual art: "All of my work in fields other than music have an Event bent ... event, to me, isn't an assimilation of all the other arts as Happening seems to be, but an extrication from various sensory perceptions. It isn't a get togetherness as most happenings are, but a dealing with oneself. Also it has no script as Happenings do, though it has something that starts it moving- the closest word for it may be a wish or hope ... After unblocking one's mind, by dispensing with visual, auditory and kinetic perception, what will come out of us? Would there be anything? I wonder. And my events are mostly spent in wonderment ... The painting method derives as far back as the time of the Second World War, when we'd no food to eat, and my brother and I exchanged menus in the air."
In the past few years, Ono's work has received recognition and acclaim. For example, Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the
Art Gallery of Ontario, stated that "Yoko Ono is one of the world's most original and inspirational
visual artists." Michael Kimmelman, the chief Art critic of the
New York Times, wrote: "Yoko Ono's art is a mirror—like her work 'a Box of Smile,' we see ourselves in our reaction to it—a tiny prod toward personal enlightenment, very
Zen."
In 2001,
YES YOKO ONO, a forty-year
retrospective of Ono's work, received the prestigious
International Association of Art Critics USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in
New York City. (This award is considered one of the highest accolades in the museum profession.) In 2002 Ono was awarded the
Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media. And in 2005 she received a
lifetime achievement award from the
Japan Society of New York.
Ono received an
honorary Doctorate of Laws from
Liverpool University in 2001; in 2002 she was presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from
Bard College. Scott MacDonald, visiting professor of film at Bard, said: "She is to be congratulated for the body of work she's made, and celebrated for what she's come to represent, within media history and throughout the world: courage, resilience, persistence, independence, and above all, imagination, and a belief that peace and love remain the way toward a brighter, ever-more-diverse human future."
Life with Lennon
Ono first met
John Lennon when he visited a preview of an exhibition of Ono's at the
Indica Gallery in
London on
November 9,
1966. Lennon's first personal encounter with Ono involved her passing him a card that read simply "Breathe". He was taken with the positivity, humour, and
interactivity of her work, such as a
ladder leading up to a black canvas with a
spyglass on a chain allowing John to read the word "Yes" written on the canvas along with a real apple displayed with a card reading "APPLE." When John was told the price of the apple was
£200 (approximately £2300 or $4600 in
2007 money), he later reported he thought "This is a joke, this is pretty funny". Another display was a white board with nails in it with a sign inviting visitors to hammer a nail into its surface. Since the show wasn't beginning until the following day, Ono refused to allow Lennon to hammer in a nail. The gallery owner whisked her away, saying, "Don't you know who that is? He's a millionaire!" (Ono later claimed not to know who John Lennon or the
Beatles were, though some friends remember her being quite interested in the band and wanting to get involved with them.) Upon returning to John, she said he could hammer in a nail for five
shillings. Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings if you let me hammer in an imaginary nail".
They began an
affair approximately two years later, eventually resulting in Lennon divorcing his first wife,
Cynthia Lennon.
Lennon referred to Ono in many of his songs. While still a Beatle he wrote "
The Ballad of John and Yoko", and he alluded to her indirectly in "
Julia", a song dedicated to his mother, with the lyrics: "Ocean child calls me, so I sing a song of love" (The
kanji 洋子 ("Yoko") means "ocean child"). Other Lennon songs about Ono are said to include: "
I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "
Don't Let Me Down", "
Happiness Is a Warm Gun", "Well Well Well", "Oh Yoko!", "I'm Losing You", "Bless You", and "Dear Yoko".
Ono and Lennon collaborated on many albums, beginning in 1968 when Lennon was still a Beatle, with, an album of experimental and difficult
electronic music. That same year, the couple contributed an experimental piece to
The White Album called "
Revolution 9". Ono also contributed backing vocals (on "
Birthday"), and one line of lead vocals (on "
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill") to
The White Album. Many of the couple's later albums were released under the name the
Plastic Ono Band. The couple also appeared together at concert. When Lennon was invited to play with
Frank Zappa at the Fillmore on
June 5,
1971, Ono joined in as well.
