Yoko Ono- why do I dislike her so much?

[lissener]

@PunditLisa

She was a poseur. “Weird” does not equal “artist.” And I don’t believe for one second that she’d have been taken seriously at all had her audience not been completely stoned.

For instance, one of her pieces was a real apple with the label “Apple.” Another was climbing a ladder and looking through a magnifying glass to read “YES.” Her music consisted of her standing on stage and screaming to feedback. Her poetry was nothing more than streams of consciousness.

The fact that she had the audacity to present herself an “artist” is a slap in the face to people who commit hundreds of hours into learning and honing their craft. That she felt worthy enough to contribute ANYTHING to a very successful, indisputably talented band is an indication of her chutzpah. She was a hack and doesn’t deserve the title “artist” any more than Linda McCartney deserves the title “musician.”

Add this to the fact that she was a manipulative, jealous, ruthless bitch who tried to keep Lennon away from his mates, his wife, and his son and you’ll understand why she’s so universally disliked.

Note: That doesn’t diminish Lennon’s share of the blame here.

Not understanding her art doesn’t actually qualify you to dismiss it. Cool you don’t like it; not cool you assume that you’re the universal standard.

[Rilchiam]

@WordMan

As I read the Beatles’ biography by Spitz (he is quoted earlier in this thread), I got the distinct impression that John was passive-aggressively trying to distance himself from the Beatles and used Yoko to do this - and she was a willing accomplice.

Lennon admitted exactly that. IIRC, it was in the Playboy interviews. “What I did, in my own cowardly way, was use Yoko.” Also far as McCartney being a bossy control freak: yeah, he was. You know what else? Somebody had to be in charge after Epstein died. And no one else was stepping up.

[Acsenray]

So I’m going to have to be the one to mention Albert Goldman. Scuse me if I duck and run while I say this …

Goldman seems to think that Yoko prevented Lennon from returning to England, which is what he wanted to do, because she didn’t want to have to compete for influence over him with other friends and family. He also seems to think that Lennon might have gotten clean earlier if he had gotten out of New York.

Face it, though, Lennon was a hardcore drug addict. I’m not sure he would have stayed clean for very long, even had he lived.

[WordMan]

@acsenray

So I’m going to have to be the one to mention Albert Goldman. Scuse me if I duck and run while I say this …

Goldman seems to think that Yoko prevented Lennon from returning to England, which is what he wanted to do, because she didn’t want to have to compete for influence over him with other friends and family. He also seems to think that Lennon might have gotten clean earlier if he had gotten out of New York.

Face it, though, Lennon was a hardcore drug addict. I’m not sure he would have stayed clean for very long, even had he lived.

I hear ya, but I have yet to find anyone who digs into Beatles stuff who gives Goldman *any *weight whatsoever. It was an attack book - for whatever reason - and Goldman’s “agenda” overshadows any data he tries to establish as fact.

As for Lennon’s drug use - to my knowledge, his “bread baking” years were all about cleaning up and getting his head more straightened out. I have no idea if he was using anything more than tobacco or pot when he was killed. Whether he would’ve/could’ve stayed clean is pure conjecture - I can say that the songs he included on Double Fantasy were well-crafted and mature - they seem like the product of someone more in control of their situation vs. not…but that’s IMHO.

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@acsenray

He also seems to think that Lennon might have gotten clean earlier if he had gotten out of New York.

Goldman was an imbecile. Lennon started using in England; what earthly reason is there to think that he would have stopped if he went back there?

[Kalhoun]

@acsenray

So I’m going to have to be the one to mention Albert Goldman. Scuse me if I duck and run while I say this …

Goldman seems to think that Yoko prevented Lennon from returning to England, which is what he wanted to do, because she didn’t want to have to compete for influence over him with other friends and family. He also seems to think that Lennon might have gotten clean earlier if he had gotten out of New York.

Face it, though, Lennon was a hardcore drug addict. I’m not sure he would have stayed clean for very long, even had he lived.

I disagree about his ability to stay clean. Plenty of hard core addicts get clean.

Whenever I think of Yoko Ono, I think of a song on the National Lampoon Radio Dinner album. Yoko is screeching in the background (too far away from the microphone) and Fake John says “Yoko! Move up!!”

[Quercus]

My non-Beatles-expert theory, is that the hate of Yoko is two-fold:

1. Unfortunately she was/is not musically talented. Sad, but true, that she detracted musically from much of Lennon’s post-Beatles music.

However, I think this is also an excuse to hate her because fans don’t like to admit the second reason:

2. Yoko symbolizes the transition from cute-cuddly “I Want to Hold Your Hand” Lennon to the saying-things-that-make-us-uncomfortable “Woman is the Nigger of the World” Lennon. So the part of us that doesn’t want to accept the social-critic Lennon puts the blame and hate on Yoko so we can still love the cuddly Lennon.

