ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST LOVE STORIES:
THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO

and
the Tale of the Beatles

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION: GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
2. THE BEATLES IN MY LIFE
3. THE BEATLES HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
4. JOHN LENNON WAS A DREAMER, BUT NOT THE ONLY ONE
5. YOKO ONO IMAGINES
6. THE END: WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT
7. WORKS CITED

INTRODUCTION: GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

"Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear."
—John Lennon ("Instant Karma! We All Shine On")

Like every great love story, John and Yoko's had a great beginning.

John Lennon met Yoko Ono at her 1966 art exhibit Unfinished Paintings and Objects, at London's Indica Gallery. She was an avant-garde artist, and he was the most famous pop star in the world. Lennon previewed the show the night before its opening, and Yoko later claimed she didn't know who he nor the Beatles were—which seems unlikely, although it is likely that she didn't care. One piece at the exhibit, Apple, was just a real apple on a plexiglass stand. Lennon picked the apple up and took a bite out of it. Ono later recalled: "He just grabbed it and bit it and looked at me like 'There!' I was so furious, I didn't know what to say. How dare this person mess around with my work?" Lennon said of the incident, "I thought it was fantastic—I got her work immediately...it was two hundred quid to watch the fresh apple decompose" (Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970).

Another piece, Ceiling Painting/Yes Painting, was a ladder leading up to a picture frame on the ceiling, and a magnifying glass hanging on a metal chain. Within the frame, in tiny print, was the single word YES. Lennon described being impressed with the positive message: "I climbed up and got a look in this spyglass on the top of the ladder... you feel like a fool... and it just said, 'Yes.' Now, at the time, all the avant-garde was smash the piano with a hammer and break the sculpture and anti-, anti-, anti-. It was all boring negative crap" (Playboy Interview with David Sheff, September 1980).

There was also a blank white canvas on the wall with a bucket of nails and a hammer beside it, entitled Painting to Hammer a Nail. Lennon asked if he could hammer a nail in, but Yoko said no because the show wasn't opening until the next day. The gallery owner told her to let Lennon do it because he was a millionaire and might buy it. When Yoko finally agreed he could hammer a nail in for five shillings, John replied, "Well, I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in." Lennon later reflected: "And that's when we really met. That's when we locked eyes and she got it and I got it and, as they say in all the interviews we do, the rest is history" (Playboy, 1980).

Two recent occurrences sparked what would end up being my eight-month-long preoccupation with the Beatles—or as my girlfriend called it, my obsession. More specifically, my fixation was with the story of John Lennon, and to only a slightly lesser degree, his wife Yoko Ono.

The first of these occurrences was an exhibit at my city's biggest visual art venue, the Vancouver Art Gallery, entitled Growing Freedom: The Instructions of Yoko Ono / The Art of John and Yoko. My mind was blown by her work, and theirs together, which included happenings, bed-ins, displayed objects, installations, performance, film, song, image, and viewer participation. The pieces collectively showcase a playful, fairy tale-like, optimistic worldview while alternately resonating as an urgent call to action, with antiwar, antiracism, antisexism sentiments anchored in love and compassion for the suffering. Sometimes humourous, sometimes somber, often moving, and always mind-expanding, the work conveys profound messages of hope, peace, and love. The show started in October 2021; I viewed it twice that fall, and once more in its last week in April 2022.

The second occurrence which initiated my fascination with Lennon, Ono, and the Beatles—or more accurately re-initiated my fascination, for I've been a fan since childhood—was the November 2021 release of The Beatles: Get Back docuseries. The nearly eight-hour-long series utilizes unused footage recorded over twenty-one days in January 1969 for the feature documentary film Let It Be—during the making of Beatles' album of the same name—culminating with their legendary rooftop concert. I took it in slowly over several weeks, rewinding and rewatching segments throughout, and savoured every second. The fly-on-the-wall footage makes for the feeling of being right there in the room with the band as they write and rehearse their songs, smoke, drink, hang out, and alternate between bickering and showing creative support to each other.

The instance of the art exhibit and docuseries' release coinciding renewed an interest I've long had with the group that many say—still, to this day, even fifty-plus years after their breakup—is the greatest, or at least the most influential, band of all time.

And so I started indulging in all things Beatles-related, including reading Philip Norman's in-depth book Shout! The True Story of the Beatles, considered by many to be the band's definitive biography. I also concurrently read the book that was released along with the art exhibit and serves as its counterpart, with the same title Growing Freedom: The Instructions of Yoko Ono / The Art of John and Yoko, which chronicles and examines, with text and photographs, the work of the Ono-Lennons. Then I read Ono's first book Grapefruit (1964), an early example of conceptual art as a series of "event scores" and "instructional poems"—short, whimsical passages instructing the reader to enact an idea, whether actually feasible, or abstract, or metaphorical. And finally, I read John Lennon's three books: In His Own Write (1964), A Spaniard in the Works (1965), and the posthumously published Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986)—collections of his absurdist poetry, comic strips, cartoon drawings, and short stories of the "literary nonsense" genre.

After the Get Back docuseries, I watched over a dozen other relevant movies including the Beatles' official films A Hard Day's Night (1964), Help! (1965), The Magical Mystery Tour (1967), the cartoon feature Yellow Submarine (1968), and documentary Let It Be (1970). Then I watched Lennon and Ono's 1972 film Imagine, a TV special released shortly after Lennon's album of the same name. Incorporating a distinct visual accompaniment to every featured song, this musical art film was groundbreaking in pioneering the "music video" and "video album" formats that would become popular years later. I also watched a bunch of documentaries like The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006), John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (2018), George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011), the 11-hour Beatles Anthology television series (1995), and Beatles-inspired movies like Backbeat (1994), Across the Universe (2007), Nowhere Boy (2009), and Yesterday (2019).

And then, of course, the music. I revisited all the Beatles' official studio albums, sought out rare and early recordings, and brushed up on the four members' post-Beatles solo work, of which I'd only been largely familiar with Lennon's. A final event marked the end of my Beatles' study; for my first time ever I attended a performance by a Beatle. On May 2nd, 2022, I went to see Paul McCartney live in concert. He was playing Seattle, Washington, about a three-hour drive from my city of Vancouver, Canada. I'd already been absorbed with the Beatles for a few months when McCartney's show was announced, so the fact he was touring near me was fortuitous, a perfect way to wrap up my study, and very possibly my last chance to see a Beatle perform live in concert. On June 18th—two days after the tour's last show—Paul McCartney turned eighty-years-old.

So much has been said and written about the Beatles that I don't intend to give much new information in this article—although I do provide biographical details and historical summation for context. Nor do I want to simply revel in adulation—although I may nonetheless overstate my admiration, and nerd out and overshare what I’ve learned. But really I just want to discuss their work, and outline the effect their music and story has had on me throughout my life. And in particular I want to describe my thoughts and feelings on the inspiring, heartbreaking, remarkable tale of John Lennon, to give Yoko Ono the credit she deserves as a powerful artist in her own right, and to contemplate the essential impact of their lives on one another. Their perhaps unexpected, possibly unlikely, often controversial—and to some, incomprehensible—partnership, as artists and spouses—is, in my regard, one of the world's greatest love stories.

THE BEATLES IN MY LIFE

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."
—John Lennon ("All You Need is Love")

I don't recall the moment I first became aware of the Beatles, but it probably had to do with my parents, who came of age in the 1960s. I was three-years-old when Lennon died on December 8th, 1980, and while I don't remember it, my older sister and other friends around my age have recounted their parents mourning the devastating news as one of their earliest memories.

The funny thing is, I don't remember either of my parents playing Beatles' music when I was a kid. My mom had been a fan of the Beatles as a teenager—and particularly of John Lennon—but I only recall her playing Lennon's Imagine album on CD when I was a teen, after I'd already become familiar with the Beatles on my own. She more so played a lot of Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen, my dad played a lot of John Prine, and they both played a lot of Bob Dylan. The only Beatles' record I remember seeing in their collection when I was young was Abbey Road.

Nonetheless, three of the first four albums I ever owned were by the Beatles or John Lennon. A music magazine I read features a recurring interview segment wherein different musicians are asked the same series of questions, one of which is, "What was the first album you purchased with your own money?" When I read this, I imagine myself as a famous musician and think of my answer. Well, it wasn't with my own money, but the first album I ever asked someone to buy me was a compilation entitled The Beatles / 20 Golden Hits, on cassette tape. I have a dim memory of going into a record store with my dad in downtown Vancouver, called The Beatles Museum (long since closed), and asking him to buy me two tapes. One was this Beatles album, and one was The Best Hits of Buddy Holly and The Crickets—who I later discovered were a musical influence on the Beatles and a source of inspiration for their own insect-themed name. I don't know how I knew about either group at the time, but those were the two albums I wanted that day. My dad bought them for me, and thus began my lifelong fandom of the Beatles. I was about eight-years-old.

I soon learned that "Yellow Submarine"—a song regularly sung in my elementary school assemblies and music class—was by the Beatles. But it would be a few years still before I'd realize that drummer Ringo Starr sang lead vocals on it—something I found peculiar, as I hadn't known that drummers could sing.

One day I was watching the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) on video, and my mom looked in from the next room during the scene in which Matthew Broderick as Ferris lip-syncs the Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout". I had by then become interested in what I, as a child, called "fifties-and-sixties music", and the associated culture and fashion—with artists like Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, and Buddy Holly in mind—largely initiated by movies of my childhood set in that era, such as The Outsiders (1983), Stand by Me (1986), and La Bamba (1987)—the story of 1950s rock-and-roller Richie Valens who died with Holly in a plane crash. When the Ferris Bueller scene ended, I said, "That was cool," to which my mom replied, "It was a lot cooler when John Lennon did it." I hadn't realized the Beatles had recorded that song (a cover of the Isley Brothers' 1962 hit heavily influenced by Valens' "La Bamba"), and the next time I was in a record store with my dad, I saw a cassette entitled Twist and Shout—the band's second Canadian release, containing mostly songs from their first official LP Please Please Me. My dad bought it for me.

A year or two after that I watched the documentary Imagine: John Lennon (1988). Among other things I was struck by the fact that John Lennon, the biggest celebrity peace activist in history, had been murdered. Around this time an older cousin was visiting from New York, and said that she'd like to buy me a gift before she went home. We went into a record store and after browsing for a bit, I spotted the soundtrack to the Imagine doc, and asked if she would buy it for me. She gladly did. I was about eleven. While the album of course included many Beatles tracks, it was also my introduction to Lennon's solo work, and I was particularly impressed with the songs "Imagine" and "God"—the latter of which had the lyrics "I don't believe in Beatles / I just believe in me / Yoko and me / And that's reality"—which affected me in ways I didn't yet understand.

In 1999, in young adulthood, I visited that same cousin in New York, who happened to live a block away from the Dakota—the building in which Lennon had lived, and was shot dead in front of. Central Park is across the street, and I visited a memorial there entitled "Strawberry Fields". The simply-designed tribute to Lennon is an approximately ten-meter-wide circular mosaic made up of black-and-white tiles embedded in the pavement, which form a pattern resembling a sunflower. In the center of the circle is the single word IMAGINE. When I was there, flowers were scattered all over the mosaic as well as a white envelope bearing the words "Please give this to Yoko". I didn't have the heart to visit the Dakota's front gate, but I viewed the spot from the inside of a taxi as we passed by.

Anyway, those were the first four albums I owned: The Beatles / 20 Golden Hits, The Best Hits of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, The Beatles / Twist and Shout, and the Imagine: John Lennon Soundtrack. Incidentally, the fifth album I ever owned—and indeed the first that I actually did buy with my own money—was The Doors / Greatest Hits when I was thirteen, initiated by the then-recent release of Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991).

As a child I was captivated by the catchy melodies of early Beatles songs, which in my mind epitomized the doo wop and rhythm-and-blues sounds of the seminal rock'n'roll genre. But it would be a few years still before I discovered the rest of the Beatles' catalogue. It wasn't until my teens that I learned of songs like "Come Together" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", which I wasn't ready for when I got that first Beatles tape at age eight. But by sixteen I sure was. I'd gotten into record collecting and home stereo systems, and put together my own setup of mismatched second-hand components from flea markets and pawn shops. A family friend had been getting rid of their old records, so I gladly took a couple boxes-worth to play on my used turntable. Many of those records were in rough shape; scratched, dusty, moldy, some without covers or even inner sleeves. But I listened to each and every one.

Among these records was a coverless one that read, on the vinyl label, The Beatles—but without the album's title. I assumed it was a best hits compilation of sorts, although the songs didn't appear on any Beatles albums I was familiar with then. The vinyl was in horrible shape, with thoroughly scratchy and very poor audio quality, but still—I was astounded. More than one song sounded to me like old show tunes from some musical theater play, something that might have resounded in piano halls some sixty years earlier, or that Jiminy Cricket might sing in a Walt Disney flick. Some were raucous electric rock jams. Some were mellow folky numbers. And one track was eight minutes of abstract sounds. There was a song with a long title about a monkey, one about desserts, and one about revolution. Another one was hard rock approaching heavy metal.

This was the Beatles? Where were their cutesy, foot-tapping pop songs I was familiar with? How could this diverse song collection be by one single group, let alone by the same group who had recorded "Twist and Shout"? It was almost beyond belief that this was the same band whose early songs I had become enamoured with in my childhood, but now seemed primitive in comparison. Not only was I stunned that one band could emulate such a range of styles as this unnamed album showcased, but also that they could do each style equally well. I looked closer at the record, and saw that the label read "Side Three" on one side and "Side Four" on the other. This was before the internet, so I showed the coverless record to my parents who told me that it was the second record of a double-album release simply titled The Beatles, but better known as the White Album. That's when I finally understood what all the hype was about. After that, I sought out their entire discography, and was astonished countless times again when listening to the progression the band underwent, from Rubber Soul, to Magical Mystery Tour, to Abbey Road. When I heard "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", it was all over.