In 1969, the Plastic Ono Band's first album,
Live Peace in Toronto 1969, was recorded during the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival. In addition to Lennon and Ono, this first incarnation of the group consisted of guitarist
Eric Clapton, bass player
Klaus Voorman, and drummer
Alan White. The first half of their performance consisted of rock standards, and during the second half, Ono took the microphone and along with the band performed what may be one of the first expressions of the
avant garde during a rock concert. The set ended with music that consisted mainly of
feedback, while Ono screamed
(External Link
) and sang.
Ono and Lennon married on
March 20,
1969 in
Gibraltar.
Ono released her first solo album,
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band in 1970, as a companion piece to Lennon's better-known
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The two albums have almost identical covers: Ono's featured a photo of her leaning on Lennon, and Lennon's had a photo of him leaning on Ono. Her album included raw and quite harsh vocals that were possibly influenced by Japanese
opera, but bear much in common with sounds in nature (especially those made by animals) and free jazz techniques used by wind and brass players. The performers included
Ornette Coleman and other renowned
free jazz performers. The personnel was supplemented by John Lennon,
Ringo Starr and minor performers. Some songs consisted of wordless vocalizations, in a style that would influence
Meredith Monk, and other musical artists who have used screams and vocal noise in lieu of words. Some punk bands, including
Public Image Ltd consider this album as laying the foundation for punk. The album peaked at #183 on the US charts.
In 1971, Ono released
Fly - a double album. On this release Ono explored slightly more conventional
psychedelic rock with tracks like "Midsummer New York" and "Mind Train", in addition to a number of Fluxus experiments. She also received minor airplay with the
ballad "Mrs. Lennon". Perhaps the most famous track from the album is "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)", an ode to Ono's kidnapped daughter. Ono later released two
feminist rock albums in 1973,
Approximately Infinite Universe and
Feeling the Space, which received little attention at the time but are today recognized with much critical respect, particularly for tracks such as "Move on Fast", "
Yang Yang" and "Death of Samantha."
After the Beatles disbanded, Lennon and Ono cohabitated in London and then in New York. They were arrested for possession of cannabis resin on
October 18,
1968. The arrest would be significant to their future together. Their relationship was very strained as Lennon faced near-certain deportation from the United States based on the British drug charges and Ono was separated from her daughter, who would have remained behind if she followed Lennon back to England. Lennon began drinking heavily and Ono buried herself in her work. The marriage had soured by 1973 and the two began living separate lives, Ono pursuing her career in New York and Lennon living in Los Angeles with personal assistant
May Pang.
In 1975, the couple reconciled. Their son,
Sean, was born on Lennon's 35th birthday,
October 9,
1975. After Sean's birth, the couple lived in relative seclusion at
the Dakota in New York. Lennon
retired from music to become a house-husband caring for their child, until shortly before his
murder in December 1980, which Ono witnessed at close range. Ono has stated that the couple were thinking about going out to dinner (after spending several hours in a recording studio), but were returning to their apartment instead, because John wanted to see Sean before he was put to bed. Following the murder, she went into complete seclusion for an extended period.
Memorials
Ono funded the construction and maintenance of the
Strawberry Fields memorial in New York City's
Central Park, across from where they lived and John died. It was officially dedicated on
October 9,
1985, which would have been his 45th birthday.
In 2000, she founded the
John Lennon Museum in
Saitama, Japan.
On
October 9,
2007, Ono dedicated a new memorial called the
Imagine Peace Tower, located on the island of
Videy, 1 km outside the Skarfabakki harbour in
Reykjavík in
Iceland. Each year, between
October 9 and
December 8, it'll project a vertical beam of light high into the sky.
Musical career
Ono collaborated with experimental luminaries such as
John Cage and jazz legend
Ornette Coleman. In 1961, years before meeting Lennon, she'd her first major public performance in a concert at the 258-seat
Carnegie Recital Hall (not the larger "Main Hall"). This concert featured radical experimental music and performances. She had a second engagement at the Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965, in which she debuted "Cut Piece."
