One of the most famous love couples 20th century - John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool. From 1960 to 1970 he was the lead singer of the Beatles.

Yoko (Yoko) Ono was born on February 18, 1933 in Tokyo. Yoko received a good education in Japan and the USA. In 1956, Yoko married Toshi Ichiyanagi, a talented but poor composer. Unsuccessful attempts to assert herself in America led the aspiring avant-garde artist to depression, suicide attempts, and ended with her parents taking their daughter back to Japan and placing her in prison. psychiatric clinic. From there, Yoko Ono was rescued by a fan of her work, Anthony Cox, who took her to the USA and became her second husband. In 1963, the couple had a daughter, Kyoko.
In the same 1963, a son, Julian, was born to the married couple John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon, who married in 1962.

John Lennon and his first wife Cynthia

Here's how John Lennon talked about his first meeting with Yoko:

“It was in 1966 in England. I was told that a Japanese avant-garde artist who came from America was organizing a happening. I was walking around the exhibition and saw a ladder, climbed up it to the ceiling, found a hanging pipe there, looked into it - feeling like an idiot - and read one word “Yes”. And in those years, it was considered avant-garde when a person smashed a piano or a sculpture into smithereens, in general, everything was anti-, anti-, anti-. Boring denial. And then I read this “yes” and decided to stay at this exhibition among the nails and apples.

There was one inscription that piqued my curiosity: “Drive a nail.” I asked, “Can I drive a nail?” Yoko replied: “No, because the opening is scheduled for tomorrow.” But then the owner of the gallery approached her and whispered in her ear: “Let him beat it in.” You know, he's a millionaire. Maybe he’ll buy this exhibit later.” They began to whisper and confer. Finally she says, “Okay, you can hammer this nail in, but first you have to pay 5 shillings for it.” And so I say: “Okay. I'll give you an imaginary 5 shillings and drive an imaginary nail." That’s how our meeting happened, she felt something, I felt something, and the rest is, as they say, history.”

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

After this meeting, Yoko wrote in her diary that she had found the person she could love. Lennon began receiving postcards from her with short inscriptions: “Dance”, “Breathe”, “Look at the lights until dawn”... Yoko called him and delivered long monologues: about social injustice, the spirit of the times and herself, an avant-garde artist experiencing great creative difficulties. Lennon listened to her extremely carefully. He was used to women who obeyed him. Yoko was completely different. He felt that he had to obey this Japanese woman who was 7 years older than him. Lennon said this about his beloved:

“She is the teacher and I am the student. I famous person, about whom they think that he knows everything, but she is my teacher, she taught me everything I know. She already knew everything when I didn’t know a damn thing, when I was a man from nowhere. She is my Don Juan [Castaneda's spiritual teacher]."
“Next to Yoko, I became free. Her closeness made me a whole person. Without her, I was only half."

Yoko said about her role in Lennon's life: “Before he met me, he had his own life experiences that I didn't have, so I learned a lot from him too. This is a reciprocal process: maybe the whole point is that I strong man, I have a lot of feminine strength. Women develop this power in themselves - in their relationships with men. Women have an inner wisdom, while men have a different kind of wisdom: to deal with society because they created it. Men never developed inner wisdom: they simply did not have time. Therefore, most men rely on women’s inner wisdom, whether they want to admit it or not.”

Yoko Ono and John Lennon separated from their spouses and began living together in 1968. The following year, the Beatles broke up. Many blamed Yoko Ono for the group's breakup. Lennon began bringing his beloved to the band's rehearsals (although at the beginning of their career the Beatles agreed not to invite wives and girlfriends to the studio). Paul McCartney, seeing how Lennon's musical tastes were changing under the influence of Yoko Ono, began to take leadership of the group, which caused Lennon's displeasure.
Lennon's musical experiments began in the first year life together with Yoko Ono, before the Beatles broke up. In 1968, Ono and Lennon released the album Two Virgins. There was no music on it: the record contained a chaotic collection of noises, moans and screams. According to Lennon, the album was recorded in one night. Even more striking than the content was the album's design, which featured photographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Adam and Eve costumes. Lennon spoke about Yoko Ono's influence on him at that point in his life:

“She made me become avant-garde and take off my clothes, and at that time all I wanted to be was Tom Jones.
“Two Virgins” happened by accident. I realized that there is a crazy person like me in the world - a woman who can make such bizarre sounds, who can enjoy non-danceable and unpopular music, what is called the avant-garde.
This is the only word that will work here, but I think that labels like avant-garde are self-refuting. Everyone is accustomed to avant-garde exhibitions. The very fact that the avant-garde can be exhibited contradicts the purpose of the avant-garde, since it becomes formal, turns into part of a ritual. I always perceived it only as variations on this global concept, like music".

Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol and John Lennon

The following year, 1969, Lennon and Ono again surprised the public. After their wedding, they went to Amsterdam and announced that they would conduct a “bedside interview.” Journalists who decided that star couple will publicly have sex, gathered in a hotel, where it turned out that Lennon and Ono, wearing white pajamas, decorating the hotel room with flowers, were sitting on the bed and talking about peace (at that time the war was going on in Vietnam). The doors of the room were wide open around the clock. Any person from the street could enter them.