(As an aside, I’m not big on conceptual art, but I find brilliant and beautiful Ono’s installation of a bunch of flowerpots with dirt but nothing planted titled “Imagining Flowers”. That alone qualifiers her as an artist in my book.)

[cjepson]

@pepperlandgirl

No, they didn’t “pretty much put up with each other.” They were extremely close and good friends for the majority of their time together. If you ever listen to candid outtakes from their recording sessions, or just watch the two of them interact with each other on the various documentaries, that’s pretty clear. And I think it’s a fool’s game to try to say one was more “edgier” than the other. For one thing, even in the later years when they had more solo compositions, they still contributed a great deal to each other’s work (with notable exceptions like Why Don’t We Do It in the Road). But when it comes down to it, they were both interested in a diversity of music, and they both experimented in their own ways, with and without each other.

John was not “edgier” than Paul, whatever that means. Imagine is pure treacle (and very melodious). Sure you could say Happiness is a Warm Gun is edgier than Blackbird, but that opens the door for Helter Skelter and Why Don’t We Do it In the Road compared to Julia and Cry Baby Cry. You want to look at Let It Be? Well we have The Long and Winding Road and Dig a Pony, but from the same session we have Get Back, which is a fun little rock and roll number, and Across the Universe. On Abbey Road, we have I Want You (She’s So Heavy) pitted against Oh! Darling, but then we’ve also got Because and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. If you listen to the medly, the parts that genuinely rocked were mostly Paul’s compositions (She Came In Through the Bathroom Window, You Never Give me Your Money, and Carry That Weight). My point is that, ultimately, the “common knowledge” that Paul is one thing and John is the other might be oft-repeated, but it’s far from the truth. And that doesn’t even get into their solo work.

These points are well taken in terms of trying to counter some oversimplified views of the Beatles, but I think they may go a bit too far in the other direction. From what I’ve seen and read about the Beatles (which is probably way too much), it seems like their relationship in the group’s final years was a lot like what I experienced as a member of cliques in high school and college. It starts out great, then overfamiliarity (and just plain development in different directions) leads to a gradual increase in frustration and irritation… the good moments still happen, but they get fewer and further between, and the friction gets more and more common, until it finally just gets to be mostly a chore. If we’re to believe Paul’s own words in his autobiography, things were very cool indeed between him and the other Beatles for awhile – mostly after the breakup, it’s true, but also before. I mean, it got bad enough for both Ringo and George to actually quit the group (briefly) at different times, and for John to basically announce that he was done with being a Beatle in May '69, while they were still working on “Abbey Road.”

Also, regarding the “edginess” thing… I would say it’s not so much a question of “rocking out” vs. “melodious” as it is a question of the degree to which the music addressed “serious” themes… the basic idea being that, from about 1968 to 1972 at least, John was quite a bit more focused on writing songs about “serious” or “heavy” topics (either personal or political), whereas Paul wrote more about lighter stuff. Of course, you can always come up with counter-examples – their versatility is part of what makes them great. But if you look at their overall body of work during that period, I think the difference is pretty clear.

[puddleglum]

@Quercus

My non-Beatles-expert theory, is that the hate of Yoko is two-fold:

1. Unfortunately she was/is not musically talented. Sad, but true, that she detracted musically from much of Lennon’s post-Beatles music.

However, I think this is also an excuse to hate her because fans don’t like to admit the second reason:

2. Yoko symbolizes the transition from cute-cuddly “I Want to Hold Your Hand” Lennon to the saying-things-that-make-us-uncomfortable “Woman is the Nigger of the World” Lennon. So the part of us that doesn’t want to accept the social-critic Lennon puts the blame and hate on Yoko so we can still love the cuddly Lennon.

(As an aside, I’m not big on conceptual art, but I find brilliant and beautiful Ono’s installation of a bunch of flowerpots with dirt but nothing planted titled “Imagining Flowers”. That alone qualifiers her as an artist in my book.)

The tension of the Beatles was that Paul wanted to be a musician and John wanted to be an artist. Part of being an artist in his mind was epater les bourgeois, and no matter how good the Beatles music was they could never do that. By leaving the Beatles and embracing a conceptual artist like Ono, whose work was designed specifically to seperate ‘in the know artist’ from the common man, John was turning his back on his fans. Being mad at Yoko is like blaming the mistress for the breakup of a marriage. Her horrible singing and stupid publicity stunts made it all the more easy to dislike her.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

The Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco had a major Yoko Ono retrospective a few years back. All art, as I remember. If there was music it was very background.

And it was superb. All the famous pieces people mock were there but so were dozens of others. It was imaginative, witty, thoughtful, fascinating, and of course interactive, from days before that was the norm.

Ono is a major modern artist. If you haven’t see the extent of her work and only known her through the filter of the Beatles fame years, you have no idea of her artistic achievements. I don’t use that term loosely. I went out of curiosity and was converted into a fan.