In early 1980, Lennon heard
Lene Lovich and
The B-52's' "
Rock Lobster" in a nightclub, and it reminded him of Ono's musical sound. He took this as an indication that her sound had reached the mainstream. Indeed, many musicians, particularly those of the
new wave movement, have paid tribute to Ono (both as an artist in her own right, and as a
muse and
iconic figure). For example,
Elvis Costello recorded a version of Ono's song "
Walking on Thin Ice", the B-52's covered "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)" (shortening the title to "Don't Worry"), and
Sonic Youth included a performance of Ono's early
conceptual "Voice Piece for Soprano" in their
fin de siecle album . One of
Barenaked Ladies's best-known songs is "
Be My Yoko Ono", and
Dar Williams recorded a song called "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono." The punk rock singer
Patti Smith invited Ono to participate in "Meltdown", a two-week music festival that Smith organized in London during June 2005; Ono performed at
Queen Elizabeth Hall.
On
December 8,
1980, Lennon and Ono were in the studio working on Ono's song "Walking on Thin Ice". When they returned to
The Dakota, their home in
New York City, Lennon was shot dead by a deranged fan,
Mark David Chapman. "Walking on Thin Ice (For John)" was released as a single less than a month later, and became Ono's first chart success, peaking at No. 58 and gaining major underground airplay. In 1981, she released the album
Season of Glass with the striking cover photo of Lennon's shattered, bloody
spectacles next to a half-filled glass of water, with a window overlooking
Central Park in the background. This photograph sold at an
auction in
London in April 2002 for about $13,000. In the
liner notes to
Season of Glass, Ono explained that the album isn't dedicated to Lennon because "he would have been offended—he was one of us."
Some time after her husband's murder, Ono began a relationship with antiques dealer Sam Havadtoy, which lasted until 2001. She had also been linked to art dealer and
Greta Garbo confidante Sam Green, who is mentioned in Lennon's
will. In 1982, she released
It's Alright (I See Rainbows). The cover featured Ono in her famous wrap-around
sunglasses, looking towards the sun, while on the back the ghost of Lennon looks over her and their son. The album scored minor chart success and airplay with the singles "
My Man" and "
Never Say Goodbye."
In 1984, a tribute album titled
Every Man Has a Woman was released, featuring a selection of Ono songs performed by artists such as
Elvis Costello,
Roberta Flack,
Eddie Money,
Rosanne Cash and
Harry Nilsson. It was one of Lennon's projects that he never got to finish. Later that year, Ono and Lennon's final album,
Milk and Honey, was released as an unfinished demo.
Ono's final album of the 1980s was
Starpeace, a
concept album that Ono intended as an antidote to
Ronald Reagan's "
Star Wars"
missile defense system. On the cover, a warm, smiling Ono holds the Earth in the palm of her hand.
Starpeace became Ono's most successful non-Lennon effort: the single "
Hell in Paradise" was a hit, reaching No. 16 on the US dance charts and #26 on the
Billboard Hot 100 as well as major airplay on
MTV.
In 1986 Ono set out on a goodwill world tour for
Starpeace, mostly visiting
Eastern European countries.
Ono went on hiatus until signing with
Rykodisc in 1992 to release the comprehensive six-disc box set
Onobox. It included remastered highlights from all of Ono's solo albums, as well as unreleased material from the 1974 "lost weekend" sessions. There was also a one-disc "greatest hits" release of highlights from Onobox, simply titled
Walking on Thin Ice. In 1994, she produced her own
musical entitled
New York Rock, featuring
Broadway renditions of her songs.
In 1995, she released
Rising, a collaboration with her son
Sean and his band,
Ima.
Rising spawned a world tour that traveled through Europe,
Japan and the
United States. The following year, she collaborated with various
alternative rock musicians for an EP entitled
Rising Mixes. Guest remixers of
Rising material included
Cibo Matto,
Ween,
Tricky, and
Thurston Moore.
In 1997, Rykodisc reissued all her solo albums on CD, from
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band through
Starpeace. Ono and her engineer Rob Stevens personally
remastered the audio, and various bonus tracks were added including outtakes, demos and live cuts.
2001 saw the release of Ono's
feminist concept album
Blueprint for a Sunrise. Starting in 2002, some
DJs
remixed other Ono songs for
dance clubs. For the remix project, she dropped her first name and became known as simply "ONO", as a response to the "Oh, no!" jokes that dogged her throughout her career. ONO had great success with new versions of "Walking on Thin Ice", remixed by top DJs and dance artists including
Pet Shop Boys,
Orange Factory,
Peter Rauhofer, and
Danny Tenaglia. In April 2003, ONO's
Walking on Thin Ice (Remixes) was rated No. 1 on
Billboard Magazine's "Dance/Club Play Chart", gaining ONO her first number one hit. On the 12" mix of the original 1981 version of "Walking on Thin Ice", Lennon can be heard remarking "I think we've just got your first No.1, Yoko." She returned to No. 1 on the same charts in November 2004 with "Everyman...Everywoman...". A reworking of her song "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him" from
Double Fantasy, the track contained new lyrics supportive of
gay marriage.
