Matt Everitt’s First Time with Yoko Ono airs this Sunday 17 July at 1pm on BBC Radio 6 Music.
In the interview, Yoko she talks for the first time about how John felt about turning 40, recalls her very first meeting with John Lennon in 1966, how the world reacted to the music she and John started making together and the writing of songs like Give Peace A Chance and I’m Your Angel.
This programme airs as part of 6 Music Celebrates Pyschedelia for BBC Music’s My Generation season which – across the year, through the decades - is telling the history of pop music through tv, radio and online programming.
On meeting Lennon
YOKO: It was like a miracle that happened. Everything was, when you think about it now, everything was set right. For instance, he was in Abbey Road studio and he just dropped in to see this show [Yoko’s exhibition at the The Indica Gallery in Mayfair on November 1966] And Abbey Road is [number] 3 Abbey Road. '3' is a music number. Where Indica Gallery was, was 6 Masons Square. '6' is the number of love. So the music came to love. Isn't that amazing? Even on that level?
MATT: The ‘Two Virgins’ album [1968] that you made, that was such a brave thing to do, to release that record. The music was such a jump to what anyone expected. Do you remember it coming out?
YOKO: Well, I know that what I did then in terms of music was quite different from what people were used to. But he [Lennon] understood it. That surprised me.
MATT: Why?
YOKO: Well because nobody else did. My experience with music is more conceptual. You know? The fact that I was so 'different' made it happen I think. Made it happen with my songs that it came out all right.
MATT: The first Plastic Ono Band concert was 1969 at the Toronto Rock n roll festival. And you played 'Don't Worry Kyoko'. Can you remember that first gig?
YOKO: ‘Don't Worry Kyoko’ was about my daughter. I never thought there was 'pop' music or 'rock'. I mean, it was just music. It was a good experience - it is a very good experience. What I'm interested in about my music is very different from what other people are interested in. I think they like to hear something that's comforting.
MATT: And your music isn't comforting?
YOKO: I don't think so!
But you see, everything that we did was very, very close to our hearts. And we got criticism about that you know? Like, ‘You guys are supposed to be artists! But [your work] is still very personal!’. And really John reacted to that and said ‘What's wrong with being personal?’ He was very real. Both of us were very real actually. And even a drop of reality, a drop of truth, goes a long way. But we had it.
MATT: ‘Give Peace a Chance’ has become so powerful. Not just as a song - but something that seemed very casual - now ‘til this day, people still talk about it. The signs, the song has got this life, it seemed just like a moment, and it will be played forever. That must feel wonderful
YOKO: Yeah, isn’t that great. John and I didn’t not really accumulate anything worldly, but we had an incredible incredible richness of life that was given to us. Isn’t that amazing.
MATT: It seems like you are so loved now. People really appreciate your work. Maybe in the past it was easy for people to criticise you because of what they thought you were. How has that shift been?
YOKO: Well thank god they criticised me instead of ignoring me, in other words my work was criticised, not ignored. Can you imagine if everyone was saying ‘she’s so good’. I’d be dead by now!
MATT: I wanted to ask about ‘I'm Your Angel’ - a beautiful song.
YOKO: Thank you. I kind of like it. There's so many other songs that I liked too, but the kind of songs that I wrote, most of them, especially for ‘Approximate Infinite Universe’, or after that, kind of had shadow or shade in them, but 'I'm Your Angel' was really the tops when we were so happy together, and there are very few songs like that.
Lennon on turning 40
YOKO: One of the things that I've never told anyone, and maybe it doesn't mean very much, but John was starting to feel that he was going to be 40. The usual thing that all of us feel. So he would say, ‘Jeez I can't believe I'm going to be forty!’ He was saying things like that in the middle of the night. So [by writing the song, ‘I’m Your Angel’] I just wanted to make him feel better.
