Hello, I'm Kristy Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For tonight's reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast... 2007. I cast away this week is Yoko Ono. She was already a noted avant-garde artist in her own right when she started dating one of the most famous men in the world, John Lennon. Then, depending on who you are, you can be a part of the show. Listened to, she either stole him from the nation or helped him to focus on what was important to them both. For a long time she was publicly reviled but now more than 25 years after John's murder and with... Jocke herself, aged 73, the public perception of her is at last shifting. Jocke Unnepoel-McCarthney

said of you that he had initially thought that you seem to be this cold woman and then he added I think that was wrong she's just More determined than most people to be herself. Do you think that's true? very kind to say that. But it's true. You know, your life is not to appease people, but to be yourself. Always telling me that and that's what I was. I was just being myself. I was always like... That, you know, is how I was brought up I think, yeah. I mean most of us, most of us do care, don't we, what people think of us, as much as we might all pretend that we don't. In those initial days of your explosive fame, did you find people's attitude hurtful? Well, it was hurtful in a way, but I had John beside me, which was -- it did help. And also, it seemed --

almost as if those things were happening in the distance. So what was said out there didn't seem to hurt that much. -I've been watching a lot of -- Film in preparation for talking to you today. And I watched a little fascinating excerpt of you in your kitchen. Looks at Cameron he says look there's the wife of a beetle making tea for one of the fab four. Now of course he's he's sending the whole Thing out but in a sense he hit on a truth that so many good smart jokes do that actually very much so very much you could never be anything other than Yoko Ono the wife of an ex-beetle And that must have been difficult. Well, yes, but I didn't really feel that way at the time. Being that I was so independent and so myself before I met John and I kind of

I felt good about relaxing a little and I was there loving him, that's all. Tell me about your first record choice. What have you chosen? Oh, alright. Edith Piaf, Non Shunneru Crete Riang. Have you chosen this? Well, the reason is because, first of all, my dad always told me that. I was so small. Well, I was small even for Japanese actually. And feisty like a Japanese idiot's pee-up. And whenever I was down. I listened to this song in my mind and just felt better. ♪ Oh yeah ♪

Very much moving with the music there, Yokowo. And you said you feel it, it's the signature. Oh, I feel so much, you know, about this song. song. Yeah. I regret nothing too. I don't really feel like I had a choice always. I feel that I just managed to survive. Right, let's explore the beginnings of that because in the beginning it was not a question of survival. You were born into a very wealthy family with... Did aristocratic lineage and yet your mother was very determined that you would... Become an independent little girl. That was the way she brought you up. Yes, it's amazing when you think about it because when I was evacuated in the countryside, most kids were evacuated. At the time it was very difficult, we didn't have enough food and the war was going on. And there were planes coming and bombing places and everything.

And my mother was saying, You know, you have to write about this. Just think about writing because you're a good writer. And somehow I think it taught me to be objective about the situation. And that way of thinking about life. Probably made it easier for me to cope with the situation where the whole world was against me or something because I'm hmm this is a very interesting situation I better write about it or I better put in my song so you know whatever I mean Living as a child in Tokyo during the firebombing of 1945. Do you remember anything of that? Well, yes I do. But it's sort of a painful memory in a way because of all the things that happened. It influenced my thinking as well. That things can change so suddenly. I remember one beautiful party and...

We usually had a fortune teller or something, just to amuse the guests. And so my cousin, who was my cousin was a person who would inherit all of Yasuda's fortune or something. So he just showed his hand to the fortune teller. The fortune teller said, You're going to lose everything. And everybody just laughed and said, Well, how stupid. Because when Yasuda Lose everything that is when Japan would lose everything and that would never happen and of course it happened. Tell me about your next piece of music. This is Lili Marlin, sung by Lael Anderson. During the First World War, the soldiers on both sides of the trenches. In Christmas, one Christmas, it's a famous story, but they just came out of the trenches and hugged each other.

