Oh No

Yoko Ono is fairly well reviled in rock and roll circles. You know this.

She's given way too much blame for splintering the Beatles. That party line has been somewhat discredited by now, but there's still a bit of conventional wisdom therein.

For those that have seen the amazing Get Back documentarathon, you saw evidence that she could add a divisive element with her very presence (sitting there for hours on end silently as the fifth person amid the Fab Four as they work hard to pretend she's not). You also saw that the infighting of those sessions had nothing to do with her (George whining about Paul being a steamroller; Paul being a fucking unbelievable musical genius and not understanding why George just wouldn't get out of his way; John showing up late every day; Ringo saying not a damn word the entire time, presumably because he quit during the prior album's sessions and the others said no problem, Paul can play drums, too).

For those that haven't seen Get Back, carve out eight hours and watch it. It's gorgeous and marvelous.

Yoko Ono showed some guts going along with nutty John on this project / album cover. Gotta give her that.

And that she tolerated John's Lost Weekend, which is more patient than some people would be. For the unfamiliar, Lennon cruised to the west coast and partied with Elton and Harry Nilsson and even Paul and took up with a young lass (May Pang) for 18 months. Called it a "lost weekend." Pretty bold, dude.

And then they reunited and had a kid, Sean Ono Lennon. You might've heard his music. You might not've. It's not great, not terrible. Which makes perfect sense.

John stopped making music for five years while Sean was a tot to dedicate himself to family. Which must've pissed off one particular teenager super damn mightily. I mean, that one's a tough pill. At least he/we got an all-time great song out of that whole drama.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, John and Yoko released the album Double Fantasy in 1980. It's 50% solid. "Just Like Starting Over" is a quintessential comeback song.

So what caused him to dust off the axe and start making music again? Among other things, would you believe it was hearing a rock?

It wasn't a rock! It was a rock lobstaaaaaaaaaaah!  No, for real. Hearing "Rock Lobster" influenced John to start recording new tunes. Wait, what? Yeah, because, you know, it felt like modern music had finally caught up with the forward-thinking genius that is Yoko Ono and the stuff they were recording 10 years prior. Um, I guess he was hearing what Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson were doing starting at the 6:00 mark of this fantastic, live, must-watch video from way, way back when. (Fred Schneider. Wow.)

Anyway, that album had some great Lennon-penned (Lenned?) singles, each juxtaposed with some . . . interesting . . . stuff from Yoko Ono. Okay, it's tripe, and I've really tried to avoid saying such things about art forms. Truly, there's only one listenable track among them.

"Kiss Kiss Kiss" is actually a cool little number if you like punk rock, and I do. There's some of The Slits in there, maybe even some Tanya Donelly if you turn it down real low and walk in the other room . . . where "Gepetto" is playing. And in true punk form, it's 2:41 long but much shorter. At the 1:40 mark, and you really need to hear it to believe it, most of the instrumentation stops. All that's left are three things:

1. A super high-pitched, possibly out of tune, guitar track
2. The sounds of Yoko Ono feigning (or experiencing) orgasm
3. Yoko's signature caterwaul, as unwelcome as ever

Punk rock, Yoko. But awful. Like really really bad, like unwashable piss stains on her only decent song. Dammit, guys.

The song up until that point is decent enough that it might actually work in the hands of someone else's pipes, to make metaphor gumbo. But it doesn't seem like that's happened yet.

Anyway, you all know the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day that happened later that year. December 8, to be precise. And I won't go into it. except to say two things.

1. John Hinckley shot the President of the United State because he wanted to hump Jodie Foster. He's out of the bin and living in Williamsburg, VA "without oversight." Meanwhile, Mark David Chapman is still behind bars outside of Buffalo, has been denied parole 11 times, and will likely die in prison. I'm oversimplifying it (and being flippant about horribly evil deeds), but society has spoken. Politicians have to take their chances out there, but you don't shoot musical royalty.
2. Frequently beautiful art comes from terrible tragedy. Elton John lost his good buddy in a senseless murder. Out of that misery, he wrote and recorded "Empty Garden," one of my favorite tracks of his. A lovely tribute to his friend. Also, the only Elton song that will ever be played on ORF Rock. (Penny Baker was in the bathroom and I played it without her permission.)

Unsurprisingly to you all, no post about Yoko Ono could possibly be complete without this next one, the Barenaked Ladies tune off their debut Gordon. That album is still a fun listen all the way through, and I first heard it thanks to my good buddy rob who heard it in Canada when he toured the northeast States and a few stops north of the border as the Pi Lambda Phi national rep. He lent it to me in cassette format. (Read: we're old.)

Look how young these cats were.  

"I know that when I say this / I may be stepping on pins and needles (ho, ho, whoa) / But I don't like all these people slagging her for breaking up the Beatles / (Don't blame it on Yokey!)" 

So there you have it. Oh, Yoko. Maligned, mistreated, and mocked meanly. Did she deserve it?

Well, the reason I write to you today, fair gheorghies, is because while I already knew everything I wrote up until this point, I had never, ever seen / heard the clip below. If you watch nothing else from this post, watch this! Watch from the start, but know that at the 1:55 mark, something truly remarkable happens. 

Stay on until exactly one minute later, and watch how the video seems to support that she's singing again, but magically the mic isn't picking up her "sounds"!

Holy shit, that is the worst thing ever. The profaning of a rare moment of Chuck Berry and John Lennon singing a classic tune into the same mic with . . . with . . . with I don't know what the fuck that was. 2 Live Crew were less profane.

The comments on that YouTube track are good chuckles. My favorite: "Imagine being there... witnessing not one, not two, but THREE legends of rock n’ roll!!!  1. John Lennon 2. Chuck Berry 3. The guy who cut Yoko’s mic off."

Welp, now I know. And so do you. In case you ever hear someone saying that Yoko Ono is "misunderstood," "powerful," or even . . . dear God . . . "a genius" . . . well, just send them this URL. It's a dandy. And worth a eye-widening chuckle.  

Enjoy.