Before Lennon: An Artist in Her Own Right<\/strong><\/h2>Ono was born into a wealthy family in Japan on February 18, 1933, and grew up mostly in Tokyo where she attended an exclusive school and received classical training in piano and voice. She lived through World War II\u2019s bombing of Tokyo, an experience that profoundly shaped her worldview and her later commitment to peace activism. After moving to New York in 1952 to join her family, she became deeply involved in the city\u2019s downtown art scene.<\/p>
Her artistic work in the early 1960s was revolutionary. She created instruction pieces\u2014conceptual artworks that existed primarily as ideas rather than physical objects. She staged daring performance pieces like \u201cCut Piece\u201d in 1964, where audience members were invited to cut away her clothing until she sat naked on stage, a powerful commentary on vulnerability, objectification, and the disposal of materialism. Her work was considered too radical by many and was not well received initially, but she gained recognition after working with jazz musician Anthony Cox, who became her second husband, after Lennon\u2019s death, and helped coordinate her interactive conceptual events.<\/p>
By the time she met John, Ono had already made significant contributions to conceptual art and performance. She was, in every sense, his artistic equal\u2014and in many ways, ahead of her time.<\/p>
The Marriage and the Maelstrom of Racism<\/strong><\/h2>When Ono married Lennon in March 1969, she stepped into a firestorm of hatred that mixed misogyny, xenophobia, and outright racism in toxic proportions. The attacks were relentless and often explicitly racial. Fans would surround Beatles company headquarters in London, calling Ono racist slurs and insisting she should return to her own country. A 1970 Esquire magazine article mocked her Japanese accent.<\/p>
The violence wasn\u2019t just verbal. Ono suffered three miscarriages during a time when she was being physically attacked by fans in England. While pregnant, many people wrote to her saying they wished she and her baby would die. The abuse was so severe that after Lennon\u2019s death, she received death threats through the mail, including a bullet-ridden copy of their album Double Fantasy with a note saying the sender was in New York to kill her, requiring round-the-clock security for herself and her son Sean.<\/p>
The racist dimension of the attacks cannot be overstated. Ono was regularly labeled a \u201cdragon lady,\u201d a racist trope suggesting Asian women are conniving beings who use seduction in manipulative, dangerous ways. Attacks on Ono\u2019s appearance, with media repeatedly describing her as \u201cugly,\u201d had roots in racism\u2014she didn\u2019t fit European standards of beauty with her Japanese features and was compared unfavorably to the white partners of the other Beatles.<\/p>
The contrast with Linda McCartney is instructive. Both women were older than their Beatle husbands, both had children from previous marriages, both were blamed for the Beatles\u2019 breakup, and both faced attacks on their musical talent. But only Ono faced the additional burden of racism.<\/p>
Ono as Musical Artist: Decades Ahead of Her Time<\/strong><\/h2>What\u2019s often forgotten in the mythology of \u201cthe woman who broke up the Beatles\u201d is that Yoko Ono was a genuinely innovative musician whose work prefigured punk, no-wave, post-punk, and riot grrrl by years\u2014even decades.<\/p>
Her debut solo album, released in December 1970 alongside Lennon\u2019s own Plastic Ono Band album, was initially met with near-universal contempt. The album was poorly received upon release, with the exception of supportive reviews by Billboard and Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone. Her vocals mixed hetai, a Japanese vocal technique from Kabuki theater, with rock vocal styles and raw aggression influenced by the primal therapy she and Lennon were undertaking. Critics and audiences didn\u2019t know what to make of her ululating screams, her experimental improvisations, her refusal to conform to conventional song structures.<\/p>
The album was seen as an extreme affront against propriety and possibly civilization, something so revolutionary that even free-thinking radicals couldn\u2019t embrace it because they weren\u2019t as free as they pretended to be.<\/p>
But time has vindicated Ono\u2019s vision. The album has been credited with launching a hundred or more female alternative rockers, from Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson of the B-52s to L7 and Courtney Love of Hole. NPR ranked it at number 136 on their 2017 list of \u201cThe 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women,\u201d deeming it \u201cjarring, experimental and stunning\u201d and citing its \u201cfearless curiosity\u201d as influencing experimental rock, experimental electronic music, post-punk, and sound art.<\/p>
Songs like \u201cWhy,\u201d \u201cTouch Me,\u201d and \u201cOpen Your Box\u201d wired the post-punk and no-wave engines more than half a decade early, with no choruses, searing outsider-style guitar, vein-popping vocal performances and hypnotic grooves that presaged bands like the Slits, Public Image Limited, Gang of Four, the Raincoats, and the B-52s. <\/p>