Each other and singing songs together kind of thing. That was a pretty good experience. World War which is a long time before the 1930s but in the 30s when I was, I don't know, five. My mother used to tell me this story, like a beautiful story. And I thought it was so beautiful. I just thought, why didn't they just stay away? friends instead of fighting them. Lala Anderson and Lily Marlena, you were saying, Yoko Ono, that you feel the

Maybe as a little girl listening to that, the seeds were sown of this belief that actually art can bridge those gaps. I know, I was just amazed about that. At the time I didn't think about it that way. But I really think that this is an example of how strong music can be. It communicates and unites people. It's incredible. Your family moved to America then in the 1950s when you were pursuing what was quite a conventional path through the education system. You become an avant-garde artist in New York. How did that happen? Well you see it's sort of... To say that I became an Abangal artist in New York, my background and my inspiration comes from Asian culture. And I was influenced by that. Lot, and Zen Buddhism a lot. And it is surprising that I was ready and I was ready.

Artist before I went to the United States. Some of the art that you were staging at the time was described in the language of the day as happenings. One of them was called Cut Peace where you invited members of the audience who'd come to see you cut your clothes off, you gave them a pair of scissors. That's a very brave, bold statement to make. Did you feel like a brave and bold artist as you did it? It was a bit scary but I just thought that this... The kind of work that has to be done and for that I didn't mind taking the risk. And how were you and yourself at the time? I mean I read at that time you had suffered on occasion with... Depression? I mean, were you somebody who was finding it useful to express yourself through your art? Did your art help you with whatever was going on inside? It was like my security blanket. And without that, I wouldn't have been here now.

Really, it was that important to you? It was very important, yes. I mean, I cared about my work so much that I never thought that I could make money with at all. I never thought I wanted to. How were you surviving financially? So you know sometimes well... Lecturing. Sometimes they ask me to lecture about my own work, but that was very rare. It was always lecturing about Japanese classical. And I was very good at it. And also I was sometimes working in a company as a typist I was working as a waitress as well. But also I had my pride as being an artist and it was great that way. Very good because I was doing what I wanted to do. Tell me about your next piece of music. This is Liverpool Lu, it's a lullaby and I don't know why but just...

One day John in England sang Liverpool Lou and said, Isn't that beautiful? And you know, when Sean was born, he... We just sing this song until Sean goes to sleep, almost every night. Oh Liverpool, lovely Liverpool Why don't you behave just like other girls do? Why must my poor heart keep following you? Stay home and love me, my Liverpool Dominic Bien and Liverpool Lou bringing back happy memories. Now you first met John Lennon, I understand, at an exhibition that you were staging in a gallery in London. 1966 I think it was. The exhibition was called Unfinished Paintings and Objects. What happened when you first met him?

Well, I had a show in the Indica Gallery and it was a one-woman show. And just after I finished putting everything together, John did. Who was the owner of the Indigo Gallery, just came in with John, but I didn't know that. John, some guy, you know. I mean most people would not believe them. They always say, Well, you must have known. No, I just didn't. And what did John make of your art? Well, he came in and he just went downstairs and I saw that they were standing front of the, uh, Herman Nelling painting. Explain that painting to us. Herman Nelling painting is this a... In a glass jar and there's a hammer dangling on the side of this just a white block of wood actually and by many people hammering in the nails and gradually the painting will become a different painting than just a block of white wood.

And so did John Lennon engage in this participation? Did he hammer the nail into the wood? Well, no, he said, could I have my nail in? And I said, no, because this is before The opening and I want to keep it clean. Then I thought, No, no, you can do it if you pay, I think, five shillings. And that's because the night before, I was thinking about the opening. I thought, What am I going to do? because my work is conceptual. So nobody's going to buy them. So how am I going to justify my existence as an artist or whatever? So then I thought, oh, a good idea to make them pay to do these things, little things. And he didn't pay pop showings. He said, Well, you know, is it all right if I have an imaginary nail in? And I paid him.

