I was watching some times ago the movie "John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band - Live Peace in Toronto, 1969"

I have never seen in my life something as ridiculous as Ono (Yoko) screaming on stage like a polecat, wrapped a sheed, even covering Clapton's solo.

COULD YOU IMAGINE THE LIKE WITH MICK AND JERRY? NO - BECAUSE MICK AND JERRY WERE NOT... TOM AND JERRY

Now, thinking again to John and Ono (Yoko), they were a little bit like Tom and Jerry.

John and Yoko, were in many ways
a great, if not at times tumultuous,
love story. They were very active
in advocating important issues,
and in these they were often
very much ahead of their times
in their social and political
attitudes and beliefs. Often
very avante garde at the time,
some of the music and events
that came from this may not
have commercially appealed
to everyone, that's true,
but they weren't afraid
to push the envelope, take
a stand for their beliefs,
dare to be different. I see
little or none of this from
Mick or Jerry. ZZZZZZZZZZZ=
can be quite boring and
superficial! Personally I
find the idea of her new
t.v. show more offensive
than anything Yoko's
ever done.

Yoko does the same thing on Rock N Roll Circus, just screaming on stage.

Without Yoko and her "domination" we probably would have lost John many years earlier. Despite all of her new age obssesions, Yoko instilled in John some decency and family values. Yes, some can say she dominated John. Wheter or not she manipulated the May Pang affair or not as some accuse, the bottom line was, if John could not put his chosen family first, then he needed to get out the door.Basiaclly her message to him was, "If Fame meant more than wife and child, stay away. If drinking and partying with friends while laying any woman that will fall on her back were his choice, head out west and do it without her."

I may be one of the few that find it strange how we mythologize and idolize older obsessive love stories both fictional (Romeo and Juliet, Paris and Helen) or real( the Brownings, F. Scott and Zelda) while refusing to forgive John and Yoko for loving each other more than they did us, their fans, or John's old band mates. Joun was not dominated by her, he loved her and was willing to sacrifice for her. As in most relationships ( no matter how bad this sounds), the true power lays with the money and earning potential, Yoko was willing to risk that and throw John out rather than deal with stereotypical rock and roll ( read MJ) behavior.

While I am not a big fan of her entire body of work, and even if I do not understand the connection, there are many famous musicians in the 80's and 90's that credit her as an influence. Certainly they are a younger group than John and his peers from the 60's but they are there. People that feel that John was so dominated should look at their own view of marriage. I do not feel that John was anymore pushed around than many husbands, it just is that he was so famous, his life was under scrutiny, and way too many people felt that the decisions he and his wife made actually affected their lives. Such, of course, is the cost of celebrity.

with jalapeno enemas

If you've watched the director's cut of Anthology DVD set, you
will hear first hand why/how Yoko dominated Lennon, directed his energies.
She took him down the road of no return.

John's solo "career" after the Beatles was mostly mediocre.
Yes, POB and Imagine albums were good, not Beatles-quality.
Well, Some of the songs were good, but lots of filler.
Anyone see John/Yoko's guest-host week on Mike Douglas?

Yoko's influence upon John was a Direct link to the Beatles break-up,
John's meaningfulness as a Voice and a Singer disappeared rather
quickly after the Beatles, after 2 years. Elephant's Memory,
what a 'great' band.

Double Fantasy is very AOR, and is not rock n roll.

Claims Yoko broke up the
Beatles have been largely
discredited over the years.
Lennon was very dysfunctional
and toying around with heavy drugs
long before he met Yoko. She may very
well have helped him pull out of a
nose dive as he grew up outta just
being "one of the boys", and like
the other Beatles sought to
develop a more stable adult
relationship with a woman,
who in Yokos case could
give as good as
she got. Like most of us
he was only human, it
took time, had mixed results,
and is well chronicled in his
post Beatles music with a lyrical
depth rarily seen up to that time.
I'd dare say a lot of it still holds
up well today, unlike Maccas silly
love songs, but be that as it may
nobody, not only our own beloved
Stones, consistantly cranked out
classics every time.

It was a sick relationship, at times. I recently watched a video of "Let It Be," and forgot how weird the whole thing was. She was with him constantly. She wanted her share of the limelight and to take a ride on this talent and fame, no question about it. Marriage is a partnership, not a dictatorship. If it were a case of a man not allowing his woman to go to work without him, have time with her friends without him following her, or him following her into a public restroom when she had to pee, it would be called abuse. And Yoko did all those things to John, at least in the early years. Not to mention her no-talent singing and songwriting foisted on the world, because she needed to be regarded as "an equal." That's not feminism, it's egoism. Read the Grossman book for more sordid details, including the intimation that she was the reason he went without security, because she feared being busted for heroin use. Though that might be unfair, because he, too, was a heroin user. John also called her "Mother," which might indicate the mentality he applied to the relationship. She was older than him and John, of course, didn't really have his mother for most of his life. So like a lot of relationships, while it had unhealthy aspects, it might be it was what he needed.