This essay continues below. Click on the title of this product to view on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>Yoko: The Biography<\/a><\/h1>![\"Buy](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/68568e4f-8013-43e2-b345-d79057cfb875_500x500.jpeg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>Author: David Sheff<\/p>
An intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Boy.<\/h6>John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world\u2019s most famous unknown artist. \u201cEverybody knows her name, but no one knows what she does.\u201d She has only been important to history insofar as she impacted Lennon. Throughout her life, Yoko has been a caricature, curiosity, and, often, a villain\u2014an inscrutable seductress, manipulating con artist, and caterwauling fraud. The Lennon\/Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko\u2019s part has been missing\u2014hidden in the Beatles\u2019 formidable shadow, further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism. This definitive biography of Yoko Ono\u2019s life will change that. In this book, Yoko Ono takes centerstage.<\/h6>The Lennon Collaborations: A Musical Dialogue<\/strong><\/h2>John and Yoko\u2019s musical partnership was genuine and deep, though critics and fans often refused to acknowledge it. Their collaborative work ranged from experimental noise albums like \u201cUnfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins\u201d (1968) to their 1980 comeback, \u201cDouble Fantasy.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cDouble Fantasy,\u201d released just three weeks before Lennon\u2019s murder, was initially savaged by critics. Kit Rachlis of the Boston Phoenix admitted to being \u201cannoyed\u201d by Lennon and Ono\u2019s assumption \u201cthat lots of people care deeply\u201d about them, while Charles Shaar Murray wrote that their domestic bliss \u201csounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record\u201d. Three weeks after the album\u2019s release, Lennon was murdered and several negative reviews by prominent critics were withheld from publication.<\/p>
Following Lennon\u2019s death, \u201cDouble Fantasy\u201d became a massive commercial success and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. But the reassessment came too late for John to see it.<\/p>
After Lennon: Preserving a Legacy While Building Her Own<\/strong><\/h2>Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, shot in front of their apartment building, the Dakota, with Ono at his side. In the years that followed, Ono worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy while continuing her own artistic career. She funded the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and the John Lennon Museum in Japan. In 2017, she was finally credited as a co-writer on \u201cImagine,\u201d Lennon\u2019s iconic 1971 single that essentially adapted her instructional art pieces into song form.<\/p>
Ono never stopped creating. She continued recording albums, mounting art exhibitions, and engaging in activism. She has had twelve number one singles on the US Dance charts, and in 2016 was named the 11th most successful dance club artist of all time by Billboard magazine.<\/p>
The Enduring Question of Race and Gender<\/strong><\/h2>The treatment of Yoko Ono represents one of popular culture\u2019s most disturbing case studies in how an accomplished Asian woman was scapegoated for the dissolution of a beloved white male institution. Sexism, racism and xenophobia all contributed to Ono\u2019s vilification, creating a toxic mythology that persisted for decades and, in some circles, continues today.<\/p>
When Ono married Lennon in March 1969, she stepped into a firestorm of hatred that mixed misogyny, xenophobia, and outright racism in toxic proportions. The attacks were relentless and often explicitly racial. Fans would surround Beatles company headquarters in London, calling Ono racist slurs and insisting she should return to her own country. A 1970 Esquire magazine article mocked her Japanese accent.<\/p>
The violence wasn\u2019t just verbal. Ono suffered three miscarriages during a time when she was being physically attacked by fans in England. While pregnant, many people wrote to her saying they wished she and her baby would die. The abuse was so severe that after Lennon\u2019s death, she received death threats through the mail, including a bullet-ridden copy of their album Double Fantasy with a note saying the sender was in New York to kill her, requiring round-the-clock security for herself and her son Sean.<\/p>
The racist dimension of the attacks cannot be overstated. Ono was regularly labeled a \u201cdragon lady,\u201d a racist trope suggesting Asian women are conniving beings who use seduction in manipulative, dangerous ways. Attacks on Ono\u2019s appearance, with media repeatedly describing her as \u201cugly,\u201d had roots in racism\u2014she didn\u2019t fit European standards of beauty with her Japanese features and was compared unfavorably to the white partners of the other Beatles.<\/p>
The contrast with Linda McCartney is instructive. Both women were older than their Beatle husbands, both had children from previous marriages, both were blamed for the Beatles\u2019 breakup, and both faced attacks on their musical talent. But only Ono faced the additional burden of racism.<\/p>