THE BEATLES HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see."
—John Lennon ("Strawberry Fields Forever")

The Beatles were unique in a number of ways. All four were multi-instrumentalists, and all four sang. While Lennon and McCartney cowrote the vast majority of the songs and took turns as front man on lead vocals, George Harrison also wrote and sang lead on at least one song per album. Even drummer Ringo Starr wrote a couple numbers, singing lead on these and several other tracks too. The Beatles were among few pop musicians to gain attention for their songwriting; previously the public cared little about who actually wrote the songs their beloved entertainers performed, as they were usually composed by producers and studio songwriters for hire. In the jazz or folk music scenes it might have been more about songwriters, but not really in pop music. Until the Beatles.

Before the Beatles, rock'n'roll acts were usually either a solo artist or a group that backed up a lead performer, like Bill Haley and the Comets, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, etc. But the Beatles were a complete band, their songs packaged neatly into a simple radio-friendly mold—at first, until they would eventually go on to challenge and recreate the boundaries of rock'n'roll and the entire recorded music industry. Each of the four Beatles' personalities were more distinct than members of other bands—even in matching suits as they were in their early days—or at least they were marketed as so. And they individualized over time, increasingly diverging in appearance and attitude. Ringo later reflected on the Beatles' wide-ranging fan base: "I got the children and grandmothers, George got the mystics, John got the intellectual college types, and Paul got the teeny boppers" (Aspel & Company, 1988).

The early Beatles catalogue combined cover versions of seminal rock'n'roll hits (by the likes of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Carl Perkins) with their own original numbers of the catchy pop tune variety—mostly love songs emulating the rock, folk, and doo wop stylings of the day, but with their own signature flavour. With persistent rhythms complementing captivating melodies, vocal harmonies, and usually simple lyrics, the Beatles could shake crowds with rockin' dance numbers just as well as make the girls weak-kneed by crooning sugary love ballads with romantic turns-of-phrase. In those days, the Beatles were all chaotic fun and adolescent joy. Even their heartbreak songs were sweetly innocent. After all, John and Paul wrote most of them together after school as teenagers in the late 1950s. And so the Beatles appealed first to a teenage audience not much younger than themselves, skyrocketing to superstardom when their oldest member, Ringo Starr, was twenty-three, and their youngest, George Harrison, was just twenty. They had a musical knack, cultivating a formula that aligned with the times, as if destiny.

An intense craze developed around the band as they grew to prominence in the early '60s— first in England and Europe—which then multiplied exponentially upon their arrival in America in early 1964. Teenage girls would cry uncontrollably, scream, faint, pee their pants, and trample over one another at the prospect of getting a glimpse of the band—mobbing them at airports, hotels, and concert venues. Beatlemania. Few other music stars have garnered such extreme devotion. No one had caused such a fuss before, except perhaps Elvis Presley—a big influence on the Beatles who would in fact go on to replace him as pop music's leading figures, only to have Elvis later denounce them as proponents of drug culture and a bad influence on the youth (although he would die of a drug overdose).

The early Beatles' longish but still relatively short and only slightly unkempt "moptop" hairstyles freaked out parents of young Beatles fans—mostly teenaged females the likes of those whose sexual appetites had been stimulated by Elvis a decade earlier. The Beatles as sex symbols were more of the flirtatious, teen crush variety, and not the overt sex symbols that Elvis was before them or Jim Morrison in their later days. Compared to other more sensationalist acts of their time, it was the Beatles' self-parodying quality and avoidance of posturing as cool or sexy that was in fact part of their charm.

Influenced by German artist friends in Hamburg—where the band cultivated their energetic onstage antics during several turns as house band of seedy nightclubs prior to their international breakout—the Beatles' unconventional hairstyles and fashion sense lent to an artsy edge that their rock contemporaries lacked. And the moptops would continue to grow longer by the month, with varying styles of facial hair to soon follow on all four members. This was all apparently revolutionary enough to position the Beatles as a perceived threat to the security of conservative middle-class white adults. As tame as the four lads seem now in retrospect, in their day young fans feverishly followed them as a symbolic step towards rebelling against their parents, the establishment, and any other oppressive norms of the day.

From a present-day perspective, the Beatlemania phenomenon indicates what an uptight, repressed society it must have been back then. Young people were so restless that they literally went crazy for something entirely innocuous by today's standards. Sure, the Beatles were pretty good—but good enough to cause thousands to stalk their every move? Yes, apparently. Their early image being only mildly rebellious was no doubt part of their success, as they were ultimately cheerful young guys who only occasionally exhibited the qualities of smartass rock'n'roll punks. They were courteous, but with a bit of a smirk—especially from John. With a balance of cheekiness and politeness, and a measure of self-effacing wit, they were authentically themselves. Originating in the industrial port city of Liverpool, England, their working-class sensibilities and carefree attitudes endeared them to the masses.

The Beatles' arrival in America signaled an awakening of the Western world, solidified now as a cultural landmark in foreshadowing the rapid societal changes that would accelerate in leaps and bounds in the years to come. As cultural barriers broke down, popular music evolved to encompass new, mind-opening, system-challenging values. And the Beatles were right there, progressing with society every step of the way. As they aged, their original fans aged with them at the same time as their audience expanded across cultures and generations. In the course of the Beatles' existence with their final four-member lineup of John, Paul, George, and Ringo (1962-1970), their music progressed to encompass a broad range of styles including psychedelic rock, electronic rock, folk, blues, country, soul, ska, lounge, show tunes, big band, marching band, orchestral, and avant-garde, experimental music. The Beatles went from boy-meets-girl, puppy dog love songs and cartoonish novelty ditties to fantasyland psychedelia and social commentary, expanding rock music's stylistic and thematic frontiers.

The Beatles were considered the "good boys" to the Rolling Stones' "bad boys" who would be the second-place UK band to explode in North America as part of the 1960s' "British Invasion". The Rolling Stones cultivated a sneer in contrast to the Beatles' smiles—a marketing ploy designed by their handlers to position them as rivals—although the two bands were actually friends who privately agreed to alternate the release dates of their singles so as not to compete in sales. In fact, the Beatles gave the Stones' their first big hit—"I Wanna Be Your Man"—before recording it themselves. Respect to the Stones—with their longevity now continuing past sixty years in action—but to this day even they haven't emulated the range of musical stylings that the Beatles did in their relatively short-lived existence. The breadth of the Beatles' creativity, scope of their popularity, and their overall cultural impact remains unmatched.

After their several world tours between 1964 and 1966, estimated at having given some 1,500 concerts, the Beatles retired from performing live. Their immense fame made the stress of traveling incredibly wearisome. As they were shuffled from concert venue to limousine to hotel to airport, with thousands of screaming fans, police, and media personnel tracking their every move, they would frequently ask their managers, "What country are we in?" Playing to stadium-capacity crowds was then unprecedented, and since sound equipment adequate for large venues didn't exist yet, the Beatles couldn't hear themselves play over the constant din of screaming audiences. They later described the concerts as circus events that were more about their fame than the music. After their last stadium show at Candlestick Park in San Francisco On August 29th, 1966, they decided to focus on the quality of their albums and only publicly performed together on the occasional TV program. Two-and-a-half years after the final tour show they would appear live together for the very last time, in the unannounced concert on the roof of their Apple Corps headquarters building in London on January 30th, 1969.

And the Beatles made good on the quality of their recordings from 1966 until their breakup in 1970, releasing no less than seven albums in that period, at least five of which are now regarded as classic rock masterpieces. In their eight-year run, they recorded and released a total of thirteen official full-length studio albums, countless compilation albums, and many non-album singles—rivaling only perhaps their prolific contemporaries Bob Dylan who released eleven albums, and the Rolling Stones who released ten, in that same time span. Particularly notable is the distinct shift from album to album, from the Beatles' fifth LP Help! (1965), to Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), Magical Mystery Tour (1967), The Beatles (White Album) (1968), and Abbey Road (1969).

With the exception of Yellow Submarine (1969)—an oddity in the band's discography as a half-instrumental, half-vocal soundtrack to the movie—each subsequent album was better than the previous, expanding into previously unexplored dimensions, with increasingly eclectic influences. Signaling a growing creative restlessness and desire for new directions, the band took a different approach to their last album Let It Be (1970), compiling most of its tracks from live studio sessions and the rooftop concert recordings, with little rerecording, editing, or vocal and instrumental overdubs. The Let It Be sessions were marked with increasing tensions in the band, and, interestingly, it was released after the far superior Abbey Road even though it was recorded a few months before—as if fate required them to pull it all back together for one last masterpiece.

The Beatles achieved many historical firsts. Heralding the album era, their success elevated the 12" full-length album to the dominant form of record consumption over 7" singles, and further advanced the medium by way of innovative album art and recording techniques. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is widely recognized as the world's first "concept album", being not just a compendium of hit singles but rather a self-contained collection of thematically-linked tracks working interdependently, in which the Beatles take on the identities of a fictional band. Sgt. Pepper was also the first album to have the full song lyrics printed on the outer cover.

With the stylized musical performance segments in their film Help! and promotional short films they released with their records, the Beatles were the first band to use video clips as a publicity medium, setting the template for the "music video" format that would become popular some twenty years later. And Yellow Submarine is considered groundbreaking as the first movie to popularize the idea that feature-length animated films can appeal to children and adults; with an unusual new animation style, the surreal musical film was a hit with all ages. Together they starred in five official feature-length Beatles movies, and several more individually—especially Ringo who acted in over a dozen oddball flicks from his time as a Beatle and afterward.

The Fab Four, as they were called, popularized the four-piece rock band lineup; the vibrant interplay between John's driving rhythm guitar, George's slick lead guitar, Paul's melodic bass, and Ringo's stylish drum fills set the blueprint for countless bands after them. The Beatles are also said to have invented the "soundbite", as their witty one-liner responses to interview questions proved easily printable as headlines in music magazines and newspapers. They also renegotiated the record industry's royalty percentages and sales contracts to new standards, to the benefit of all recording artists who came after them. They were the first band to perform in a stadium to a crowd of 55,000 people (1965), the first to have a song over seven-minutes-long reach number one on the record charts ("Hey Jude", 1967), the first to use feedback on a rock song ("I Feel Fine", 1964), the first to use backwards-played recordings on an album (Revolver, 1966), and numerous other firsts including pioneering recording techniques such as ADT (automatic double tracking). The Beatles were also the first music group with merchandise, as at the height of Beatlemania they sold everything from Beatle masks and moptop wigs to T-shirts, watches, lighters, ice cream, ashtrays, pens, and lunchboxes. And on and on.

The Beatles also kind of invented the "diss song" or "beef track"—decades later common among recording artist rivals in HipHop—as John, Paul, and George all recorded songs with both overt and covert barbs thrown at each other in the first couple of years after the Beatles' breakup, especially and most famously John's angry song for Paul "How Do You Sleep?". Although later, after they all made up, John would comment that much of the song's lyrical content was actually directed at himself. According to Yoko, John claimed that no one ever hurt him the way Paul hurt him, revealing anger expressed with a level of passion seldom attained in relationships other than those of jilted lovers (Shout!, 411).

So much has been said, written, speculated, and rumoured about the Beatles' breakup. Different people have been blamed; primarily Yoko Ono, unjustly. And also Paul, who was said to have become regarded as too domineering by the others in the group. Having started the band, John Lennon was the de facto leader—at least for the first half of their time together. But even in their early days, Lennon shared approximately equal time alternating as front man/lead vocalist with McCartney, both agreeing to a cowriting credit no matter which of them had composed more of any given song. But in the Beatles' latter years Paul became a more dominant force, which some say was a chief factor in the band's demise as he became too controlling of the others' contributions.

The Beatles: Get Back shows McCartney driving their rehearsals with continuous specific suggestions of how the others should play their parts. There's a scene when they're all sitting around between jams, and Paul says "Get Back"—a number he's shown composing out of thin air earlier in the film—is the only song he "digs" of the several they've been developing for Let It Be. A moment of bickering ensues, as John replies in defense of his own compositions: "Well, I dig 'Don't Let Me Down'. I dig 'Dig a Pony'." Paul responds by saying it's just that they've rehearsed "Get Back" more, while the other songs aren't finished. George also pipes in with objections to Paul's comment, as Ringo looks on silently with his characteristic droopy eyelids. Nothing vicious is said, but there's a sense of unease lurking—illustrated in scenes like this, and others, throughout the doc—especially with what we know now after the fact, that the group would be broken up in less than a year.

It's clear that by this time Paul has become leader of the group, taking over from John who he'd earlier been second to, if only slightly. But the other three all appear to be way more relaxed than Paul, and in contrast his micro-arranging of the songs sometimes come across as finicky and neurotic. Or maybe the others are all starting to check out of the group anyway, as by then each have begun to develop other projects independent of the band. Most of the time it doesn't appear contentious though, as they all generally work well together, if largely under Paul's direction. And the tense moments are contrasted by a lot of good comradery and horseplay between them all too, with numerous instances of sheer magic when we see what made them in the first place: their musical creativity and spirited interplay. The rooftop concert at the series' end—released for the first time in all its full forty-two minutes—is rock history gold, giving me goosebumps and damn near bringing me to tears several times throughout.

In reality, numerous circumstances led to the Beatles' breakup. Troubles escalated after the untimely death of their manager Brian Epstein, of an accidental prescription drug overdose at age thirty-two, in 1967. The band effectively decided to manage themselves, and formed Apple Corps Limited (a wordplay on apple core), their own multimedia corporation, with subdivisions that included record production, movie production, publishing, clothing boutiques, and stereo electronics. Headquartered in London, the Apple building contained the Beatles recording studio and offices to oversee projects helmed by various friends and hangers-on. With Epstein gone there was no central leadership in the company nor the band, and with mounting financial and legal complications, and all four Beatles feeling increasingly stifled—creatively, personally, and professionally—it was the beginning of the end. Something that big can't last that long, can it? The bubble had to burst, and it did.

