There are a lot of people who blame Yoko Ono for the break-up of The Beatles. They attest that she changed John Lennon from a songwriter to a politically driven hippy. These people are wrong.
John Lennon once admitted that, when he first arrived in America, he felt he had to put on a bit of an act for the public. He was talking about the band’s image at the time, but you get the sense his words cut deeper, hinting at the things he was told he could – and couldn’t – write about.
“We weren’t as open and as truthful when we didn’t have the power to be,” confessed Lennon, “We had to take it easy. We had to shorten our hair to leave Liverpool. We had to wear suits to get on TV. We had to compromise.”
John Lennon started his career writing pop music, which resulted in the creation of songs such as ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’. They were upbeat, fun and people loved to listen and dance to them. But as Lennon’s taste matured, and he was exposed to the work of people like Bob Dylan, he felt the need to write music which was a lot more honest.
It was hard for the bespectacled Beatle trying to push through his more honest-leaning songs, as The Beatles already had a pretty well-established brand and the label didn’t want them to deviate from it. Tracks like ‘Help!’ were some of the most honest that Lennon was able to release, and as such, when his career progressed and he could get away with more, he began writing more honest numbers.
“We had to get hooked to get in, and then get a bit of power and say, ‘This is what we’re like,’” said Lennon, “We had to falsify a bit, even if we didn’t realise it at the time.”
This is where a load of people get it wrong when they say that Yoko Ono was responsible for breaking up The Beatles. She didn’t change John Lennon whatsoever, she simply helped him channel the version of himself that had always lingered under the surface. The side of Lennon that wanted to talk about himself, politics and society in general was suddenly given permission to come out of the shadows, and it was Ono who was shining the light.
If only I had a pound for every time that Yoko Ono would have been told how much of a revolutionary songwriter John Lennon was. It will certainly be a lot, but the irony is, Ono doesn’t, and never has needed reminding. She was always able to recognise the revolutionary songwriter that Lennon was, and therefore she was keen to bring it out of him.
When Yoko Ono was asked to pick her favourite John Lennon songs, the majority of them were solo endeavours which he wrote after the Beatles, but this is likely because those songs are a better reflection of the man she fell in love with. One of her favourites from the early ‘70s was ‘Gimme SomeTruth’, a protest song that called out politicians and didn’t see Lennon sit on the fence.
Yoko Ono adored the song because of how it represented a new turning point for Lennon. When highlighting her praise for the track, she kept her comments simple but effective, merely reflecting on the fact that “He was before his time.”