Ono's latest album is
Yes, I'm a Witch, a collection of remixes and covers from her back catalog by various artists including
The Flaming Lips,
Cat Power,
Antony,
DJ Spooky,
Porcupine Tree and
Peaches, released in February 2007, along with a special edition of
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band .
Yes I'm a Witch has been critically well-received. Another compilation of Ono dance remixes entitled
Open Your Box is also due in April.
During her career, Ono has collaborated with a diverse group of artists and musicians including
John Cage,
David Tudor,
George Maciunas,
Ornette Coleman,
Charlotte Moorman,
George Brecht,
Jackson Mac Low,
Jonas Mekas,
Fred DeAsis,
Yvonne Rainer,
La Monte Young,
Richard Maxfield,
Zbigniew Rybczyński,
Yo La Tengo,
DJ Spooky, and
Andy Warhol. In 1987 Ono was one of the speakers at Warhol's funeral.
Political activism
Since the 1960s, Yoko Ono has been an activist for peace and human rights. After their wedding, Lennon and Ono held a "
Bed-In for Peace" in their honeymoon suite at the
Amsterdam Hilton Hotel in March 1969. The press fought to get in, presuming that the two would be having sex for their cameras, but they instead found a pair of newlyweds wearing pajamas and eager to talk about and promote
world peace. Another
Bed-In in May 1969 in Montreal, Canada, resulted in the recording of their first single, "Give Peace A Chance", a Top 20 hit for the newly-christened Plastic Ono Band. Other demonstrations with John included
Bagism. Introduced in Vienna, Bagism encouraged a disregard for physical appearance in judging others.
In the 1970s, Ono and Lennon became close to many radical leaders, including
Bobby Seale,
Jerry Rubin,
Michael X,
John Sinclair (for whom they organized a benefit after he was imprisoned),
Angela Davis,
Kate Millett, and
David Peel. They appeared on
The Mike Douglas Show and took over hosting duties for a week, during which Ono spoke at length about the evils of
racism and
sexism. Ono remained outspoken in her support of
feminism, and openly bitter about the racism she'd experienced from rock fans, especially in the UK. For example, an
Esquire article of the period was titled "John Rennon's Excrusive Gloupie" and featured an unflattering
David Levine cartoon.
In 2002, Ono inaugurated her own peace award by giving $50,000 (£31,900) prize money to artists living "in regions of conflict."
Israeli and
Palestinian artists were the first recipients.
On Valentine’s day February 14th 2003, on the eve of the Iraqi invasion by the Americans and the British, Yoko Ono heard about a romantic couple holding a love-in protest in their tiny bedroom in Addingham, West Yorkshire UK. She sent the couple Andrew & Christine Gale some flowers and wished them the best; this can be seen by the BBC Video Nation's Website at the following link
In 2004, Ono remade her song "Everyman... Everywoman..." to support
same-sex marriage, releasing remixes that included "Every Man Has a Man Who Loves Him" and "Every Woman Has a Woman Who Loves Her."
Ono took out a full-page advertisement in the
January 5,
2008 edition of The New York Times that read simply "IMAGINE PEACE."
Relationships with Paul McCartney and Cynthia Lennon
Ono occasionally argued with Beatle
Paul McCartney about issues such as the writing credits for many Beatles songs. While the Beatles were still together, every song written by Lennon or McCartney, apart from those appearing on the album Please Please Me, was credited as
Lennon-McCartney regardless of whether the song was a collaboration or a solo project. After Lennon's death, McCartney attempted to change the order to "McCartney-Lennon" for songs such as "
Yesterday" that were solely or predominantly written by him, but Ono wouldn't allow it. She says she felt this broke an agreement that the two had made while Lennon was still alive. However, McCartney has stated that such an agreement never existed. The two other Beatles agreed that the credits should remain as they always had been and McCartney withdrew his request. However, the dispute resurfaced in 2002. On his
Back in the U.S. Live 2002 album, 19 Beatles' songs are described as "written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon." However earlier albums released by both Lennon and McCartney also modified credits for Beatles songs. In 1976, McCartney released a live album called
Wings Over America which credited several Beatles tracks as P. McCartney-J. Lennon compositions. Similarly, a 1998 John Lennon anthology,
Lennon Legend, listed the composer of "
Give Peace a Chance" as John Lennon rather than the original composing credit of Lennon-McCartney.