In imagining money. I mean, I think five shillings. So he kind of beat you at your own game on that one. Yeah, exactly. So I said, Oh, right, you know, he's playing the same game I'm playing. I thought he was... Very beautiful and very elegant. He was already married when you met and it was 18 months before you became a couple. There was the disintegration of his marriage to Cynthia Lennon and you came together and it happened... Extraordinarily over one night. You recorded, was it a whole album over one night, which became Two Virgins. Yes, that was just... He invited me and I went up to his house. And already by then we knew that we sort of -- We were madly in love with each other, actually. So it was alright that I would go to visit him in a kind of late night-ish.

Time you know. Cynthia Lennon said at the time I knew immediately I saw them together that they were right for each other I knew I'd lost him. Did you think that you had met your soul mate? that this was the man who was the man for you? I think that um yes you know it uh Not just that, but the fact that we are all human beings. 67 is when we started to sort of touch base with each other and I felt scared about it actually. Well, getting involved. About the fact that he was a Beatles, that's... Started to dawn on me that it's a little bit different situation and I might lose my freedom. And then everybody was so upset with us. So that they made stories. What were they upset about? The fact that we were together.

And why would that upset them? I have no idea. Do you think there was a degree of racism? Do you think there was misogyny? Well, the racism was always there, but I don't know. It was more than that. It was something about John being there. their trust. Or something and then you know it seems like I stole that from them or something like that. It was so shocking. I just didn't understand why that was happening really. Tell me about your next piece of music. Well, that's both Maudie, One Love, One World, One People, and such a beautiful song that I have no word for it really. *music* ♪ Wonder ♪

Thought. You had what was it called a bed in for peace was your honeymoon? Yeah, a bed in. I mean it was very famous it was all over the news. Set up in Germany in a Hilton hotel 1969 and you invited the world in to share your honeymoon. Yes. I wonder if somebody would do that. Full world peace. Well, we thought that we were doing. Good thing, you know, and we were very narcissistic about it and I think, great, great, you know. Oh, that's very interesting to hear you say that you were very narcissistic about it. Well, let's say that I'm a narcissist probably. Otherwise, how could I just go on like this? So you invited people in because you thought we are interested.

Listing enough to merit. Ten hours a day of being filmed and you invited journalists to come and talk to you, many of them extremely confrontational with you. They were, yes. I mean, their objections were what? That this was a sort of vacuous publicity stunt? I know, it's crazy. Did we need any more publicity? I mean in In hindsight, I think that we did a very good thing. People had difficulty with what it was that John was... Starting to say. They seemed to have difficulty with the fact that this lovable mop top in his ne'er-o jacket had now turned into this... Long-haired bedraggled political activist and of course they thought well it's her, she's done it, she's turned... That way we want him back. They wanted what he was before, didn't they? Well he was a very very strong man, extremely so, and I think that he was done.

To be like that way before he met me and he just became himself. Tell me about your fifth piece of music. What have you chosen? This is called When I Grow Too Old to Dream and it has a very personal memory for me. One day, I just felt like I wanted to call my mother. And I said hi and she said, Oh, you're... And just the way she said it, I felt that there was something very strange about it. And she was saying, I just feel, I just feel in the kitchen. Or something like that and I thought this is serious. So I thought, well, I had to do something, but I was in New York and she was in Japan. So, you know, I said, okay, mommy.

Let's sing that song. Remember that song that you used to sing? And I started When I grow too old to dream And she went When I grow No, no, ok, let's start again. When I grow, you know, and I kept repeating it and she finally I sang the whole line and I was so choked up. And so I immediately told my assistant to call Tokyo and get the hospital and get the ambulance, go to my mother. She was saved. When I go out to sleep. ♪ I'll have you to remember ♪

♪ When I look to dreams ♪ ♪ Your love will live in... ♪ builds and when I grow too old to dream. So Yoko Ono, let's talk a little bit more about your relationship then with John Lennon. I mean it wasn't a straightforward one. You in fact broke up for what is known rather fabulously as the lost weekend which in fact Stretched on for some months. How many months were you apart? Well you know some people say it was 12 months and 14 months. Month, an 18 month, I mean I don't really know, you can check it one day I suppose. Feeling like our life was becoming a routine.