Some people think it fashionable to hate on the Beatles, or call them overrated, pretentiously attempting to appear edgy, sophisticated, and above things that have mass appeal—which itself has become, ironically, a totally clichéd stance. But mainstream doesn't always equal lowest-common-denominator bad, and alternative or fringe doesn't always equal ahead-of-its-time elite good, and vice versa. I mean, I get it; when something is so insanely celebrated, overplayed, and overanalyzed, there's a tendency to want to oppose it. Enough already. And it's often a case of "don't believe the hype" anyway. But with the Beatles, it's all true. They are the definitive English-language band of the 1960s and arguably of all time, manifesting many of the rapid cultural changes that the Western world was undergoing, in the style and content of their music, their physical appearance, career trajectory, and public image.

It's fine if you don't love their music, but if you've explored the Beatles' discography to any substantial degree, you have to admit their evolution in the relatively short time span of their existence is remarkable. But if you claim you hate the music then I have to ask, all of it? Because "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is very different from "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" which is very different from "Yer Blues". And the Beatles have a pretty fascinating story in how they achieved a monstrous level of popularity, had a monumentally high-frequency of a diverse range of high-quality output, and then disbanded, all within eight years, and before any of them had even turned thirty. Yet some people so confidently proclaim, "The Beatles suck. I like the Pinc Sphincts (insert name of whatever short-lived, obscure, pretentious hipster band of the day), from Siberia." Whatever. The Beatles are the best band of all time. They broke too many barriers and set too many standards in pop culture, rock music, and recording arts history to dispute it.

Today, the Beatles remain the best-selling music artists of all time. January 16th is recognized as World Beatles Day under UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), and there are five asteroids named after each Beatle and the band itself. Even now, some sixty-odd years after the Beatles' inception and over fifty years since they split up, full-grown adults obsessively analyze their records from all angles, as musicians, music analysts, critics, biographers, collectors, and fans continue to review, dissect, document, and celebrate all aspects of their songs—including examining chord progressions implemented, instruments used, recording techniques employed, and debating "hidden" meaning in the lyrics.

The Beatles evolved with the 1960s, and the 1960s evolved with them. Four young working-class lads from Liverpool, blazing unimaginable trails through fame, fortune, love, and loss. Over time their songs changed; first taking shape out of 1950s' teen love and rock'n'roll fairy tales, to 1960s' hopes and dreams, stories of alternate dimensions and fantasylands, and melancholic blues and rock ballads that would see the world into a new decade, and new cynicism, with the 1970s. Seemingly at their peak in 1969, when the world was engulfed in heightened political conflicts, war, civil unrest, global protests, and overall massive and swift cultural change, the Beatles broke up. They officially split in 1970, and while many fans hoped that they would reunite one day, they never did. As John Lennon famously announced in the song "God" from his debut solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), "the dream is over".

JOHN LENNON WAS A DREAMER, BUT NOT THE ONLY ONE

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
—John Lennon ("Beautiful Boy")

They say every Beatles fan has a favourite member, and there's an endless discussion about who was better, John or Paul. Or George, for that matter, whose humble disposition counterbalanced the weighty talent of Lennon and McCartney. Harrison's post-Beatles debut—the epic triple LP All Things Must Pass (1970)—signaled his full-fledged arrival as a great songwriter in his own right. Widely acclaimed as among the best ex-Beatle albums, its classic "My Sweet Lord" epitomizes the spirituality prevalent throughout Harrison's repertoire, and remains his most popular solo song to date. And Ringo Starr was always likeable, and funny as hell. His seeming sense of security over his identity as the "least talented" Beatle endeared him as a great rock drummer who could deliver in whatever style was required, yet with a style still his own. As such, Ringo was like the band's heartbeat, an integral presence as not just the one who supplied the actual beat, but as an interpersonal grounding force. Rarely one to showboat, Ringo's only drum solo on a Beatles album was on the last track that all four members ever recorded together: Abbey Road's "The End".

The media gave them reductive labels; John was "The Smart One", Paul was "The Cute One", George was "The Quiet One", Ringo was "The Funny One". John was also called the troubled one, and the political one. But it became clear in the end that John Lennon was, simply, The One. And I say that with respect to the other three Beatles, with whom Lennon had an undeniable chemistry. While each had successful solo careers after they split, little of their individual work rivaled what they did together, and the magic wasn't recaptured in the same way again.

In Lennon's case, however, his art merged with his public image into something deeper, developing into a different kind of magic. He strived for something more important than just writing top-40 radio hits, using his fame to engage a poetic and philosophic discourse about justice, peace, and love. While Lennon's activist status had started taking shape in the Beatles' last couple of years, he would go on to become an icon of revolutionary creative expression, employing his celebrity as a vehicle for world change. It wasn't long before Lennon's protest singer image equaled—or surpassed—his rock star image, each augmenting the other in often audacious and mystifying ways.

Although much of Lennon's solo work may be considered aurally less rich than his best with the Beatles, he engaged in greater political artistic expression without them, making his life into a performance art piece in the name of true love. This is what drew John to Yoko, what drew her to him, and what they fostered together. Lennon took the schoolboy crush kind of love he'd written so many Beatles songs about and morphed it into a global love for humanity, channeled through his personal love for Yoko. What resulted was something powerful, romantic, idealistic, perhaps spiritual. After all, "Give Peace a Chance" is solidified as a legendary protest song, a certified staple of the antiwar/peace movement with its universal message and chanted refrain. "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" is now a Christmas classic and humanitarian anthem. And let's face it, "Imagine" is one of the best songs ever written. So yeah, in no particular order, because the impact of each is inseparable to me: I'm a Beatles fan, a John Lennon fan, and a Yoko Ono fan.

But I must acknowledge Paul McCartney's brilliance as an enduring pop musician in his own right. He wrote the last five songs on Abbey Road for crying out loud, not to mention a disparate range of other Beatles standouts from "Can’t Buy Me Love" to "Helter Skelter". So, yeah, the guy's no slouch himself. In his younger days, Jim McCartney—Paul's dad—had been a professional musician, fronting his own outfit, Jim Mac's Jazz Band. Paul has recalled in interviews that there was always a piano in his childhood home, and frequent family singalongs. While for the other would-be Beatles music was perhaps more of an outside thing to be discovered, it was part of McCartney's familial culture growing up. This undoubtedly lent to Paul's intuitive sense of song composition, even though he nor any of the Beatles could read/write music or had any formal training. In a way, Paul's musicianship was more refined than John's—at least it appears that way in stories about how Paul produced hits seemingly effortlessly while John would often painfully toil over his compositions. But John's songs displayed a potent vulnerability that Paul's rarely attempted, pleasing to the ear as they may be.

Both Lennon and McCartney were great vocalists who could expertly take the lead just as well as sing pitch-perfect backup harmonies with Harrison and Starr. Paul was more vocally chameleonlike, arguably edging John out in terms of craftmanship as a singer. With impeccable range, he could sing soft ballads just as well as he could inflect a screechy rock voice. But John Lennon had one of the best and most distinct voices in rock music history, his unmatched charisma and raw passion eliciting profound emotional resonance.

There was a tonal depth to John's voice that gave it a haunting quality. In The Beatles Anthology TV miniseries, producer George Martin is interviewed in a music studio. He plays an early rendition of "A Day in the Life" and listens as John sings the opening line "I read the news today, oh boy…". Martin then comments, "Even in this early take, he has a voice which sends shivers down the spine." The song highlights differences between Lennon and McCartney; John's parts infuse humour into subjects as heavy as war and suicide, with lines like "He blew his mind out in a car / He didn't notice that the lights had changed". This is contrasted by the daily mundanity described in Paul's middle section: "Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head". While outstanding musical segments on their own, they fit together in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

And so, the two of them together perfected a formula of aurally enchanting arrangements, a recipe combining majestic lyrical phrases with melodic euphony, sophisticated but accessible. As they developed, John showed increasing complexity, tending towards the route of the tortured artist, while Paul remained a polished, crowd-pleasing showman. John was heavier, Paul was lighter. Despite—or perhaps because of—these differences, the Lennon-McCartney partnership is said to be the greatest songwriting pairing in history.

I'd never seen a Beatle perform live before, so when Paul McCartney was touring near me in 2022, I had to go. I wrote a separate review of this Seattle concert I attended, so I won't elaborate here except to say: it was overall a first-rate show that amounted to something more than just a concert, but rather an event. Much of the music played that night registered as some kind of spirit energy channeled from a timeless realm, since the songs have for so long been ubiquitous in humankind's collective consciousness.

But in thinking about McCartney compared to Lennon, the contrast in their politics was apparent that night. There was no political content at all, save for one moment: at the start of the encore, Paul and band danced back onto the stage waving flags. He carried the Ukrainian flag—referring to the country's recent military invasion by Russia (Paul didn't play "Back in the USSR" that night)—while his bandmates held a British, American, and Washington state flag. This illustrated key differences between McCartney and his old comrade John Lennon, who would go on to have an intensely politically active career with his antiwar protest work—so intense, in fact, that the FBI tapped his phone and followed him when he lived in New York in the '70s.

McCartney also has a long history of activism and charity work, including antiwar and antipoverty campaigns, environmental causes, and so on. But he's done it more quietly than Lennon, not wanting to rock the boat, and was said to be the most image-conscious Beatle—whereas Lennon's rebellious spirit shone through in more extreme ways, as reflected in the music they made together and separately. McCartney took a softer approach, lending to his longevity as both an artist of integrity and an entertainer with mass appeal. John Lennon was also a man of great integrity, and at one time was arguably the only person in the world more famous than McCartney, but they used their fame in different ways. Considering all this in context of today's tumultuous political climate, I found the decisive lack of sociopolitical commentary at McCartney's concert—except for the flag-waving—notable, and we can only imagine what Lennon would be saying about the world if he were still alive today.

Just as the Beatles were the good boys to the Rolling Stones as the bad boys, within the group Paul was the good boy to John as the bad boy—Lennon was often characterized as a troubled youth from a broken home. Born in Liverpool on October 9th, 1940, young John Lennon's life was marked by considerable familial unrest. His father Alfred ("Alf") Lennon was a merchant navy seaman who was frequently away, and when he didn't return home after a tour, his wife Julia was left to raise the toddler John on her own. But Julia's sister Mimi declared her an incapable parent, and took over formal guardianship of the boy when he was five-years-old, raising him in her house with her husband George Smith. John had a good relationship with his Uncle George, and was devastated when he died suddenly of a liver hemorrhage when John was fourteen.

In his teens John rekindled a relationship with his mother, visiting her regularly. Julia by then was the common-law wife of another man with whom she had two daughters, and John would frequently spend long hours at their house. But Aunt Mimi remained his primary custodian. Julia was something of an eccentric character, with a natural sense of humour and creativity. Although she had no formal music training, Julia taught John how to play the banjo, and attended concerts by his fledgling band the Quarrymen—a pre-Beatles incarnation. Just as John was fostering this relationship with the mother who didn't raise him, Julia died tragically when hit by a car walking home from Mimi's, at age forty-four, when John was seventeen. Traumatized by his mother's sudden death, for months afterward he would drink heavily and get into fights, consumed by "blind rage" (Revolution in the Head, 326).

As for Alfred, he contacted John upon learning of his Beatles success. While initially resentful, John forgave Alf enough to give his young wife a job as a Beatles' fan mail secretary. Before his father died of stomach cancer at age sixty-three in 1976, John sent a large bouquet of flowers to the hospital, and phoned him on his deathbed. Lennon wrote songs inspired by his mother—most notably "Julia" and "Mother". And John also addresses Alf in "Mother", which begins with the lyrics "Mother, you had me / But I never had you", then midway changing to "Father, you left me / I never left you", and ending with "Mama don't go / Daddy come home".

Another tragedy of Lennon's early life was the sudden death in 1962 of his good friend Stuart Sutcliffe, of a brain aneurysm at twenty-one. Sutcliffe met Lennon when both attended the Liverpool College of Art, and he subsequently became the bass player for the Beatles in their early days. Some speculated that Stuart's death may have been triggered by a brain injury caused when he'd been kicked in the head during a fight outside a concert hall. Lennon had come to his aid, fighting off the attackers, and got his little finger broken. But he carried guilt over his involvement in the fight, considering it may have led to Stu's death. John once described Sutcliffe as his alter ego, and even Paul McCartney later stated that he'd been jealous of their closeness. McCartney's own mother Mary had also died, from breast cancer, when he was just fourteen—about a year before he met Lennon—and so, losing their mothers at a young age was a connecting point between them.

John's childhood abandonment by both biological parents had immeasurable impact on his life, as did the death of his beloved surrogate father/Uncle George, and of course as did the ongoing estrangement from his mother and her death occurring just as they were renewing their relationship. By age twenty-one, John had lost his stepfather, his mother, and his best friend to sudden deaths. And the tragic overdose death of Brian Epstein a few years later was yet another huge loss for Lennon and the Beatles, as they had described him as not just a manager but like an older brother.

Epstein had "cleaned up" the early Beatles' rock'n'roll look, replacing their leather jackets and jeans with matching suits. But it was their folksy nature and lack of glamour that made them entertaining, massive celebrities they nonetheless became. As they gained wider exposure, their TV show appearances, movies, and interviews endeared them to the public as much as their music did, coming across as Liverpudlian rascals who were at once playfully insubordinate and well-mannered. And young John Lennon was the ringleader, an innate musical talent who presented as a jester with an edgy intellect that seemed born from something beyond his modest roots.