In 1995, McCartney and his family collaborated with Ono and Sean Lennon to create the song "Hiroshima Sky is Always Blue", which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the dropping of an
atomic bomb on the
Japanese city. Of Ono, McCartney stated: "I thought she was a cold woman. I think that's wrong ... she's just the opposite ... I think she's just more determined than most people to be herself." McCartney didn't invite Ono to his wife
Linda's memorial service in 1998.
When asked about Ono during his
October 18,
2001 appearance on
The Howard Stern Show, McCartney said "We haven't got the greatest relationship in the world, that's for sure. But we get along when we've to, we're okay." He later admitted that he'd be unwilling to comment about the treatment of
Julian Lennon on the air, fearing that it would hurt their business relationship.
Accepting an award at the 2005 Q Awards, Ono mentioned that Lennon had once felt insecure about his songwriting, and asked her why other musicians "always cover Paul's songs, and never mine". Ono had responded, "You're a good songwriter; it's not June with spoon that you write. You're a good singer, and most musicians are probably a little bit nervous about covering your songs". Ono later issued a statement claiming she didn't mean any offense, as her comment was an attempt to console her husband, not attack McCartney; she went on to insist that she respected McCartney and that it was the press who had taken her comments out of context. She also said, "People need light-hearted topics like me and Paul fighting to escape all the horror of the world, but it's not true anymore...We have clashed many times in the past. But I do respect Paul now for having been John's partner and he respects me for being John's wife." At the June 2006 premier of
Cirque du Soleil's Beatles performance "
Love", pictures were taken of her and Paul hugging.
Ono's relationship with
Cynthia (John's first wife) is strained. (
see Criticisms below)
Criticisms
Some music historians believe Ono is responsible for
breaking up The Beatles. Others argue that the breakup was caused by the fact that the Beatles were moving in different directions musically and personally. Beatles historian
Bob Spitz concluded that John Lennon wanted to disband the Beatles and saw in Ono the perfect wedge to drive between himself and the others.
Her relationship with Cynthia Lennon (John's first wife) remains strained. In a recent
BBC interview, Cynthia Lennon said Ono's behaviour toward Julian Lennon after his father's death was "shameful" and remarked of Ono's "lonely" existence in her "ivory tower". In her 2006 biography,
John, (London: Hodder; U.S.: Crown Publishing) Cynthia Lennon portrays Ono as a selfish, spiteful woman. In the book she describes learning about Ono's control over John (who referred to Ono as "mother") in the period in the mid-1970s when Ono chose
May Pang to be John's companion. Cynthia hypothesizes that John had a "mother complex," allowing himself to be dominated by strong women, and draws a parallel between his relationship with Ono and that with his domineering aunt/mother figure
Mimi Smith in childhood.
Recent life
Liverpool Biennial 2004. With banners, bags, stickers, postcards, flyers, posters and badges, she flooded the city with two images: one of a woman’s naked breast, the other of her vulva. The piece, titled "My Mummy Was Beautiful", was dedicated to Lennon's mother, Julia, who had died when Lennon was a
teenager. According to Ono the work was meant to be innocent, not shocking. She was attempting to replicate the experience of a baby looking up at his or her mother’s body: the mother’s
pudendum and
breasts are a child’s introduction to
humanity.
Some in Liverpool, including Lennon's half-sister, Julia Baird, found the citywide
installation offensive. Indeed, the
BBC program
North West Tonight invited viewers to phone in their opinion of the piece, and of the 6,000 viewers who responded 92% wanted the images removed. Others appreciated the
conceptuality of the work. Chris Brown, of Liverpool's
Daily Post, wrote: "Many have loved the work… and Ono has again managed to get the eyes of the world looking in our direction."