Ono as Musical Artist: Decades Ahead of Her Time<\/strong><\/h2>What\u2019s often forgotten in the mythology of \u201cthe woman who broke up the Beatles\u201d is that Yoko Ono was a genuinely innovative musician whose work prefigured punk, no-wave, post-punk, and riot grrrl by years\u2014even decades.<\/p>
Her debut solo album, released in December 1970 alongside Lennon\u2019s own Plastic Ono Band album, was initially met with near-universal contempt. The album was poorly received upon release, with the exception of supportive reviews by Billboard and Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone. Her vocals mixed hetai, a Japanese vocal technique from Kabuki theater, with rock vocal styles and raw aggression influenced by the primal therapy she and Lennon were undertaking. Critics and audiences didn\u2019t know what to make of her ululating screams, her experimental improvisations, her refusal to conform to conventional song structures.<\/p>
The album was seen as an extreme affront against propriety and possibly civilization, something so revolutionary that even free-thinking radicals couldn\u2019t embrace it because they weren\u2019t as free as they pretended to be.<\/p>
But time has vindicated Ono\u2019s vision. The album has been credited with launching a hundred or more female alternative rockers, from Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson of the B-52s to L7 and Courtney Love of Hole. NPR ranked it at number 136 on their 2017 list of \u201cThe 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women,\u201d deeming it \u201cjarring, experimental and stunning\u201d and citing its \u201cfearless curiosity\u201d as influencing experimental rock, experimental electronic music, post-punk, and sound art.<\/p>
Songs like \u201cWhy,\u201d \u201cTouch Me,\u201d and \u201cOpen Your Box\u201d wired the post-punk and no-wave engines more than half a decade early, with no choruses, searing outsider-style guitar, vein-popping vocal performances and hypnotic grooves that presaged bands like the Slits, Public Image Limited, Gang of Four, the Raincoats, and the B-52s. <\/p>
This essay continues below. Click on the title of this product to view on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>Yoko: The Biography<\/a><\/h1><\/figure>Author: David Sheff<\/p>
An intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Boy.<\/h6>John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world\u2019s most famous unknown artist. \u201cEverybody knows her name, but no one knows what she does.\u201d She has only been important to history insofar as she impacted Lennon. Throughout her life, Yoko has been a caricature, curiosity, and, often, a villain\u2014an inscrutable seductress, manipulating con artist, and caterwauling fraud. The Lennon\/Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko\u2019s part has been missing\u2014hidden in the Beatles\u2019 formidable shadow, further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism. This definitive biography of Yoko Ono\u2019s life will change that. In this book, Yoko Ono takes centerstage.<\/h6>The Lennon Collaborations: A Musical Dialogue<\/strong><\/h2>John and Yoko\u2019s musical partnership was genuine and deep, though critics and fans often refused to acknowledge it. Their collaborative work ranged from experimental noise albums like \u201cUnfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins\u201d (1968) to their 1980 comeback, \u201cDouble Fantasy.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cDouble Fantasy,\u201d released just three weeks before Lennon\u2019s murder, was initially savaged by critics. Kit Rachlis of the Boston Phoenix admitted to being \u201cannoyed\u201d by Lennon and Ono\u2019s assumption \u201cthat lots of people care deeply\u201d about them, while Charles Shaar Murray wrote that their domestic bliss \u201csounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record\u201d. Three weeks after the album\u2019s release, Lennon was murdered and several negative reviews by prominent critics were withheld from publication.<\/p>
Following Lennon\u2019s death, \u201cDouble Fantasy\u201d became a massive commercial success and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. But the reassessment came too late for John to see it.<\/p>
After Lennon: Preserving a Legacy While Building Her Own<\/strong><\/h2>Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, shot in front of their apartment building, the Dakota, with Ono at his side. In the years that followed, Ono worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy while continuing her own artistic career. She funded the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and the John Lennon Museum in Japan. In 2017, she was finally credited as a co-writer on \u201cImagine,\u201d Lennon\u2019s iconic 1971 single that essentially adapted her instructional art pieces into song form.<\/p>
Ono never stopped creating. She continued recording albums, mounting art exhibitions, and engaging in activism. She has had twelve number one singles on the US Dance charts, and in 2016 was named the 11th most successful dance club artist of all time by Billboard magazine.<\/p>