Grossman is a fascinating read
but his sensational style doesn't
necessarily give an accurate portrayal
of the complexities of their relationship.
"John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band" the
so called primal therapy lp perhaps best
says it all in words and music. His pain
was deep and personal, full of loss,
and hope in the personal redemption
of love. The Beatles dream was over,
and here was a man stripped of all
the iconoclastic idol trappings,
self contradictions, flaws
and Yoko/ mother obsessions
notwithstanding. It remains
a great, in many ways pure
essence of rock lp.

See the whoe thing about this that does not ring true is the picture of John as a victim of Yoko. Yoko got away with nothing that John did not allow, When Yoko followed John into the men's room, it appealed to his sense of the bizarre and in your face need to challenge the status quo as it did hers. If anyone thinks that she went into the bathroom WITHOUT HIS APPROVAL, they must be the same people that think that Mick sets ticket prices without Keith's approval. John was until the day he died an independant thinker. Yes his solo career does not match the Bealtles quality, nor does Paul's , George's , or Ringo's. Had their not been the break up their is no reason to believe that the group would have continued at the level it did. The group broke up because they could no longer get on and progress, and Yoko was some part of it, but not a part that John did not use as much as he was used by it.

I find it strange that a man who is revered for his at times BRUTAL honesty is not accepted at face value by fans when he says in print, in song, in drawings, that he loved Yoko and that she meant more to him then all else. John grew up, and he choose as his adult partner someone that many people even today do not like. But it was HIS decision, not ours. Yoko did not take over, John surrendered to her direction.

1. It's interesting how with Marianne and Anita, Mick and Keith grew as a formidable songwriting team, while with Yoko and Linda, John and Paul seemed to grow apart. I'm not a big Beatles fan--did the separation in joint writing (to the extent there was any) coincide with the onset of these relationships?

2. Yoko's involvement in the Fluxus art movement was influential. Personally, I find it to be very much "concept art"--the explanation is much more substantial than the empty picture frame hanging from the ceiling or whatever:

"Her poem-like verbal scores, her films, and her staged performances anticipated everything from minimalism to performance art, the furthest reaches of new cinema to the most extreme of Punk-New Wave music. Her performances made signal contributions to what Fluxus mastermind George Maciunas called "neo-Haiku theater" and artist-historian Ken Friedman labelled "Zen vaudeville".

In the '60s Ono took the common housefly as an alter ego. Clearly, the artist, mocked and maligned long before she began attracting the misguided ire of rock fans, regards the fly as an embodiment of her public persona--its apparent insignificance counterbalanced by its outsize ability to annoy. But even more important to Ono's associative thinking is the fly's constant, nervous "performing" and its elusively melodious buzz.

With her Fluxus colleagues Ono has elevated the insubstantial to monumental status, allowing us to contemplate the magic of the ordinary, as well as to comprehend the ordinariness of the seemingly profound. This inversion, along with the inventive puckishness of her game-like concepts and activities, make her work endlessly provocative--at once irksome and inviting, loopy and lovely, teasing and teaching us to appreciate the intimate and elusive phenomena that comprise life."

I have always thought that Yoko Ono was way too intelligent and strong woman to the pop or rock masses to handle with. She is really from a different world. I admire John Lennon to do something like that - instead dating all jerry halls and patti hansens of the world. Did she affect negatively on Lennon's productivity? - that I really don't know, and honestly, don't care.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-03-03 11:46 by Rorty.

Well I understand Yoko
wasn't alone in pioneering the
avant garde advances of the fluxus
movement, so I wouldn't want to over emphasis
her importance, but she certainly helped popularize
it, get it out there, and am glad to see her get
some well deserved credit here. I have bought
her albums/ cds for years and enjoy them,
tho can see where not to all tastes.
But can be quite challenging,
a lot of fun, very intersting.
I once read in an interview where
she or John compared her vocal style
to a guitar. Not quite air guitar,
but you get the picture.

Just the other day I saw my all time favorite bumper sticker. It read, "I still hate Yoko." I laughed out loud. Yoko added nothing to Lennon's music, nothing! She had rock star aspirations with no, and I mean no talent.

The Beatles are part of the past
John is dead
Who really cares about Yoko in 2005 ? Not me !

She considers herself as an artist, but I don't understand or like what I know of her art. Still, she's free to do whatever she wants.
I just skip her part while watching the RNR Circus.


[doctorstonesblog.blogspot.com]

I'm not so sure the Beatles didn't still
have at least a few good albums in them.
If we cull the solo discs we find a lot of
good stuff that could've been improved if
they had each other to use as a foil. Plus
Harrison was never really let into the fold.
Imagine Mick or Keith writing alone, without
each other? The band? In comparison I think
the latter would be very slim pickings indeed.

Basically, the Beatles suffered burn out from
a gruelling schedule of two albums plus singles
being cranked out for years. Plus they were
quite figuratively growing up, wanting to
pursue their own lives, some solo efforts.
I would imagine today they might very well
have enjoyed the best of both worlds,
doing their own thing with a group album
and tour every couple of years, but the
business didn't work that way at the time.
It was all or nothing. Too bad!

anal?

Who? How so?