Ono performed at the
opening ceremony for the
2006 Winter Olympic Games in
Turin,
Italy, wearing white, like many of the others who performed during the ceremony, to symbolize the snow that makes the Winter Olympics possible. She read a free verse poem from a prepared script calling for peace in the world. The poem was an intro to a performance of the song "Imagine", Lennon's anthem to world peace.
On
13 December 2006, Ono's bodyguard Koral Karson was arrested after he was taped trying to extort Ono for two million dollars, threatening to release private conversations and photographs.
Recently, Ono appeared on
Larry King Live along with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Olivia Harrison. On
29 June 2007, she appeared on the Japanese televised music program,
Bokura no Ongaku, to interview Japanese psychedelic-rock band,
Love Psychedelico.
Ono headlined the
Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on
14 July,
2007, performing a full set that mixed music and performance art. She sang "Mulberry", a song about her time in the countryside after the Japanese collapse in
World War II for only the third time in her life, with
Thurston Moore; Ono had previously performed the song once with John Lennon and once with
Sean Lennon and told the audience of thousands that she'll never perform it again.
On
9 October,
2007 Ono officially lit the
Imagine Peace Tower on
Viðey Island in
Iceland, dedicated to peace and to her late husband,
John Lennon.
She has recently sued the producers of the film, which documents alleged
discrimination against advocates of
Intelligent design in academia, for the use of Lennon's song "
Imagine" without permission.
Kyoko Chan Cox
Kyoko Chan Cox (born
August 3,
1963) is the daughter of Ono and jazz musician
Anthony Cox, and is
Sean Lennon's half-sister. Kyoko spent her earliest years surrounded by a variety of artists, musicians, and film-makers. Cox raised her alone from 1965 to 1969 after Ono left him. She divorced him in 1969.
In 1971, while studying with
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Majorca, Cox accused Ono of abducting Kyoko from his hotel. A large number of accusations were then made by both parents toward each other and the matter of custody. Cox eventually moved to Houston, Texas and converted to
Evangelical Christianity with his new wife, who was originally from Houston. At the end of 1971, a custody hearing in Houston went against Cox. In violation of the order, he took Kyoko and disappeared. Ono then launched a search for her daughter with the aid of the police and
private investigators . Ono wrote a song about her daughter, "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)", which appears on Lennon and Ono's album
Live Peace In Toronto 1969.
Cox had fled to Los Angeles where he lived with a friend who was associated with the
Church of the Living Word. He joined the group in 1972 and then lived in various communities associated with the group in
Iowa and
California. In 1977, Cox left the group. In 1978 Cox and Kyoko stayed with the
Jesus People USA commune in
Chicago.
After the murder of
John Lennon in 1980, Cox along with Kyoko (then 17 years old) sent a message of sympathy to Ono but didn't reveal their location. Ono later printed an open letter to Kyoko saying how she missed her but that she'd cease her attempts to find her.
Kyoko next appeared in 1986 when she was listed as an associate producer on a documentary film made by Cox about his involvement in the Church of the Living Word called
Vain Glory. Cox resurfaced in public in the same year, but Kyoko did not.
In 1994, Kyoko, fully grown and married, re-established a connection with her mother. Although Kyoko avoids publicity, she did grant an interview where she revealed that her reunion with Ono was a very happy one, and they remain in close contact to this day. Kyoko made a rare public appearance in August 2005 at the opening of
Lennon, the Musical.
Kyoko lives in Colorado. She spends her time pursuing her career as an artist.