The Enduring Question of Race and Gender<\/strong><\/h2>The treatment of Yoko Ono represents one of popular culture\u2019s most disturbing case studies in how an accomplished Asian woman was scapegoated for the dissolution of a beloved white male institution. Sexism, racism and xenophobia all contributed to Ono\u2019s vilification, creating a toxic mythology that persisted for decades and, in some circles, continues today.<\/p>
Yoko: The Biography<\/a><\/h1><\/figure>Author: David Sheff<\/p>
An intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Boy.<\/h6>John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world\u2019s most famous unknown artist. \u201cEverybody knows her name, but no one knows what she does.\u201d She has only been important to history insofar as she impacted Lennon. Throughout her life, Yoko has been a caricature, curiosity, and, often, a villain\u2014an inscrutable seductress, manipulating con artist, and caterwauling fraud. The Lennon\/Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko\u2019s part has been missing\u2014hidden in the Beatles\u2019 formidable shadow, further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism. This definitive biography of Yoko Ono\u2019s life will change that. In this book, Yoko Ono takes centerstage.<\/h6>The Lennon Collaborations: A Musical Dialogue<\/strong><\/h2>John and Yoko\u2019s musical partnership was genuine and deep, though critics and fans often refused to acknowledge it. Their collaborative work ranged from experimental noise albums like \u201cUnfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins\u201d (1968) to their 1980 comeback, \u201cDouble Fantasy.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cDouble Fantasy,\u201d released just three weeks before Lennon\u2019s murder, was initially savaged by critics. Kit Rachlis of the Boston Phoenix admitted to being \u201cannoyed\u201d by Lennon and Ono\u2019s assumption \u201cthat lots of people care deeply\u201d about them, while Charles Shaar Murray wrote that their domestic bliss \u201csounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record\u201d. Three weeks after the album\u2019s release, Lennon was murdered and several negative reviews by prominent critics were withheld from publication.<\/p>
Following Lennon\u2019s death, \u201cDouble Fantasy\u201d became a massive commercial success and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. But the reassessment came too late for John to see it.<\/p>
After Lennon: Preserving a Legacy While Building Her Own<\/strong><\/h2>Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, shot in front of their apartment building, the Dakota, with Ono at his side. In the years that followed, Ono worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy while continuing her own artistic career. She funded the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and the John Lennon Museum in Japan. In 2017, she was finally credited as a co-writer on \u201cImagine,\u201d Lennon\u2019s iconic 1971 single that essentially adapted her instructional art pieces into song form.<\/p>
Ono never stopped creating. She continued recording albums, mounting art exhibitions, and engaging in activism. She has had twelve number one singles on the US Dance charts, and in 2016 was named the 11th most successful dance club artist of all time by Billboard magazine.<\/p>
The Enduring Question of Race and Gender<\/strong><\/h2>The treatment of Yoko Ono represents one of popular culture\u2019s most disturbing case studies in how an accomplished Asian woman was scapegoated for the dissolution of a beloved white male institution. Sexism, racism and xenophobia all contributed to Ono\u2019s vilification, creating a toxic mythology that persisted for decades and, in some circles, continues today.<\/p>
<\/figure>Author: David Sheff<\/p>
An intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Boy.<\/h6>John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world\u2019s most famous unknown artist. \u201cEverybody knows her name, but no one knows what she does.\u201d She has only been important to history insofar as she impacted Lennon. Throughout her life, Yoko has been a caricature, curiosity, and, often, a villain\u2014an inscrutable seductress, manipulating con artist, and caterwauling fraud. The Lennon\/Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko\u2019s part has been missing\u2014hidden in the Beatles\u2019 formidable shadow, further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism. This definitive biography of Yoko Ono\u2019s life will change that. In this book, Yoko Ono takes centerstage.<\/h6>The Lennon Collaborations: A Musical Dialogue<\/strong><\/h2>John and Yoko\u2019s musical partnership was genuine and deep, though critics and fans often refused to acknowledge it. Their collaborative work ranged from experimental noise albums like \u201cUnfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins\u201d (1968) to their 1980 comeback, \u201cDouble Fantasy.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cDouble Fantasy,\u201d released just three weeks before Lennon\u2019s murder, was initially savaged by critics. Kit Rachlis of the Boston Phoenix admitted to being \u201cannoyed\u201d by Lennon and Ono\u2019s assumption \u201cthat lots of people care deeply\u201d about them, while Charles Shaar Murray wrote that their domestic bliss \u201csounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record\u201d. Three weeks after the album\u2019s release, Lennon was murdered and several negative reviews by prominent critics were withheld from publication.<\/p>