The Beatles initially weren't political or subversive, but became increasingly so along their career path. An early sign of their image as working-class protagonists who stood up to upper-class authority came when they performed for England's royal family in November 1963. The event was the annual Royal Command Performance, at London's Prince of Wales Theatre. Introducing "Twist and Shout", Lennon said, "For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands." He paused as the audience chuckled. "And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewellery." Lennon gave a cheeky grin to the camera in acknowledgement of his minor impudence, and the laughter rolled in. The cameras showed the royal family smiling and applauding, and Lennon's quip was universally celebrated in the press as exemplifying the Beatles' appeal; they were proletariat rebels and reassuring showmen who knew how to express just the right level of irreverence, and the event nudged the Beatles towards the counterculture status they would come to fully inhabit a few years later.

A bigger political incident happened in 1964 when the Beatles refused to play a segregated stadium in Jacksonville, Florida—or any segregated stadium. Segregation was still common at the time, especially in the Southern states, but because the Beatles were so popular, the venue changed their policy so that the concert would go on. Other major venues soon followed suit and likewise started to reverse their segregation practices.

The original cover for the Beatles' 1966 compilation album Yesterday and Today featured the four lads smiling while surrounded by decapitated doll heads and raw, bloody cuts of meat. The cover had been Lennon's idea, and it caused an uproarious controversy, as did his public response in its defense, saying it was "as relevant as Vietnam". This was before criticism of the rapidly accelerating war became widespread, and this time Lennon wasn't being cheeky or funny. The record was banned in many countries; thousands of copies were retracted from store shelves and replaced with a version bearing an innocuous cover photo of the four leaning on a trunk.

The biggest Beatles controversy was also in 1966, when Lennon was interviewed for London newspaper the Evening Standard. When asked his views on religion, his response included the excerpt "we're more popular than Jesus", which went unnoticed in England but caused a furor when reprinted in American newspapers a few months later. The fallout was massive. Many news outlets, radio stations, and TV shows denounced Lennon and the band—banning their music from airplay and organizing events for destruction of Beatles' records, with former fans burning their memorabilia in public bonfires. Soon after, the Beatles embarked on a US tour marked with high tension; they received death threats, and their concerts were picketed by evangelical Christians and the Ku Klux Klan. In Memphis, Tennessee—their one stop of the tour in America's Deep South—a KKK member was interviewed outside the venue, condemning the Beatles as communists and supporters of African-American civil rights. He said the KKK were a terrorist group who would use their "ways and means" to stop the Beatles from performing. During the concert, someone threw a lit firecracker at the stage, causing the band to believe they were the targets of gunfire.

Lennon was pressured to apologize for his "Jesus" comment and did so in a press conference, albeit halfheartedly—not apologizing for his remark but rather saying he was sorry for how it was taken out of context and misunderstood. To most sane people, Lennon's comment was simply pointing out the absurdity of fanaticism, sensationalism, fame, and the entire star-generating quality of the record-selling industry. His apology was acceptable enough for some who had denounced him to reverse their Beatles ban. But the incident exposed the fascism and racism of right-wing America, who'd taken it as an opportunity to act on such grievances towards the Beatles as their long hair and championing of black musicians. It was the first significant shift in the band's image, who would become increasingly political in the years to come.

While Lennon was usually at the forefront of Beatles' controversies, he was not the only one to get political with their music. Revolver opens with George Harrison's "Taxman", showing the band's further transition from bubblegum pop songs to social commentary. Even if motivated by the personal anger Harrison felt over the British tax system's aggressive policy of taking a huge portion of his newly gained wealth, it was nonetheless one of their first topical songs of a political variety, a clear accusation of "the system" as being unjust, whether to rock stars or average working folks alike. Revolver unveiled yet more new facets to the band, qualifying them as serious music artists in the eyes of many critics who had earlier considered them fluff.

By 1967, the Beatles' involvement with the burgeoning drug culture identified them with youth and hippie movements. As did their interest in Eastern mysticism, prompted by trips to India where the four lads were introduced to meditation, which also contributed to George Harrison's subsequent involvement with the Hare Krishna movement and promotion of spiritual themes in his compositions. This was all reflected by Harrison's sitar-playing on numerous Beatles' recordings, and their increasingly psychedelic sound. By this time they were doing all the drugs—especially loads of cannabis and LSD, and had gotten into trouble with the establishment for publicly admitting so. Their changing style alienated many former fans, and worried parents grew increasingly concerned over the corruption of society by sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. But at the same time, the Beatles were gaining an even wider audience, as the innovative musical qualities of each new recording continued to reach unthought of dimensions.

In his only non-Beatles feature film, Lennon starred in the 1967 black comedy How I Won the War, a scathing antiwar satire which might be considered as marking the start of his political activism through art. That same year the band released Lennon's "All You Need is Love", performing it live in June 1967 on the TV special Our World—the first ever live global television broadcast via satellite. Criticized by some as naively idealistic, it nonetheless became a counterculture anthem for that year's "Summer of Love", and laid the foundation for Lennon's legacy as an icon of peace and love.

Although the final album version of Paul's "Get Back" only mildly resonates as such, he originally intended it as satire of xenophobia, with its refrain reflecting the common anti-immigrant sentiment "get back to where you (once) belong(ed)". And the White Album opens with "Back in the USSR", a Beach Boys-inspired parody of American-Soviet Cold War tensions also penned primarily by McCartney. Highlighting the differences between McCartney's and Lennon's political outspokenness, the White Album also showcased the most overtly political song the Beatles had recorded to date, with Lennon's "Revolution". Some interpreted it as actually denigrating left-wing politics with lyrics like: "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow." But Lennon was telling us to question what real action, real work for change actually looks like. The lyric "You tell me it's the institution / Well you better free your mind instead" contains the seed of what would grow into a recurring theme, wherein his inner struggle for peace and alleviation from personal suffering was outwardly reflected in his struggle for world peace and alleviation from suffering for all.

The Beatles released two versions of "Revolution"—one as a single, and a slower album rendition with a curious lyric addition: "But when you talk about destruction / Don't you know that you can count me out—in". John commented on this alternating "out—in" lyric, saying he wasn't sure about destruction as a viable means of political progress, that he preferred non-violence but that he's human and his opinion could change depending on the situation (Let It Be outtake, 1969). This ambivalence and John's acknowledgement of it shows his honesty, intelligence, and integrity, as he was hesitant to hop onto any bandwagon of the day, whether a "burn it all down" or "sunshine and roses" mentality, no matter how trendy either may be at any moment.

Lennon's progression towards heightened political expression was directly inspired by Yoko Ono. They first met in 1966, periodically corresponding by phone and letters for over a year before becoming romantically involved. A multimedia conceptual artist, Yoko was well-respected in the avant-garde art world, which was in many ways the antithesis of the Beatles' pop music world. As such, she was thoroughly misunderstood and derided in the mainstream. By late 1968 her relationship with John was public, and Yoko's increasing presence was perplexing to many fans who considered her an interloper in the band's affairs. But John's greatest Beatles' compositions from 1968-1970 were under Yoko's influence, who motivated him to strive for more meaningful creative output. They started engaging in projects together separate from the Beatles, to controversial reaction.

Together they recorded and released three experimental albums within a year; 1968's Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, and 1969's Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. The largely improvised works—comprised of sound collage, tape loops, audio effects, and abstract vocalizations including spoken dialogue and screaming by John and Yoko—were critically lambasted as self-indulgent vanity projects of a pop star gone overboard. Two Virgins was especially controversial, not just for its experimental content, but for the cover photographs; the front cover featured a fully frontally nude John and Yoko and the back cover showed them nude from behind. As the story goes, John and Yoko had started the project as platonic creative collaborators, recording it all night at John's house, only to make love at dawn after its completion. The album was deemed obscene by authorities, with many record distributors refusing to market it unless the cover was changed. Of the originals that were produced, thousands were impounded in various locations around the world and replaced with copies bearing a brown paper cover to conceal the photo.

John said the uproar was less about the explicit nudity but rather because they weren't very attractive in the unretouched photos, describing themselves as looking like two "slightly overweight ex-junkies" (Skywriting by Word of Mouth, 18). He also commented "if we can make society accept these kinds of things without offense, without sniggering, then we shall be achieving our purpose", and that the title Two Virgins stemmed from the feeling that they were "two innocents, lost in a world gone mad".

Following their highly-publicized marriage in March 1969, Yoko said to the press: "We're going to stage many happenings and events together. This marriage was one of them" (Shout!, 377). John and Yoko used their wedding publicity to protest the Vietnam War, most famously with their "Bed-Ins for Peace"—one in Amsterdam, and one in Montreal—occupying a hotel bedroom for a week each time, and inviting the press. Following the Two Virgins cover, announcement of the bed-in raised the media's most salacious expectations, who hoped to snap photos of the famous couple having sex, only to find the two long-hairs in pajamas, sitting up in bed in a room decorated with signs reading "Hair Peace" and "Bed Peace". The Montreal bed-in included famous visitors like Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers, Allen Ginsberg, and others, who all sang on the recording of "Give Peace a Chance", performed live in the hotel room.

John and Yoko then held a press conference while completely hidden within a large sheet-like bag. Dubbed "bagism", the demonstration was a satire of stereotyping, whereby, John said, "total communication" could be achieved since the speaker did not prejudice the listener by their personal appearance. The event earned the couple further ridicule, with tabloid papers like the British Daily Mirror describing Lennon as "a not inconsiderate talent who seems to have gone completely off his rocker" (Shout!, 378). Lennon and Ono also sent acorns to heads of state around the world, with instructions to plant them as symbols of peace. And 1969 ended with yet another peace campaign in which they displayed the slogan "WAR IS OVER! IF YOU WANT IT – Happy Christmas from John & Yoko" on massive billboards—and in multiple languages—in major cities worldwide, including New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Athens, and Tokyo.

John and Yoko's bed-in honeymoon was the conscious use of one's own mythic image to project a political and poetic ideal—something that had never been done before. Their demonstrations earned them the nicknames "Mr. and Mrs. Peace", and for John it was a turning of the tables on the media who had exploited him as a Beatle—using them to convey his messages to a worldwide audience. "The Blue Meanies," John said, referring to the cartoon villains in Yellow Submarine, "or whatever they are, still preach violence all the time in every newspaper, every TV show and every magazine. The least Yoko and I can do is hog the headlines and make people laugh. We're quite willing to be the world's clowns if it will do any good. For reasons known only to themselves, people print what I say. And I say 'peace'." (Shout!, 387)

"The Ballad of John and Yoko" was released as a Beatles' non-album single in May 1969. Written by Lennon but credited to Lennon-McCartney, John outlines events of his life with Yoko, with lyrics covering their marriage ("You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain"), the bed-ins ("Talking in our beds for a week"), the acorn campaign ("Fifty acorns tied in a sack"), bagism ("Eating chocolate cake in a bag"), and their treatment by the media ("The newspapers said / 'She's gone to his head / They look just like two gurus in drag' "). With its refrain—"Christ, you know it ain't easy / You know how hard it can be / The way things are goin' / They're going to crucify me"—the song was banned from some radio stations, recalling the controversy engendered by Lennon's 1966 "more popular than Jesus" remark.

With Lennon's solo work, political commentary he'd started in earnest with "Revolution" continued. Released in 1969, "Give Peace a Chance" was his first non-Beatles single, followed by "Cold Turkey" and "Instant Karma!". With 1970 came the Beatles' official breakup, and a new look for John and Yoko; they'd both shaved off their long hippie hair, which Lennon claimed was "to stop being hyped by revolutionary image and long hair" (The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, 168-169).

John and Yoko released debut solo albums concurrently; both had the same title Plastic Ono Band—the name of their newly formed outfit—and the same cover photo of John and Yoko sitting under a tree. Lennon's installment further explored dynamics between the personal and the political. The influence of primal scream therapy—a type of psychotherapy addressing repressed pain of childhood trauma that John and Yoko were undergoing at the time—is evident to disturbingly brilliant effect in "Mother", as Lennon repeats the "Mama don't go / Daddy come home" refrain with increasing intensity until screaming. And "God" has Lennon once again debunking the glorified image of himself as he lists things he doesn't believe in, including the Bible, Hitler, Kennedy, Elvis, Zimmerman (Bob Dylan), and the Beatles, before declaring "I just believe in me / Yoko and me / And that's reality."

The album's most strident political commentary comes in the form of the Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", satirizing capitalism's hollow promise of upward class mobility with lyrics like "There's room at the top they are telling you still / But first you must learn how to smile as you kill / If you want to be like the folks on the hill / A working class hero is something to be." The Beatles were indeed celebrated as working-class, blue-collar lads who made it big, in a rags-to-riches narrative. While Lennon's three bandmates had at one time lived in low-income housing projects in their childhoods, he actually grew up in a house with a yard—alternately describing himself as coming from the "upper-working-classes" and "the genteel poverty of a lower-middle-class environment" (Skywriting by Word of Mouth, 15).

John once commented that "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" and "Imagine" were like "Working Class Hero" with "sugar"—the first two being softer in contrast to the latter's scathing tone. But they all tell similar truths. Another notable protest song from John's post-Beatles era is the anthemic "Power to the People", with its singalong chant-like chorus reminiscent of "Give Peace a Chance". And from 1971's Imagine album, "Gimme Some Truth" and "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama" epitomize Lennon's antiestablishment, antiwar theme, as does the lesser-known gem "Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)" from Mind Games (1973).

While many Lennon songs are general endorsements of peace and justice, others are more specifically cause-oriented, particularly those on the album Some Time in New York City (1972). Most of the songs were cowritten with Ono, who herself solely wrote and sang the notable entry "Born in a Prison". Also on the subject of incarceration, "Attica State" addresses the 1971 Attica State Prison riots in which thirty-three inmates were killed by law enforcement officers following the prisoners' takeover of the facility in protest of inhumane conditions: "Free the prisoners / Jail the judges / Free all prisoners everywhere / All they want is truth and justice / All they need is love and care", sings an impassioned Lennon, then ends with "We all live in Attica State".