Discography (with U.S. chart positions)
Albums
[*] = with John Lennon
Singles
| Year |
Song |
U.K. |
U.S. Dance |
Album |
| 1971 |
"Open Your Box" |
- |
- |
Fly |
| 1971 |
"Mrs. Lennon"/"Midsummer New York" |
- |
- |
Fly |
| 1971 |
"Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow)" |
- |
- |
Fly |
| 1972 |
"Now or Never"/"Move on Fast" |
- |
- |
Approximately Infinite Universe |
| 1972 |
"Mind Train"/"Listen, the Snow is Falling" |
- |
- |
- |
| 1973 |
"Death of Samantha"/"Yang Yang" |
- |
- |
Approximately Infinite Universe |
| 1973 |
"Josejoi Banzai" (Japan-only release) |
- |
- |
- |
| 1973 |
"Woman Power"/"Men, Men, Men" |
- |
- |
Feeling the Space |
| 1973 |
"Run, Run, Run"/"Men, Men, Men" |
- |
- |
Feeling the Space |
| 1981 |
"Walking on Thin Ice" |
35 |
13 |
Season of Glass (1997 re-release), Double Fantasy (2000 re-relase) |
| 1981 |
"No, No, No" |
- |
- |
Season of Glass |
| 1982 |
"My Man" |
- |
- |
It's Alright (I See Rainbows) |
| 1982 |
"Never Say Goodbye" |
- |
- |
It's Alright (I See Rainbows) |
| 1985 |
"Hell in Paradise" |
- |
12 |
Starpeace |
| 1985 |
"Cape Clear"/"Walking on Thin Ice [Re-edit]" (promo) |
- |
- |
Starpeace |
| 1986 |
"I Love All of Me" |
- |
- |
Starpeace |
| 1995 |
"Ask the Dragon" |
- |
- |
Rising |
| 1996 |
"New York Woman" |
- |
- |
Rising |
| 2001 |
"It's Time For Action" |
- |
- |
Blueprint for a Sunrise |
| 2001 |
"Open Your Box [Remixes]" |
- |
25 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2002 |
"Kiss Kiss Kiss [Remixes]" |
- |
20 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2002 |
"Yang Yang [Remixes]" |
- |
17 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2003 |
"Walking on Thin Ice [Remixes]" |
35 |
1 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2003 |
"Will I [Remixes]"/"Fly [Remixes]" |
- |
19 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2004 |
"Hell in Paradise [Remixes]" |
- |
4 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2004 |
"Everyman… Everywoman… [Remixes]" |
- |
1 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2007 |
"You’re The One [Remixes]" |
- |
2 |
Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2007 |
"No, No, No [Remixes]" |
- |
1 |
- |
B-Side appearances on John Lennon singles:
"Remember Love" (on "Give Peace a Chance") (1969)
"Don't Worry, Kyoko" (on "Cold Turkey") (1969)
"Who Has Seen the Wind?" (on "Instant Karma!") (1970)
"Why" (on "Mother") (1971)
"Open Your Box" (on "Power to the People") (1971)
"Listen, the Snow is Falling" on (on "Happy Xmas (War is Over)") (1971)
"Kiss Kiss Kiss" (on "(Just Like) Starting Over") (1980)
"Beautiful Boy" (on "Woman") (1981)
"Yes, I'm Your Angel" (on "Watching the Wheels") (1981)
"O'Sanity" (on "Nobody Told Me") (1984)
"Sleepless Night" (on "I'm Stepping Out") (1984)
"Your Hands (あなたの手）" (on "Borrowed Time") (1984)
Bibliography
Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings (1970)
Summer of 1980 (1983)
ただの私 (Tada-no Watashi - Just Me!) (1986)
The John Lennon Family Album (1990)
Instruction Paintings (1995)
Grapefruit Juice (1998)
YES YOKO ONO (2000)
Odyssey of a Cockroach (2005)
Imagine Yoko (2005)
Memories of John Lennon (editor) (2005)
Films
Eye blink (1966, 5 mins)
Bottoms (1966, 5 1/2 mins)
Match (1966, 5 mins)
Cut Piece (1965, 9 mins)
Wrapping Piece (1967, aprx. 20 mins., music by Delia Derbyshire)
Film No. 4 (Bottoms) (1966/1967, 80 mins)
Bottoms, advertisement/commercial (1966/1967, aprx. 2 mins)
Two Virgins (1968, aprx. 20 mins)
Film No. five (Smile) (1968, 51 mins)
Rape (1969, 77 mins)
Bed-In, (1969, 74 mins)
Let It Be, (1970, ? mins)
Apotheosis (1970, 18 1/2 mins)
Freedom (1970, 1 min)
Fly (1970 (25 mins)
Making of Fly (1970, aprx. 30 mins)
Erection (1971, 20 mins)
Imagine (1971, 70 mins)
Sisters O Sisters (1971, 4 mins)
Luck of the Irish (1971, aprx. 4 mins)
Flipside (TV show) (1972, aprx. 25 mins)
Blueprint For The Sunrise (2000, 28 mins)Further Information
Get more info on 'Yoko Ono'.
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