Following Lennon\u2019s death, \u201cDouble Fantasy\u201d became a massive commercial success and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. But the reassessment came too late for John to see it.<\/p>
After Lennon: Preserving a Legacy While Building Her Own<\/strong><\/h2>Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, shot in front of their apartment building, the Dakota, with Ono at his side. In the years that followed, Ono worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy while continuing her own artistic career. She funded the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and the John Lennon Museum in Japan. In 2017, she was finally credited as a co-writer on \u201cImagine,\u201d Lennon\u2019s iconic 1971 single that essentially adapted her instructional art pieces into song form.<\/p>
Ono never stopped creating. She continued recording albums, mounting art exhibitions, and engaging in activism. She has had twelve number one singles on the US Dance charts, and in 2016 was named the 11th most successful dance club artist of all time by Billboard magazine.<\/p>
The Enduring Question of Race and Gender<\/strong><\/h2>The treatment of Yoko Ono represents one of popular culture\u2019s most disturbing case studies in how an accomplished Asian woman was scapegoated for the dissolution of a beloved white male institution. Sexism, racism and xenophobia all contributed to Ono\u2019s vilification, creating a toxic mythology that persisted for decades and, in some circles, continues today.<\/p>
The Lennon Collaborations: A Musical Dialogue<\/strong><\/h2>John and Yoko\u2019s musical partnership was genuine and deep, though critics and fans often refused to acknowledge it. Their collaborative work ranged from experimental noise albums like \u201cUnfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins\u201d (1968) to their 1980 comeback, \u201cDouble Fantasy.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cDouble Fantasy,\u201d released just three weeks before Lennon\u2019s murder, was initially savaged by critics. Kit Rachlis of the Boston Phoenix admitted to being \u201cannoyed\u201d by Lennon and Ono\u2019s assumption \u201cthat lots of people care deeply\u201d about them, while Charles Shaar Murray wrote that their domestic bliss \u201csounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record\u201d. Three weeks after the album\u2019s release, Lennon was murdered and several negative reviews by prominent critics were withheld from publication.<\/p>
Following Lennon\u2019s death, \u201cDouble Fantasy\u201d became a massive commercial success and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. But the reassessment came too late for John to see it.<\/p>
After Lennon: Preserving a Legacy While Building Her Own<\/strong><\/h2>Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, shot in front of their apartment building, the Dakota, with Ono at his side. In the years that followed, Ono worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy while continuing her own artistic career. She funded the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and the John Lennon Museum in Japan. In 2017, she was finally credited as a co-writer on \u201cImagine,\u201d Lennon\u2019s iconic 1971 single that essentially adapted her instructional art pieces into song form.<\/p>
Ono never stopped creating. She continued recording albums, mounting art exhibitions, and engaging in activism. She has had twelve number one singles on the US Dance charts, and in 2016 was named the 11th most successful dance club artist of all time by Billboard magazine.<\/p>
The Enduring Question of Race and Gender<\/strong><\/h2>The treatment of Yoko Ono represents one of popular culture\u2019s most disturbing case studies in how an accomplished Asian woman was scapegoated for the dissolution of a beloved white male institution. Sexism, racism and xenophobia all contributed to Ono\u2019s vilification, creating a toxic mythology that persisted for decades and, in some circles, continues today.<\/p>
Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, shot in front of their apartment building, the Dakota, with Ono at his side. In the years that followed, Ono worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy while continuing her own artistic career. She funded the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and the John Lennon Museum in Japan. In 2017, she was finally credited as a co-writer on \u201cImagine,\u201d Lennon\u2019s iconic 1971 single that essentially adapted her instructional art pieces into song form.<\/p>
Ono never stopped creating. She continued recording albums, mounting art exhibitions, and engaging in activism. She has had twelve number one singles on the US Dance charts, and in 2016 was named the 11th most successful dance club artist of all time by Billboard magazine.<\/p>