Think that we should waste our time on that. Now of course the circles you moved in and John himself spoke about the amount of drugs that he took that I mean he was drinking at the same time quite heavily when he spent this time apart from you. He sounded as if he was pretty miserable. He wasn't drinking when he was with me. I think that was great in hindsight that I gave him the freedom. So he just did whatever he thought that he couldn't do when... Together. And of course drugs culture was a huge part of the 60s and 70s. I mean you seem so much to be a woman with your head screwed on in the right direction. When it came to drugs did you take lots of drugs? Did you try all drugs at the time? Well yes I did too I suppose but I started to feel at one point that it wasn't really fun. So would that have been over a period of years or was that in... A period of years, yeah.

What was it you were coming off? Well, that was the big one. Which was heroin? Yes, smack. But you know that luckily we never injected because both of us were totally About needles. So that probably saved us and the other thing that saved us was our connection not very good. The connection kept giving us a lot laced with baby powder. In fact, this is a good thing. I would say, What is this? But that saved us actually. Many rock stars, they had very good connections. Visit them and you know they would have a big bowl of powder and we... If we did something then, you know, we'd be so sort of, well, so high actually. We couldn't even walk straight, you know.

What they're doing every day. You know, and we weren't doing it that way. He didn't have a condition like that. - A lot of people, of course, didn't leave it behind. There are a lot of corpses scattered on that particular road. How did the two of you manage to leave it behind? - Well, one is that fact that John-- was extremely strong-willed person. And we just went cold turkey. - Tell me about your next piece of music. - Okay, Beautiful Boy. Well, because I love most of John's songs. Well, I said most of them just to make it sound right. But actually, I love all. All of his songs, really. But I chose this because of Sean, you know, and I really appreciate the fact that -- John made this song for Sean and of course John didn't know that he was going to pass Soon. So I think it's important to play this one.

John Lennon and beautiful boy written of course for your son Sean Yoko Were you happy when you found out you were pregnant? Not really. I thought, well, it sounds very strange now, I suppose, but I thought, well, I should let John decide whether I should keep it or not. Why was that? Well, because she just came back and we just got together and I became pregnant very soon.

I didn't know whether it was the right moment to have a child because maybe he didn't want to. I just didn't want to Him with something that he didn't want. So you did actually, just to be clear, you did... Actually have that conversation with him? I did and he said of course we're gonna keep it. He was very upset with my remark and I thought well yes then we'll go ahead with this. And so when Sean was born then the decision was made that John would be the house husband and that you would take care of business. I've looked at footage of film of... John at home with Sean in the papoose and dancing around and singing to him and feeding him his bottle I mean, Luke's idyllic. Was it a very happy time for you? Thank you. It was in a way his idea was when we should make $25 million, because that's what in the papers it said that Paul made $25 million. Well, we have to make $25 million.

Alright, give me two years. And that was a real macho remark on my part because I realized that I couldn't make it. So finally I said, Well, could I have... Five years. It is maybe your greatest hidden talent that you are a very, very astute. Incapable businesswoman. I mean you managed your money not only well but spectacularly well. You made millions. Well, I don't know. I mean, no, it just happened. Well, that's not true. It did. It did not just happen. Sure. It's true. I was very lucky. That's all. Yeah. When she was in her 20s, she was in her 20s. Sean was five then. John had said that when Sean was five he would start making music again. Indeed he did, he started recording given that he'd literally hung up his guitar for five years was there a lot inside? Writing some songs, but he wasn't that pleased with what he was writing. And then in 1980, I just said, Well, look, you know, you can write a song.

Always talking about going on a trip on a yacht. So you should do it. And he did that and something opened up. And when he went to Bermuda, he started to write these beautiful songs. - So he returned after that trip and it was December the 8th, 1980 that he was returning from the studio with you that evening, going to your apartment building. Are you able to tell us what you remember of that evening? - Well, it was a sort of... Slightly warm, warm night. And I said, shall we go and have dinners with before we go home. And he said, No, let's go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep. And it was like...