In "The Luck of the Irish", Lennon speaks to the oppression of the Irish by his birth nation England: "A thousand years of torture and hunger / Drove the people away from their land / A land full of beauty and wonder / Was raped by the British brigands". On the same subject, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" refers to the 1972 massacre of unarmed Irish civilians by the British Army, in which twenty-six peaceful protestors were shot, and fourteen died. Lennon sings: "You Anglo pigs and Scotties / Sent to colonize the north / You wave your bloody Union Jacks / And you know what it's worth / How dare you hold to ransom / A people proud and free / Keep Ireland for the Irish / Put the English back to sea".

"Angela" is Lennon's tribute to Angela Davis, a university professor and activist associated with the Black Panther Party who was persecuted by Nixon's administration for her political action. And "John Sinclair" has Lennon singing in support of the Michigan activist who was sentenced to ten years in prison for possessing two joints, inspiring high-profile protests that culminated with the "John Sinclair Freedom Rally" in December 1971. Performers and speakers at the event included John and Yoko, Stevie Wonder, Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, and others. Three days after the rally, Sinclair was suddenly released and cleared of charges.

With content brazenly indicting the prison system, colonialism, imperialism, racism, and sexism, it was Lennon's most politically charged LP. He'd now plunged head-on into his protest singer identity that had taken shape in the previous few years. But while "Imagine" was celebrated in its utopian vision, the forthrightness and anger expressed on Some Time was panned by most critics as excessively provocative posturing. Most controversial was the album's opener, and its only single, "Woman is the Nigger of the World"—a phrase coined by Yoko, with whom John cowrote the song. The saying is possibly inspired by Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which the protagonist's grandmother says, "De nigger woman is de mule uh de world". Lennon claimed it was also inspired by Irish revolutionary union leader John Connolly's statement, "the female worker is the slave of the slave".

In the first verse, Lennon sings, "If she won't be a slave, we say that she don't love us / If she's real, we say she's trying to be a man / While putting her down we pretend that she's above us". In the second verse: "We make her bear and raise our children / And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen", and in the third verse: "We insult her every day on TV / And wonder why she has no guts or confidence / When she's young we kill her will to be free". Between each verse, Lennon belts the chorus: "Woman is the n----- of the world, yes she is / If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with / Woman is the slave to the slaves / If you believe me, better scream about it", and then ends the song by repeating "We make her paint her face and dance / We make her paint her face and dance / We make her paint her face and dance..."

John and Yoko performed the song on The Dick Cavett Show in 1972, and discussed the surrounding controversy. Lennon said most people who expressed outrage were "white, and male", and "all my black friends feel I have quite a right to say it, because they understand it". Lennon then quoted prominent African-American congressman Ron Dellums: "If you define 'n-----' as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society is defined by others, then good news—you don't have to be black to be a n-----. Most of the people in America are n------."

With its metaphorical application of a racist epithet, it's an incendiary, intense, courageous work. Lennon's use of socially unacceptable language to expose and satirize racism and sexism deserves debate rather than immediate condemnation, especially in America—a country where black men had the legal right to vote before any woman, and that's had a black president but not a woman president. Famous figures such as Angela Davis and Bette Midler defended the song—as did comedian/activist Dick Gregory, who had chosen the single n-word as the title of his 1964 autobiography. Gregory accompanied Lennon to the offices of Ebony and Jet magazines, and appeared with John and Yoko in the photo for Jet cover story "Ex-Beatle Tells How Black Stars Changed His Life" (October 1972).

After moving from England in 1971, John and Yoko embraced the romanticism of being refugees in New York City, in a John-and-Yoko-against-the-world, outlaws-in-love narrative. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and President Richard Nixon considered Lennon an enemy of the state because he advocated for peace when they were invested in war; the FBI tapped their phones, the CIA followed them, and the Immigration Department—unsuccessfully—tried to deport them. As Philip Norman states in Shout!, Lennon had "now publicly allied himself to Black Power revolutionaries like Malcolm X and Angela Davis, and icons of the 'yippie' movement Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman" (410).

On their talk show appearances, John and Yoko would often bring with them prominent American activists with anticapitalist, socialist agendas, the likes of Rubin and Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale. The TV slots showed John and Yoko as polite, good-natured, and completely sane—albeit a little quirky. In 1972, on The Mike Douglas Show, Yoko glued the pieces of a broken teacup back together, explaining the significance of the art piece was in the doing of the act. John replied, "I live with her, y'know, and I still don't get it," to audience chuckles. With all their grand political and creative gestures, John and Yoko had a sense of humour.

The angry, cynical side of Lennon's politics may not be obvious with just a cursory overview of his hits, as casual listeners are likely to encounter "Imagine" before "Sunday Bloody Sunday", even though both pack a profound message. There's also a funky, soulful, jazzy sound to a lot of Lennon songs, like "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier", "How Do You Sleep?", and "I'm Losing You"—and a proto-punk vibe, in sound and attitude, with hard-rockin' funk and blues groovers like "Do the Oz" and "Attica State". And with Yoko tracks like "We're All Water" and "Midsummer New York", her scream-singing influence and legacy as an art-rock pioneer would become apparent a decade later when reflected in the works of numerous punk and post-punk artists.

In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine published a list of their 100 Greatest Artists, and John Lennon was the only Beatle who appeared as a solo artist, at #38. And rightly so, because John's music is relevant in its own right, and not just as the work of a former Beatle. Lenny Kravitz contributed the list's Lennon write-up, and he describes John's debut solo record: "The attitude and emotion of that album are harder than any punk rock I've ever heard." Kravitz also notes "Fame" (cowritten with and released by David Bowie) as an example of Lennon's funk side, and states, "If he were around today, I think he would have gotten interested in HipHop. He'd have wanted to blend the different things going on in our culture." I've had the same thought, as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Gimme Some Truth" show Lennon essentially rapping, and his antiestablishment attitude is thoroughly in line with HipHop's political outspokenness. Kravitz also describes "Imagine" as I have, as "one of the greatest songs ever written", saying it's "like a church hymn". Amen. The Beatles as a group are, of course, listed at #1.

Most of my favourite Beatles' songs are ones John Lennon primarily wrote; "In My Life" is beautifully poignant. Bluesy groovers "Come Together" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" are untouchable classics. And I'm not even sure how to describe "A Day in the Life" and "Strawberry Fields Forever", but the haiku-like poetics of lyrics like "Living is easy with eyes closed / Misunderstanding all you see" continue to resonate with me since I first heard them decades ago. But my number one is "Don't Let Me Down"; with Lennon's pained, passionate plea in his wrenching rock-soul voice, the upbeat changeup on the bridge, and Billy Preston's soulful organ riff, I consider it a rare example of absolute song perfection.

What was, in John's earlier days, confidence or arrogance, turned to a neurotic insecurity, reflected in his fierce attachment to Yoko and increasing sensitivity expressed in his work. Complementing his pointedly political songs are many expressing suffering, regret, and search for personal redemption. He repeatedly exposed a tortured underside, showing an uncommon honesty and vulnerability, as in earlier Beatles' songs like "Help!" and "I'm a Loser", late-Beatles songs like "Don't Let Me Down", and solo efforts like "Jealous Guy", "Crippled Inside", and "Scared"—with its "I'm scared" refrain changing to "I'm scarred" midway through, and then "I'm tired". And the self-reflective "Look at Me" displays John's ongoing quest for meaning, with the lyrics "Look at me, who am I supposed to be? Look at me, what am I supposed to be?"

And so, contrasting Lennon's harsh side was a soft side, with lullaby-like tracks like "Oh My Love", "Real Love", and, simply, "Love". When considering Lennon's most political songs in relation to love songs for Yoko, like "Dear Yoko" and "Oh Yoko", and for his son Sean with "Beautiful Boy"—a narrative forms around themes of peace, truth, justice, and love—on a personal level, love for his wife and family, and on a spiritual level, love for the world.

In 1981, Ringo Starr reflected on Lennon: "Because he had this rapier wit, they said he was nasty and things like that. But John was the kindest person I ever knew. He was the only one of the four of us who would give his soul" (Rolling Stone). Lennon revealed a contradictory nature; his sardonicism underlined with a playful sensibility and distinct brand of absurdist humour. The egocentric rock-star brashness he sometimes exhibited was anchored in a matter-of-fact, down-to-earth sense of humility, as he alternately mythicized and demythologized his own celebrity with his avant-garde stunts. As committed as he was to music and art, there was also a sense of not taking himself too seriously. Starting out as a streetwise rock'n'roll kid, Lennon lightened up over the years as the times changed and he matured. He went from teen pop idol, to rock star, to long-haired hippie, peacenik, and experimental artist, expanding beyond music into spheres of abstract film, performance art, and activism.

At eighteen, John had attended art school for a year, as art and literature were the only subjects he'd excelled at in secondary school; he wrote poetry and drew comic strip-like doodles. He eventually left the college as his band progressed, but following his rise to fame he wrote three books; each one a unique collection of his cartoon illustrations, surreal short stories, and "literary nonsense" poems inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Knowing his background in this regard—as an artist and not just a rock'n'roll musician—this part of Lennon was no doubt reawakened by Yoko Ono. Her identity as an experimental artist reflected an aspect of him that lay largely dormant until she stirred it. And his pop cultural appeal alternately served as a vehicle for her work to reach a broader audience. Yoko described her early impression of John upon reading his first book In His Own Write: "a witty, funny, relentlessly romantic spirit with a taste for the grotesque as well" (Skywriting by Word of Mouth, Afterword, 199).

Lennon did have a demented side to him, as his writing is laced with bizarre parody and dark "gallows' humour", playfully mocking everything from bestiality to cannibalism with extensive use of puns, portmanteaus, and other clever wordplay. John's dark side involved his at-times reckless use of drugs, having claimed to estimate his LSD trips numbering at around one thousand, and a brief period of heroin use with Yoko—their recovery from sniffing the substance inspiring John's "Cold Turkey". But the darkest of John's dark side includes tales of violent behaviour, primarily during his teenaged years through the early days of the Beatles—to men and women alike. While Yoko has said John was never violent towards her, his first wife Cynthia claimed he'd once slapped her in a fit of jealousy. She subsequently left him for three months, only finally taking him back after he apologized profusely and begged for forgiveness. She said he never hit her again, but that he could be verbally caustic and psychologically cruel.

John Lennon met Cynthia Powell in 1958 at the Liverpool College of Art when he was eighteen and she was nineteen. They were married in 1962 after she told John she was pregnant, as it was unplanned and he thought that the proper thing to do, in those days. Their son Julian was born in 1963 as Beatlemania was kicking in, and Beatle handlers wanted John's marriage kept secret, to optimize his image as a love object to teen fangirls. With the pressures of success, he would neglect his wife and baby. If there were casualties of John Lennon's rise to fame—other than himself—it was Cynthia and Julian. In 1968, John and Cynthia divorced following her discovery of his romantic involvement with Yoko—but not without legal and financial wrangling. Cynthia filed for, and was granted, primary custodianship of Julian, with John gaining occasional visitation rights. He grew increasingly estranged from Julian, whose earlier childhood he had already been largely absent from during the Beatles' most intense period of stardom. History had repeated, with John somewhat abandoning Julian, although not as totally as Alf had abandoned John when he was a boy.

Just as some people relish hating on the Beatles, likewise some hate on John Lennon. They fixate on sordid details of his personal life; drug use, adultery, and his treatment of Cynthia and Julian. But later in life John admitted his faults in raising—or not raising, Julian—and made efforts to mend their relationship. In 1980, John said, "At least there's an open line still going. It's not the best relationship between father and son, but it is there... Julian and I will have a relationship in the future". When asked about his commitment to his son Sean, Lennon replied: "Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me and he always will" (Playboy).

John had been violent in his younger days, even towards women. He'd grown up in a time when it was sadly not uncommon nor particularly frowned upon for a man to hit a woman, as reflected in Beatles lyrics like "I used to be cruel to my woman / I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved" (from "Getting Better"), and "I'd rather see you dead, little girl / Than to be with another man" (from "Run for your Life", a line lifted from a song Elvis recorded a decade prior). But neither of these misogynistic lyrics generated any controversy comparable to that which Lennon's decisively feminist "Woman is the — of the World" would a few years later. Philip Norman writes: "The one-time male chauvinist who'd kept his first wife in child-rearing purdah became a vociferous convert to the feminist movement, writing a song based on Yoko's axiom..." (Shout!, 410). In 1971's "Jealous Guy", Lennon sings "I didn't mean to hurt you / I'm sorry that I made you cry / I didn't want to hurt you / I'm just a jealous guy"—and in "Woman" from 1980: "Woman, I can hardly express / My mixed emotions at my thoughtlessness / Please remember I'm forever in your debt."

The article "In Defense of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 'Woman is the — of the World'" asserts that Lennon "was in the midst of an unlikely and remarkable journey, evolving from a misogynist to a feminist to a househusband. Lennon actually modeled the journey that countless men need to make". Lennon reflected on his violence and misogyny later in life, admitting: "I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything's the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster" (Playboy, 1980).

John goes on to say: "I was the pig. And it is a relief not to be a pig. The pressures of being a pig were enormous. I don't have any hankering to be looked upon as a sex object, a male, macho rock'n'roll singer. I got over that a long time ago. I'm not even interested in projecting that. So I like it to be known that, yes, I looked after the baby and I made bread and I was a househusband and I am proud of it. It's the wave of the future and I'm glad to be on the forefront" (Playboy).

Lennon's detractors somehow claim this all makes him a hypocrite. But surely redemption is a worthy goal, and an essential component to Lennon's story. He was a human being with problems like the rest of us, but he tried to be better, his own guilt perhaps driving his vision of worldwide peace. Putting his flaws unreservedly on display, Lennon did his best to right the wrongs he committed. This deserves praise, or at least contemplation, rather than vilification. But because we struggle with implementing progressive change in our own lives, we seek someone—like a celebrity—to blame. Stars of John Lennon's magnitude have their lives examined in detail, with a loss of privacy that must be crushing at times, and people seem to forget or deny that their own lives, if likewise put under a microscope, would reveal some unsavory qualities, too.

Sensationalist media promotes a scandalous narrative that paints Lennon as wife-beater and child-abandoner, Ono as homewrecker, and Julian and Cynthia as tragic victims. But using Lennon's personal shortcomings as justification to dismiss his entire body of work is nonsensically harsh and judgmental. To focus on Lennon's objectionable qualities, or revel in a celebrity's dark side, is a gossipy, base-level sensibility that I prefer not to indulge in. I'd rather discuss the positive impact Lennon has had on so many. His life centered around striving for change, and knowledge that he was disturbed only adds to the power of his story, for there is perhaps no difference in trying to improve the outside world and trying to improve oneself. This is what John embodied to the utmost, and why I find his work so compelling.

Cynthia would go on to live a full life of her own, remarrying three more times before her death at 75, in 2015. She appeared on talk shows, wrote multiple autobiographies, recorded songs, and had gallery exhibits of her own art work. Julian went on to become a musician himself, maintaining an amicable relationship with Yoko and a close one with his half-brother Sean. In their public appearances, both Cynthia and Julian have presented as well-balanced, gracious individuals who aren't consumed with bitterness towards John, but more so forgiving and understanding of the situation, if still somewhat hurt. But whatever resentment Cynthia and Julian might have had, they would still attend Beatles/Lennon commemoration events like the John Lennon Peace Monument unveiling ceremony in Liverpool, on October 9th, 2010—John's 70th birthday.

As much as Lennon's bad behaviour complicates his legacy, a crucial aspect to his legacy is also that he embodied change, evolution, to a higher form of being. Artists with more apparent character flaws often make for more complex work, and Lennon's struggle to overcome personal demons was fundamental to his art. Lennon had qualities to admire and condemn, like the rest of us; the intensity of his contradictions was greater than most, but so were his pressures. What's important to remember is that John spoke openly about his problems until the day of his death, expressing shame over his past actions towards women, and denouncing the toxically masculine parts of himself and society as a whole. So, besides just admiring his art, glorifying his celebrity, or denigrating his character, we should learn from his mistakes and try to do better ourselves.

What is rock'n'roll, at its core? It's something about resisting conformity, rebelling against established norms, or, as stated so eloquently in the movie School of Rock, "sticking it to The Man." It was started by black men in America, was taken over by white men, and then eventually spread to include women and all races as a global cultural force. There are many things to celebrate about rock; nonconformity, rebelliousness, creativity, freedom of expression—but also things to condemn; materialism, hedonism, decadence, egoism, arrogance, misogyny. But if an essential truth of rock'n'roll is "sticking it to The Man", then that means undoing conventions that reinforce inequality and injustice, to transform the world, through musical expression.

John Lennon is rock'n'roll. Of course, all the Beatles are. But when watching the rooftop concert in Get Back, Lennon struck me as grungier than the others, manifesting the aforementioned rock'n'roll qualities; using the good values to rebel against the bad, while embodying both. Decked out in grubby white sneakers, black jeans, a brown fur coat, and his trademark small "granny" glasses, Lennon rocked out with a vibe that at once embodied a certain humility and a certain bravado that was yet devoid of the slick showmanship his partner-in-crime Paul McCartney more readily emulated at the time. Sarcastic yet sincere, scathing yet loving, egotistical yet humble, serious yet funny; a male chauvinist-turned-feminist, a once violent man who preached for peace, a rich man who sang of a world with no possessions, a man of extremes and contradictions. As Lennon himself said just three months before his death, "Part of me suspects that I'm a loser and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty" (Playboy, 1980).

Appearing fully nude on the cover of his Two Virgins album with Yoko was a thoroughly rock'n'roll act, exhibiting an I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude. It was a, ahem, "ballsy" move. At the height of his fame, as the world was in the midst of a cultural revolution, he risked his safe pop star status to do something outlandishly provocative. When considering John appearing nude with Yoko on the Two Virgins cover, in bed with her in the hotel bed-in footage, and in a bathrobe and engaged in other daily domestic routines in their 1972 film Imagine, the feeling emerges that he sought to humanize and normalize himself, to demystify the rock superstar identity thrust upon him by the media, fans, and any other kind of admirer, critic, or exploiter. For Lennon to include his politics and personal life in his art was not a vanity project as his opponents accused, but perhaps more so a sanity project—what he needed to do to rediscover himself after so long stuck in Beatles stardom. His critics wanted him to stay in the same box and remain a cutesy moptop Beatle, but he couldn't play nice anymore.

John's liberation from his sexist ways didn’t happen overnight. In 1973, he and Yoko separated for more than a year—a period Lennon later referred to as his "lost weekend". Yoko initiated the split following her discovery of him having an extra-marital affair. But John’s banishment seemed less a punishment than it was a calculated move by Yoko to let John work out whatever he needed to on his own. Someone of Yoko’s strength and intelligence is just what John needed to settle down, and by 1975 they were reconciled and had a child together, with John retiring from the spotlight to be a househusband. Yoko, meanwhile, tended to his legal and financial affairs—which were left in considerable disarray from the Beatles' fallout—and proved to be a deft accountant and investor, securing their own personal wealth and contributing massive amounts to various charities and political causes. Lennon's sixth album in six years—entitled simply Rock 'n' Roll (1975)—had him returning to his roots with a collection of 1950s' covers by the likes of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Ben E. King—ending up right back where he started. Then, after a five-year absence from the music industry, John launched his comeback. He had returned to the studio, releasing the LP Double Fantasy (1980) with Yoko, and with more new tracks on the way (that would end up on 1984's Milk and Honey).

Then, on December 8th, 1980, the unthinkable happened. Outside of his New York City apartment building, returning home after a recording session, John Lennon was shot four times in the back, with Yoko by his side. The perpetrator was an obsessed, disgruntled former fan, whose grievances against Lennon reportedly included his "more popular than Jesus" quote, his "I don't believe in Beatles" lyric, and the communist idealism of "Imagine".

What happens when you're the most famous person in the world? You get murdered, apparently. Lennon's fate is an indisputable tragedy with immeasurable ramifications. His complex life story would be far less captivating without the chapter of peace activism and avant-garde artistic expression he engaged in with Yoko, and without the devastating end to his life in such a sudden, horrific, and sadly ironic way. His murder resonates on multiple levels, perhaps foremost as a strange parable about the power of art, a warning of the dangers of celebrity worship, the unique pressures of fame, and a most unfortunate example of a recurring theme throughout history: those who shine the brightest, who push themselves to say and do something real in the world, who give up themselves for a greater cause, and commit to real change—are too often the ones whose lives are shockingly cut short.

John Lennon's story is remarkable because he gave it all up—Beatles' stardom—to try something different. He took risks in ways that none of the other Beatles did. It could be said that he actually self-consciously, intentionally sabotaged the Beatles by way of the avant-garde antics he engaged in with Yoko. The biggest rock star in the world posing fully naked on the cover of an album comprised of seemingly random sounds? So yeah, you could say that Lennon broke up the Beatles. And you can debate if it was worth it, considering the work he would go on to do. But it doesn't matter what you or I think, because his life was not ours.

Lennon's incessant mission for peace, love, and emancipation led to his position as an icon of progressive, revolutionary values. He transformed from a tough, at-times violent kid, to a pop star, to a feminist hippie peace activist. And his untimely death contributed to his status as a mythic martyr, as for many he came to be regarded as an almost messiah-like figure comparable to that very one he had so infamously compared himself to in the past. When celebrities die young, they tend to be glorified to superhuman proportions. Alternately, when a figure is so widely admired as Lennon, there is a tendency to want to criticize them. He was no saint, and he was no devil. Or, if you like, he was a saint and a devil. But the power of his work and the story of his life, and death, has elevated him to a historical figure on par with the most celebrated activists in history, the likes of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi—all of whom also risked their own safety and security, and whose lives were also suddenly, violently ended after relentlessly speaking out on behalf of a better, imagined world. As they say, though: you can kill the man, but not the movement.

John Lennon's life story has echoes of Greek mythology, of Shakespearean, operatic dimensions; an artist of modest origins who achieved the highest heights, who first captured the attention of the world by delivering light entertainment in a predetermined form, and then touched the hearts of millions by advancing beyond that form despite risks to his own safety and comfort, by baring his soul in heart wrenching pleas for mercy and forgiveness and heartwarming expressions of love, at the same time. John and Yoko's "war is over if you want it" philosophy manifests an essential truth in the vein of "the world is what we make it", and John's proclamation of "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" gave voice to the collectively suffering human spirit, making us all feel less alone just for imagining, and working towards, a better world. And he couldn't have done it without Yoko.

YOKO ONO IMAGINES

"I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me, Yoko and me. And that's reality."
—John Lennon ("God")

Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933 to a wealthy Japanese family; her father was a banker, her mother was from one of the largest banking families in Japan, and they had some thirty house servants. When she was twelve, hundreds of American war planes dropped bombs on Tokyo, incinerating much of the city. Worried of more attacks, Yoko's family evacuated to a farming village, where they found themselves in a situation common for many people there: desperate for food. They traded their possessions for something to eat, often going hungry themselves. Yoko later recalled that she and her little brother Keisuke would lie on their backs looking at the sky through an opening in the roof of the house they lived in. She would ask him what kind of dinner he wanted and then tell him to imagine it in his mind, which seemed to make him happier. She later called it "maybe my first piece of art" ("Yoko Ono's Art of Defiance", The New Yorker, 2022).

Soon after, Yoko moved with her parents from Tokyo to New York City, and would spend time growing up in both places before settling in New York for good in the mid-1950s. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, an all-women institution, where she studied music and the arts for a couple years before dropping out; despite being considered a progressive school with no requirements or grades, Yoko stated it was "like an establishment I had to argue with." She had in fact received a high level of education throughout her life, having been extensively tutored in Christianity, Buddhism, philosophy, and music composition as a child—attending a school where she was asked to render everyday sounds and noises, such as birdsongs, in musical notation. Yoko, unlike any of the four Beatles, could read and write music ("Yoko Ono's Art of Defiance").

By the late-'50s, Yoko had fallen in naturally with a crowd of artists who gathered around Andy Warhol. She was introduced to George Maciunas, a gallery owner and artist, who pioneered the art movement "Fluxus"—an international community of experimental artists, musicians, and poets with whom Yoko became closely associated. Prominent in this scene was John Cage—who Yoko would collaborate with—a composer famous for his piece 4'33" (also known as "Silence"), a score with instructions for musicians to just sit and not play their instruments for the four-minute-and-thirty-three-second performance. Fluxus was considered neo-dadaist; dadaism was an art movement developed post-WWI that spanned literary, visual, and sound media, expressed discontent towards war and nationalism, and espoused far-left, anti-bourgeois politics. One of dadaism's inventors was Marchel Duchamp, who would later attend Ono's art exhibits, as would Cage, and Warhol.

Duchamp was an early contributer to the formation of conceptual art, or conceptualism, which involves creative ideas as taking precedence over traditional material or technical qualities of art works. Yoko would come to fully inhabit this space. By way of installations, happenings, and viewer participation, Yoko would not just put her art on display, but perform it, with the frequently apparent purpose "to challenge and upset the conventional, complacent art world" (Shout!, 340). One of Yoko's first pieces to gain her notoriety was her short film No. 4 (1966), which came to be known as Bottoms due it being comprised entirely of closeup shots of various people's naked bums. Another of her early works had Yoko throwing food, such as Jell-O, at a piece of paper mounted on the wall. At the end, she burned the paper, the concept being, perhaps, that the art consumes itself.

Cut Piece, one of Yoko's most powerful works, is a stunning commentary on violence against women—a theme she would revisit throughout her repertoire. Yoko first performed Cut Piece in Kyoto in 1964, again in New York in 1965, and finally in Paris in 2003. In the performance piece, Yoko kneels on stage fully clothed, and the audience is invited to come up and remove pieces of her clothing with the large pair of scissors—fabric shears—lying next to her. Her face remains emotionless, and her body motionless. At one show, after a few audience members at first cut small pieces of her clothes, a man comes up and boldly snips her bra straps. When others start cutting out pieces near her crotch or breasts, there's a real sense of danger and violation. In Japan, a cutter stands behind her holding the shears over her head as if about to impale her. The performance ends with Ono sitting in her underwear, the tatters of her clothes strewn around her. It's a strong piece of feminist art, made at a time when few were making it. The New Yorker article "Yoko Ono's Art of Defiance" describes Cut Piece as: "a concrete enactment of the striptease that men are said to perform in their heads when they see an attractive woman. It weaponizes the male gaze. Women participate in the cutting, but that's because it's not just men who are part of the society that objectifies women."

In 1964 Yoko published her first book, Grapefruit, a collection of instructional poems and event scores, essays, diagrams, charts, and illustrations. A grapefruit is a hybrid of an orange and pomelo. As such the title represents an aspect of Ono's work as a cross between traditional and nontraditional creative expression, and perhaps also as a hybrid between the cultural forces she was influenced by—the East and the West, Japan and America. It's less a conventional book than a work of conceptual art in and of itself, divided into sections: MUSIC, PAINTING, EVENT, POETRY, OBJECT, FILM, DANCE, and so on.