He wasn't sure whether we can get home before he goes to sleep. Maybe he's already gone to bed or something. He was concerned about that. But that's the last thing he said then. That he wanted to see Sean. As you were entering the building, he was shocked. Did you have any questions? Time to talk to him did he have time to say anything to you when he was shot yeah after he was shot yes no It was a very hard time for me. But I was concerned about how it would affect Sean. I just couldn't tell him that night actually. When were you able to tell him? Much later. I mean not much later, but yeah, not that night. Should we take a break for some music?

Yeah, okay, let's go to the music. So now Sean is a very... I'm pleased to be a musician, singer-songwriter, and I'd like to... Song very much, but in a way it's very painful for me to listen to this song, but somehow it does attract me. I mean this song attracts me always. It is a song of... Loss and pain. Has no one ever felt this pain? Has no one ever been betrayed? ♪ Is there anyone ♪ *music*

♪ Somebody ♪ Sean Lennon and Magic and written you think you could know in response to the the grief and loss of losing his father do you worry about Shaun's safety? Well that's a concern too, yes of course. But I try not to be concerned because it's better not to focus on a negative image of anything. It's a curious experience talking to you because you seem to have an innate optimism. You seem to be somebody who has taken life on, on your own. Own terms, but at the same time there has been this great circus, this great sideshow that has travelled along with you because of the Beatles and because of your love of there with John Lennon. How much are you realistically able to retain a sense of self when all this criticism comes your way?

Well, I have an incredible sense of myself. It's the only reason why I was able to survive. If I'm vilified again when I'm away, I pass away. I just want to say to my two children not to defend me. Don't want them to waste their time defending me. Don't even think about the past or your mother, because your mother had a great life, and you should know. It seems too much to ask a child to do, to not defend their mother. Well, I don't know. I think that after John's passing, it was my pleasure actually to keep on protecting his work and I cherish the fact that I feel that I did not.

Best. But at the same time, most of my time was spent on that. And I feel that Sean should not be bothered with it. It's too much of a burden for him. I mean there's such a heavy past that he's already burdened with. I just like to He's working up there for us and I'm working here with him still. Is there a dialogue? Do you... Speak to him somewhere? Well, I mean, when I was listening to this beautiful boy, I felt that Joan just jumped out in the corner. I'm not saying, Good idea, that was a good idea to select a beautiful boy. And he's always somehow sort of jumping out and saying things. I mean in the past 10 years your exhibitions have won a series of awards, very prestigious awards.

Your recent album was very well received. You seem to be, you know, you're showered with all these honorary doctorates. Do you like being liked? Well, you know what it is? The energy that was put into those works was... The result of my life in a way. And so that those energies, if that would be any help to people and inspire people and Make their own, I'd be very happy. Tell me about your eights and final record. It's a very young women's group in Iceland. - Iceland happens to be my new love, really. It's a beautiful, beautiful country. There's a purity about it. When you go there, you get a whiff of clean air and good clean water. I mean, it's just the...

Beautiful, beautiful, magical country. Amina and Saul In conclusion, I want to give you With my affirmation. Go ahead. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the beautiful planet we live on and enjoy.

Interesting, exciting and enlightening time of the history of the human race. Each of us was born at this time to fulfil a mission. Together we are in a process of Healing and creating a better world for the lives of the planet. Our work is not yet done but it will be done soon. For good of all concerns, so be it. Beautiful. So I will give you for this island the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible if you wish to take them. I don't know if you do, but you're also allowed to take a book of your own. What would you like to take? Well, 'Sayuki' which is... A Chinese story. It's a very profound and fun Chinese story and it really changed my life when I was a little girl. Okay, you may have that book. You are also allowed to make life on the island a little more bearable, to take a luxury with you. What would your luxury be? My luxury item is my...

Life of the next 30 years. Heart to turn that down although I don't know if it would be possible to give you it. And if the waves were to threaten to crash to the shore and wash away your discs which one would you run through the sand to save? To see, in which John had that beautiful boy song in it. Yoko Ono, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/d.

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