Grapefruit's pithy poems instruct the reader to enact an idea, whether physically feasible, or imagined, to often humourous effect. "Number Piece I" tells us to "Count all the words in the book instead of reading them". "Syllable Piece" says, "Decide not to use one particular syllable for the rest of your life. Record things that happened to you in result of that." And from one of the book's longer essays: "I think it is possible to see a chair as it is. But when you burn the chair, you suddenly realize that the chair in your mind did not burn or disappear. The world of construction seems to be the most tangible, and therefore final. This made me nervous. I started to wonder if it were really so." This has been an ongoing theme of Ono's; rather than just putting a work of art on display to convey an idea, she puts the idea on display to convey a work of art. In 2013, Ono published a Grapefruit sequel of sorts, entitled Acorn.

In some ways, Yoko and John's love story is a classic case of "opposites attract", and also "two halves make a whole", with notable similarities yet differences between the two. Yoko was seven-and-a-half-years older than John, which likely lent to a matriarchal nurturing quality that Lennon perhaps sought because he'd lost his mother at a young age. When Yoko and John met, they were both in unhappy marriages nearing their ends; his first, her second. Yoko had a child in 1963, John had a child in 1963. John's was a boy, Julian, born April 8th. Yoko's a girl, Kyoko, born August 8th. But Yoko's second husband took off with their daughter, and it was years before she regained contact. So they both had troubled relationships with their kids, as John was also estranged from his son. Julian, named after John's mother, was the same age—seventeen—when John died as John was when his mother Julia died. And the child Yoko and John had together, Sean, was born in 1975 on John's birthday—October 9th. Yoko and John were born in different countries but lived together in New York. She was from upper-class Japan, and he was from working-class England. He was pop, she was not. A Tokyoite princess and a Liverpudlian punk. They grew up on opposite sides during World War II, their personal love a symbol of overcoming war.

With Yoko as his inspiration, John had his first art show—entitled "You Are Here"—in London, July 1968. It opened with the release of 360 white balloons into the sky. The works comprising the exhibit were few; a display of random items such as charity street collection boxes in the shapes of pandas, puppets, and disabled children, a circular piece of white canvas bearing the words "you are here", John's hat lying on the floor, and a rusty bicycle which some art students had sarcastically contributed but which John put on display anyway—recalling Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel piece a half-century earlier. As biographer Philip Norman describes, the critics responded scornfully: "If John had not been a Beatle, he would not have dared put such rubbish on show." But, Norman adds, "In this, at least, the critics erred. So long as he was a Beatle, he never dared do anything" (Shout!, 344). Yoko, on the other hand, had dared do things that until John met her, he had only dreamed of.

Lennon was considered a rock god gone over the edge from too much fame, money, and drugs, led astray by the evil "dragon lady" Yoko. Their outspoken advocacy for peace and social justice was ridiculed by conservative journalists, who labeled their art-activism an ego-driven attempt to cash in on counterculture values, and/or as a naive, simple-minded message in a violent, complex world—much as "All You Need is Love" was in 1967. They were accused by many—even former hardcore Beatles fans—as pretentious, self-indulgent, celebrity freaks, using their fame as a platform just to seek attention. But anyone who said that clearly doesn't like peace. Hippies, druggies, weirdos, artists, activists. Sure. John and Yoko were all of that. They were also feminists, as they each took the surname "Ono-Lennon". Despite repeatedly facing insults and ridicule, Yoko and John stuck to their vision, perhaps more persistently than any other artists in history, which—unless you like war, violence, and oppression—is difficult not to admire.

Yoko being Japanese only fueled Western racists' hatred of her, since Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor was still clear in many Americans' memories when she and John got together—and at a time when America had declared war on another small Asian country, Vietnam. Yoko was accosted publicly and frequently, and was the target of much abuse by many former Beatles "fans" and members of the press. The words "chink" and "yellow" were regularly shouted at her when the two appeared in public together. But, seemingly impervious to such assaults, they relentlessly, unapologetically carried on with their work.

When the Beatles split, the terrible mainstream narrative was that it was Yoko's fault—a grossly inaccurate sentiment that, despite being complete nonsense, unjustly lingers to this day. Yoko was a social oddity in John's Beatle world, ever-present but speaking little. But if her presence at the band's rehearsals was a factor in their breakup, as anti-Ono folks claim, then it should be said that John Lennon broke up the Beatles because he wanted Yoko there with him every step of the way—perhaps, however unconsciously, using her to widen divides that had already been developing between the Beatles prior to her arrival on the scene. John needed her there because she was a breath of fresh air, her whimsical energy and visionary creativity serving as an antidote to his celebrity status as the world's biggest rock star. In Get Back, Yoko doesn't appear to be a disruptive force in the least, but rather a gentle spirit, an angel, John's muse, hovering near him; like his genie—a word that shares its origin with genius—a benevolent being offering him unhindered support, guidance, and love. But the common story is that Yoko broke up the Beatles, not John, which can only largely be attributed to sexism, racism, and the media's exploitation of people's tendency to want someone to blame when things they like come to an end.

So they scapegoat the woman, who was, until her public relationship with John, an outsider to the pop world even though she was already respected in the art world. But John himself later wrote, "I started the band. I disbanded it" (Skywriting, 18). He was likely looking for something else already, and Yoko touched a nerve that he perhaps hadn't consciously acknowledged at the time they met. She inspired him to do something else, helping him take his art to another level—not in fame, for he'd already hit the top of the pyramid in that respect—but in cultural value and political impact. His intense attachment to her, and her to him, manifested in an alternately peculiar, profound, and at times confounding body of work in which the two artists employed their own fame and talent, put their own relationship on display, as vehicles for world change. They were trying to say something, to do something.

As much as Yoko and John faced derision, they received even more praise. Besides being applauded for their activism and art, they were also celebrated in nudist and naturist culture. A short film Yoko made featuring only John's penis (Self-Portrait, 1969), the naked-bum film Bottoms, and the baring of their humble non-Hollywood bodies on the Two Virgins cover—contributed to them being symbols of free sexuality, and combatting body shame before any such thing became trendy in later New Age circles.

When Yoko's relationship with John became public in 1968, Lennon described her as "the world's most famous unknown artist—everybody knows her name but no one knows what she actually does." While her work has gained wider exposure over the years, the sentiment remains, unfortunately, true—many still think of her foremost as John Lennon's wife. When I first attended the exhibit Growing Freedom: The Instructions of Yoko Ono / The Art of John and Yoko, I knew a little about Yoko's work. But I had no idea about the unique creative breadth of her overall repertoire, and I left the gallery so mesmerized that I would return to the exhibit twice more in the following weeks.

Something refreshing about the Growing Freedom exhibit was that it focused on Yoko Ono, with John Lennon presented as a counterpart to her. The first third showcased some of Ono's most famous early works dating from 1955, the middle third covered the couple's collaborative work together, and the final third returned to her more recent solo output. I walked into the Vancouver Art Gallery in November 2021, not knowing what to expect. The opening hall had the Hammer-Nail piece. On that particular day the nails had been hammered into a densely concentrated snake shape, and I added one sticking out from the side of the inch-thick canvas board. There was also the Yes-Ladder piece, and TV screens in small adjacent rooms showing her films, including Bottoms.

Another work, White Chess Set (1966), consisted of a white chair on either side of a small, square white table, upon which was an all-white chessboard with all-white chess pieces. Two people sat down and started playing, at first moving the pieces in traditional chess moves, before soon forgetting whose piece was whose, and they laughed. I thought it was brilliant in its simplicity, and contemplated its meaning as a demonstration of nullifying competitive thinking and opponency, and also as challenging linear, rigid, concrete paradigms. In order to play the game, one had to disregard the rules, and surrender to making their own new ones. In the next room, several people sat around a table, hard at work. The table was covered with broken pieces of ceramic cups and dishes, which people were putting back together in whatever ways they imagined, using only string and tape, and then displayed their results on the surrounding shelves. Entitled Mend Piece (1966), the work resonated on multiple levels, perhaps foremost in its requirement of the viewers to be participants in order for it to even exist.

The second part of the show contained write-ups, photos, and videos of John and Yoko's peace activism and performance art—extensively documenting the bed-ins, WAR IS OVER campaign, the acorns for peace project, and bagism. There was also a piece called Nutopia; on April Fools' Day in 1973, Ono and Lennon issued The Declaration of Nutopia, which read: "We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA. Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA. NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people. NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic. All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country." On Lennon's Mind Games album, there's a track entitled "Nutopian International Anthem" which is just three seconds of silence.

Helmets/Pieces of Sky (2001) was a room with a dozen or so police riot squad helmets hanging upside-down, suspended from nearly invisible wires. The helmets were filled with jigsaw puzzle pieces for patrons to take with them, which bore images of blue sky and white clouds, and "y.o. Vancouver 2021" printed on them. The work struck me as yet another clever peace endorsement, as the helmets—images of violence—were reversed and turned into vessels containing fragments of the sky—images of nature and a symbol of hopes and dreams. Throughout the gallery, Yoko's poetic phrases were displayed on the walls. The one for Helmet said "Take a piece of the sky. Know that we are all part of each other." Another, "Laugh Piece", read "Keep laughing a week", and "Fly Piece" said, simply, "Fly" (1963).

The playful energy prominent earlier in the exhibit gradually shifted in the last third, and it turned more emotional with My Mommy is Beautiful (2004). Another example of Yoko's instructional works for audience participation, the piece was a room with a small corner table, upon which were stacks of post-it notepads, pencils, and simple instructions to write a note to one's mom and stick it on the wall. The walls were blanketed with thousands of notes bearing expressions of love, in many languages, to mothers worldwide.

But the heaviest, most moving work of the exhibit was Arising. Before entering the room, I stopped to read a content advisory warning: "The following room contains written statements of harm from individuals who identify as women. Descriptions include instances of sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment, suicidal ideation, physical violence and racism, which may be triggering for some visitors." Inside, the walls were covered with women's printed testimonials accompanied by photographs of only their eyes, as per Yoko's instructions: "Women of all ages, from all countries of the world: you are invited to send a testament of harm done to you for being a woman. Write your testament in your own language, in your own words, and write however openly you wish. You may sign your first name if you wish, but do not give your full name. Send a photograph of your eyes only." Yoko was now not just creating conceptual art, she was creating art therapy.

Near the end of the show was a room full of sculptures by mostly Vancouver-area artists, who had answered Yoko's invitation to participate in a "water event"—that is, to produce half of a sculpture, or an idea, relating to water, that Yoko would complete. The works would be credited, Yoko said, "as water sculpture by Yoko and yourself." And the final room was Yoko's Wish Tree display; again participatory, with instructions to write wishes on the supplied tags and hang them on branches of the several large, potted plants. In addition to the Helmet puzzle pieces, gallery patrons were encouraged to take with them lapel buttons from a bowl—which bore either the words "free you" or "free me"—and a note from a container. Before exiting, I randomly selected one. It was another instructional poem, entitled "Shadow Piece": "Put your shadows together until they become one."

I left with the feeling that I had just participated in art as it was meant to be at its most effective. I could almost feel little windows and doors opening within me, as Yoko had not just entertained, but challenged and inspired me to view the world a little differently. As much as her work speaks to specific causes, it is also art about art, blurring the lines between art, artist, and audience. With seemingly simple acts she teaches that an idea, an intention, can be art if applied with mindfulness. Yoko's art events give everyone permission to allow ourselves, our lives, to be art—and in fact turns us into artists, as her pieces resonate in ways beyond any medium of film, music, poetry, or painting. While she uses all of these media, it is the world at large that is her ultimate canvas, and human energy her paint.

Following John's death, Yoko continued with her avant-garde work, having to-date released over a dozen books and twenty-some albums. In the old negative public narrative, Yoko's image as a musician was reduced to John's crazy, screaming girlfriend—alternately described as sounding like a woman in sexual climax or a dying cat. But her scream-singing and abstract vocalizations were conscious explorations of "noise music", an experimental form of audio art aimed at deconstructing traditional music forms—and also resonate as radical expressions of feminine rage. A decade or so after Yoko was doing it in the late-'60s, her vocal stylings would be imitated by many punk, post-punk, new wave, and alternative rock artists, exemplified by the very Ono-like singing of the B-52s' female vocalists on songs like "Rock Lobster", and later emulated in the music of Cibo Matto—the multigenre duo of Japanese-American women who would in fact collaborate with Sean Lennon. Other musicians who have cited Ono's music as an influence include Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, tUnE-yArDs, Kathleen Hanna, Pussy Riot, and Peaches.

Carrying on the messages of their partnership, Yoko's art is often dedicated to John's memory, such as the Imagine Peace Tower—a tower of light beams projected vertically into the sky from a stone monument that has "Imagine Peace" engraved in it in twenty-four languages. Buried beneath it are over one million wishes that Yoko collected from her Wish Tree exhibits over the years. The tower opened in Iceland in 2007, and using eco-friendly geothermal energy, is lit every year from October 9th, John's birthday, through December 8th, the day he died.

In the 2018 documentary Above Us Only Sky, Lennon says (in a radio interview conducted days before his death) that he should've given Yoko a co-songwriting credit on "Imagine", since the whole concept and much of the lyrics were hers—and that it had been sexist of him to not do so. The original Imagine album had one of Yoko's Grapefruit instruction pieces printed on the back cover: "Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put them in." In a new interview conducted for the film, Yoko says, "I feel, in the big picture, the fact that John and I met—was to do this song." In 2017, the National Music Publishers' Association officially credited Yoko Ono as John Lennon's cowriter on "Imagine". They had debuted the song on the Cavett Show on September 11th, 1971—thirty years to the day of 9/11.

Usually, eventually, alternative becomes mainstream. But in the case of John Lennon, mainstream went alternative. One of the fascinating things about Lennon is that he was simultaneously, equally, a pop culture icon and a counterculture icon. And his position as the latter was unquestionably elevated by his late- and post-Beatles relationship with Yoko. Their coupling subjected them to a lot of hostility, because Yoko was in many ways the antithesis of pop, and too enigmatic for Beatles' audiences and the public at large. Too often I hear so-called, self-professed Beatles' fans say "I love John Lennon, but I don't care for Yoko." But those who say that are obviously not well-informed, for it was with Yoko's influence that John wrote such Beatles' masterpieces  as "I Want You (She’s So Heavy)" and "Don't Let Me Down", and such classics from his solo repertoire as "Give Peace a Chance", "Imagine", and so many more. Without Yoko, these songs would never exist. If you're a fan of rock music, then how can you not be a Beatles fan? And if you're a Beatles fan, then how can you not be a John Lennon fan? And if you're a Lennon fan, then how can you not be an Ono fan?

The ballad of Yoko and John resounds across time as one of the world's greatest love stories, evoking ancient tales of love and heartbreak, whether fiction or non-fiction, real or myth, the likes of: Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Dr. Zhivago, Casablanca, Bonnie and Clyde, Paris and Helen of Troy. Yoko reflected: "In the world's eye we were Laurel and Hardy. In our minds we were Heathcliff and Cathy. In a moment of wisdom we were a wizard and a witch. In a moment of freedom we were Don Quixote and Sancho. In reality, we were just a boy and a girl who never looked back" (Yoko Ono, 21 July 2018—from Imagine Blu-Ray insert). Photographer David Bailey, who worked on the 1972 Imagine film, says, "I was with the ambassador of Sweden one day and he said 'John Lennon made us rethink everything'. He told me he was going to bring it up at the United Nations, 'Give Peace a Chance' " (Imagine Blu-Ray insert).

In the 1960s, twisting and shouting turned into a proclamation that all you need is love, which turned into a plea for us all to imagine a world without countries and without anything to kill or die for, to give peace a chance, and the declaration that war is over if you want it. Yoko and John's work together was always underlined by love; there was a sweetness to it all, an almost childlike sensibility complementing a sardonic sense of humour, satirical wittiness, and playful absurdity. The two artists entered a realm where ideas spark actions and actions spark ideas, uniting two hemispheres, two worlds, into one. Never before or since has a celebrity couple displayed their love so publicly, used their love as such an indispensable component of their art. What resulted is something unparalleled in the history of the world.

Yoko Ono is a legendary artist. She turned 89 on February 18th, 2022. "Genius" is a descriptor that is too often misapplied, to artists perhaps more than any other—and indeed has been applied to John Lennon. But, to me, Yoko Ono is a genius. Certainly innovative, anyway, and seemingly fearless. At the 1969 bed-in protest, a reporter asked Yoko how she could achieve world peace with people like Hitler. Her response was that she would have gone to bed with him, that she'd have needed only ten days with him—a remark that, like many of her works, had caused controversy. Yoko later commented, "I said it facetiously, of course. But the point is, you're not going to change the world by fighting. Maybe I was naive about the ten days with Hitler. After all, it took thirteen years with John Lennon" (Playboy).

THE END: WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
—John Lennon ("Imagine")

Ringo said the Beatles "were just four guys who loved each other". They were united by the value of love—a universal theme dominant in their catalogue from beginning to end—as a concept both ubiquitous and ungraspable as something to continually hold dear and strive for in deeper and more meaningful ways. This love—whether ephemeral, ethereal, heartbreaking, or everlasting—was continually present in their music, from early songs like "Love Me Do" to later anthems like "All You Need is Love", and carried on with solo works like George's sublime "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)", Ringo's buoyant "Choose Love", Paul's gleeful "Silly Love Songs", or John's dreamy "Love". For John, his expressions of love for Yoko mirrored his love for humankind, reminding us repeatedly that there is perhaps little difference between romantic love, self-love, god-love, and world-love, as an essential component to peace on earth. Of the four lads, only McCartney and Starr are still alive, but the spirit of the Beatles, Harrison, and Lennon live on.

On multiple fronts, the Beatles laid the foundation for what have since become mainstays in the pop music and recording arts industry, with influence ranging from boy bands to heavy metal acts. Their innovative recordings spanned a wide-ranging spectrum of styles and genres, and the moptop hairstyles of their early years predated, predicted, or perhaps accelerated the change in fashion, the breaking down of conservative conformity that would increase in the following years with hippie and youth movements. Either collectively as the Beatles, or individually, the four of them advocated for and represented a range of cultural explorations and political causes. Paul worked to heighten awareness about vegetarianism and animal cruelty. George preached of spiritual upliftment. Ringo supported AIDS research, and meditation. And John became an outspoken peace activist and feminist. In music, movies, TV, art, and activism, where pop culture intersects with counterculture, and politics with entertainment—that's where the Beatles lived.

Discovering the Beatles in my lifetime, long after their dissolution, was like unveiling some mythic piece of history—since I wasn't there at the time they existed. But my parents sure were, squarely. So it wasn't ancient history so much as something that I was not-too-indirectly connected to via my parents coming of age in the 1960s, and the Beatles represented more than just a popular four-piece rock band. My mom in particular was a fan of the Beatles, and the Ono-Lennons. I recall marveling, as a child, at the small poster she had on her bedroom wall; Annie Leibovitz's famous picure of a fully naked Lennon caressing a fully clothed Ono, taken the very day of his death. In the 1980s, with the fear of nuclear war amidst U.S.-Soviet Cold War tensions, there were a series of peace marches and rallies organized regularly in my city of Vancouver. My family and I would always go, and it was at one of these events that I first heard "Give Peace a Chance", sung by the crowd of thousands in attendance. And I was taught to sing "Yellow Submarine" in elementary school, at my young age not caring who wrote the song, and not knowing it was the same band whose Abbey Road I would listen to stoned, with my friends, a decade later as a teenager.

In 2011, my musician mother Beverly Dobrinsky was working as the choir conductor at Carnegie Centre, a community center located in Vancouver's downtown eastside—the poorest postal code in Canada which is stricken with rampant addiction and homelessness. The Carnegie Village Choir, as it was called, was asked to prepare a performance for the annual Heart of the City Festival, with that year's theme: peace. My mom asked me to be involved, and so I joined the choir and wrote a song called "Peace Rap" to be performed as part of our set. We first sang "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" normally—just the refrain—then transitioned to a more funky, upbeat arrangement, with a three-piece band (keyboard, bass, and drums) accompanying. I rapped my two original verses, with the choir joining me for the chorus chant. We performed it twice, to an audience of about fifty people each time.

It was an uplifting affair, in part because it was led by my mom who was the first person to introduce me to John and Yoko, and in part because the choir was made up of regular, nonprofessional people, many of them struggling with poverty and mental health issues. A little later, my mom and I busked at an antiwar rally at Vancouver's English Bay, with me on lead vocals performing my rap rendition of the song, and her on guitar and backup vocals. And moments before writing this, I just got word that we will be performing it yet again for this year's festival, in one month's time (I'll post the video link here when it's done). It will be a fitting ending to the last several months of my John/Yoko/Beatles study, and an awesome way to bring it all full circle. I'll be sure to wear my WAR IS OVER! t-shirt when I perform the song.

At the end of February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. With more potential to erupt into an all-out world war than any military conflict I've seen in my lifetime, the incident provoked global anxiety and remained the top news story for weeks. Antiwar protests occurred worldwide, and two days after the invasion I attended one, fittingly held outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Growing Freedom exhibit was still going on, and massive promotional banners hung outside the gallery; one bore the word IMAGINE, another one read PEACE, and between them was a triplicate image of Yoko—looking to the left, to the right, and forward, as if out at the crowd. Below the picture were the words Growing Freedom: The Instructions of Yoko Ono / The Art of John and Yoko. Hanging above the square where a thousand or more people had gathered that day to show their opposition to hatred and violence, these were Yoko's instructions: imagine peace. The words from that iconic song she wrote with John, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" ran through my mind as I looked at the women, men, and children around me. Truer words have never been expressed. Seven months later, the war rages on, and John and Yoko's message is still as relevant as ever.

The era in history now so commonly referred to as "The Sixties" has been mythologized in our collective memory as a time of rapid cultural change in which previously repressive, conservative shackles were being thrown off at every turn. An idealism emerged, with a newborn hope that a better world was possible, as youth movements, African American civil rights, Indigenous rights, women's liberation, LGBTQ rights, and antiwar movements all took shape. It was a time of learning, of mind expansion through drugs, sex, music, art, and activism, a time when it became commonplace to challenge the authority of corrupt institutions, upend old conventions, and fight for a freer society. But with the change came resistance and conflict.

As time is not absolute though, but rather a continuum, The Sixties doesn't necessarily refer specifically to the years 1960 to 1969, but to a time in history when cultural values were opening in immense ways. Some may trace The Sixties as beginning and ending strictly according to the calendar, but others mark by historic events. Many say The Sixties really started with JFK’s assassination in 1963, or with America's acceleration of the Vietnam War and the military draft in 1965, and that The Sixties ended when Nixon resigned as US president in 1974, or when the Vietnam War ended in 1975. But many mark the start and end of The Sixties with the Beatles; their legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 as the true beginning of The Sixties, and their breakup in 1970 as the end. And it's been said that Lennon's death in December 1980 marked the final, symbolic end of The Sixties. That the one-time idealism of the post-World War II, baby boomer generation, which had peaked in the late '60s only to give way to cynicism and disappointment that global society had not transformed into the utopia that many had envisioned and believed possible, which had been embodied by people like John Lennon, was now officially dead. The dream is over, indeed. But the struggle continues.

In 1980, interviewer David Sheff asked, "What is the Eighties' dream to you, John?" He replied, "You make your own dream. That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story. That's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream." It's the same message he'd been conveying for over a decade; just imagine, war is over—if you want it. "And people cannot provide it for you," John continued, "I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you." (Playboy).

The "imagine" and "war is over if you want it" philosophy emphasizes the inextricable link between inner peace and outer peace, and the essential truth of human nature that despite whatever destructive tendencies we may have, we also have the ability to create virtually anything we want. When things look bad, we must have faith in our own ability to make them better. And you know what the best way to keep from becoming a fascist is? You say, "I'm susceptible to becoming a fascist." If we admit our potential to give in to fear and shame and hate, then we'll have greater awareness and control over our ability to not give in to fear and shame and hate. What sets humans apart from other species on earth is our self-awareness; within whatever evolutionary, instinctive, biological forces that shape us, we possess the cognitive capability to become conscious of our behaviour and wilfully, purposefully change it. If we accept our ability to choose our destinies, why not choose peace? Why not admit our flaws, and be honest about our suffering, in order to attempt to grow away from it, instead of living in denial, or saying war is inevitable. If I say war is inevitable, then I will live to make sure it is so. If I say peace is possible, then I will live to make sure it is so, because I believe it. This is, perhaps, the meaning to life, so simple yet profound, that John and Yoko taught me.

WORKS CITED

• The Beatles. Please Please Me. Parlophone, 1963.

• ---. Twist and Shout. Capitol Canada, 1964.

• ---. Help!. Parlophone, 1965.

• ---. Rubber Soul. Parlophone, 1965.

• ---. Yesterday and Today. Capitol, 1966.

• ---. Revolver. Parlophone, 1966.

• ---. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Parlophone, 1967.

• ---. Magical Mystery Tour. Parlophone, 1967.

• ---. The Beatles. Apple, 1968.

• ---. Yellow Submarine. Apple, 1969.

• ---. Abbey Road. Apple, 1969.

• ---. "Don't Let Me Down." Apple, 1969.

• ---. "The Ballad of John and Yoko." Apple, 1969.

• ---. Let It Be. Apple, 1970.

• The Beatles Anthology. Dir. Bob Smeaton, Geoff Wonfor. ITV. UK, 1995.

• The Beatles: Get Back. Dir. Peter Jackson. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Yoko Ono, Linda Eastman, and Peter Sellers. Wingnut Films, 2021.

• Bed Peace. Dir. Lennon, John and Yoko Ono. With Lennon, Ono, Murray the 'K', Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Smothers, Dick Gregory, Timothy Leary, and Kyoko Ono Cox. Bag Productions, 1969.

• Caroline Andrieux et al. Growing Freedom: The Instructions of Yoko Ono / The Art of John and Yoko. Foundation Phi Pour L'Art Contemporain (Phi Fondation for Contemporary Art). Munich, Germany: Hirmer Verlag, 2019.

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• The Dick Cavett Show. Dir. David Barnhizer et al. ABC. US, 1972. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxoxMuca-2s. Accessed August 2022.

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• ---. "Angela." Some Time in New York City. Apple, 1972.

• ---. "Attica State." Some Time in New York City. Apple, 1972.

• ---. "John Sinclair." Some Time in New York City. Apple, 1972.

• ---. "The Luck of the Irish." Some Time in New York City. Apple, 1972.

• ---. "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Some Time in New York City. Apple, 1972.

• ---. "Woman is the Nigger of the World." Some Time in New York City. Apple, 1972.

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• ---. A Spaniard in the Works. Canongate Books Ltd: Edinburgh, 1965.

• ---. "Give Peace a Chance." Apple, 1969.

• ---. "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)." Apple, EMI, 1970.

• ---. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Apple, 1970.

• ---. "God." John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Apple, 1970.

• ---. "Mother." John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Apple, 1970.

• ---. "Working Class Hero." John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Apple, 1970.

• ---. "Crippled Inside." Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. "Gimme Some Truth." Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. "How Do You Sleep?" Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama." Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. "Imagine." Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. "Jealous Guy." Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. "Oh Yoko." Imagine. Apple, 1971.

• ---. Mind Games. Apple, 1973.

• ---. Rock 'n' Roll. Apple, 1975.

• ---. Skywriting By Word of Mouth. New York: HarperCollins, 1986.

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• ---. "Midsummer New York." Fly. Apple, 1971.

• ---. Acorn. New York: Algonquin, 2013.

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