In 1971, John Lennon's album Imagine was released. The title track from the album became Lennon's most famous solo song. In 1971, the single "Imagine" reached number three on the US singles chart. In the UK, the single "Imagine" was released only in 1975 and reached number 6 in the charts. However, after Lennon's death in 1980, the single "Imagine" was released again in the UK and stayed at number one for 4 weeks until it was knocked off the top spot by another John Lennon song, "Woman". In 2002, a UK poll found "Imagine" to be the second greatest single of all time, behind Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".
In the song “Imagine,” Lennon sets out his vision of an ideal world where people live for today, without hope of Heaven and without fear of Hell. There is no division into states and religions, no wars, no property, no concepts of “greed” and “hunger”. All people are brothers.
Later in the interview, Lennon said that the songs "Imagine" and "Love" could be put on par with any song that was made when he was a Beatle.

In 1973, Yoko Ono decided to break up with Lennon for a while in order to once again give both of them the opportunity to feel free and understand their feelings for each other. Yoko chose Lennon's Chinese assistant May Pang (born October 24, 1950), whom Lennon considered sexy, as his mistress, and sent them to Los Angeles, where they spent a year and a half. Lennon drank a lot at this time.

John Lennon and May Pang

Lennon describes his forced separation from Yoko Ono:

“When Don Juan said... when Don Ono said: “Get away!” You do not understand anything!" - it was like being exiled to the desert. And she didn’t let me go back because I wasn’t ready for it yet. I had to figure it out on my own. And when I was ready, she let me come back.
In the early 70s we separated. She kicked me out. I suddenly found myself alone on a raft in the middle of the ocean. At first I thought: “Hurray! How great is this!!! I'll live again single life. Hip-hip hurray!” But one day I woke up and the thought struck me: “What’s wrong with me? I want to go home!" But she didn't want to take me back. That's why we lived apart for a year and a half, and not six months. We often talked on the phone, and I used to say: “I don’t like this life. I always run into trouble. I want to go home. Please take me back!” But she answered: “You are not ready to return yet.”

Judging by Lennon's subsequent statements, he loved May Pang, albeit with a different love than Yoko Ono. Lennon said about life with May Pang: “I have never been happier. I loved this woman."

The contradictory nature of Lennon's statements confirms that Yoko Ono was right and that temporary separation was indeed necessary for them. Lennon had to decide what was more important to him - inner freedom or life as following your guru - Yoko Ono. When Lennon made his choice in favor of the second option, Yoko allowed him to return. This happened in 1975. On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. John Lennon decided to devote himself entirely to his family for several years and sacrifice his creativity. John Lennon's next album, Double Fantasy, was released only in 1980. This disc was destined to become the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc.

John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980. After his death, the single “Woman” was released from the album “Double Fantasy”. The single "Woman" reached number one in the UK singles chart, ahead of Lennon's other hit "Imagine". In the US, the single "Woman" reached number two on the charts.

Yoko Ono is still alive and continues her creative career.

Yoko Ono(Yoko Ono, born February 18, 1933) - American singer, artist, public figure, musician's widow John Lennon(John Lennon), member of The Beatles. Known for her avant-garde projects in music, cinema and fine arts. The main motives of Yoko Ono's work are the struggle for peace and rights sexual minorities, feminism, as well as the promotion of non-standard views on art.

The creative path of Yoko Ono

Yono Ono born in 1933 in Tokyo, Japan, and spent the first three years of her life there, together with her mother, Isoko Ono. Yoko's father Eisuke Ohno, was a banker and worked in San Francisco at one of the Bank of Japan branches. When Yoko was 3 years old, she and her mother moved to America to live with their father, but he was soon transferred back to Japan, where Yoko was sent to a prestigious school Gakushuin, educational institution, into which only aristocrats and members were admitted royal family. Three years later, in 1940, Yoko’s father was sent to America again, this time to New York, and the family went with him. But a year later another move followed - Eisuke was transferred to Hanoi, and Yoko and her mother went home to Japan.

After World War II, Yoko and her family returned to America and entered the New York Sarah Lawrence College(Sarah Lawrence College). She began to actively communicate with young writers, poets and other people leading a bohemian lifestyle. In 1956, Ono married a talented young composer Toshi Ichiyanagi(Toshi Ichiyanagi). After her marriage, Yoko firmly decided to devote herself to art and become an avant-garde artist. But, despite all her efforts, her work was not taken seriously by others. Unsuccessful attempts to gain public recognition drove Yoko to nervous breakdown, which resulted in several suicide attempts. After one of these attempts, Ono was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Japan, where she was found by a producer Anthony Cox(Anthony Cox), who later became her husband. Under the leadership of Anthony Yoko, she managed to bring to life several successful projects, on one of which she met John Lennon. At this time, Yoko, along with her husband and their common daughter lived in London, believing that there were more opportunities for creative development.

Filmography of Yoko Ono

(voice, 2018)

« (remastered, 2018)

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: Love (short film, 2003)

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: Working Class Hero - Version 1 (short, 1997)

The Misfits - 30 Years of Fluxus (1993)

Crazy About You (TV series 1992–1999)

John Lennon: Woman (short, 1981)

John Lennon: (Just Like) Starting Over - First Version (short, 1980)

John Lennon: Stand by Me (short, 1975)

John Lennon: Mind Games - First Version (short, 1973)

John Lennon: Imagine (short, 1971)

John Lennon: Oh Yoko! (short, 1971)

John Lennon: Oh My Love (short, 1971)

John Lennon: How Do You Sleep? (short, 1971)

John Lennon: Jealous Guy - Version 1 (short, 1971)

John Lennon: How? (short, 1971)

John Lennon: Crippled Inside - Version 1 (short, 1971)

John Lennon: Gimme Some Truth (short, 1971)

John Lennon: It's So Hard (short film, 1971)

Yoko Ono: Don't Count the Waves (short film, 1971)

John Lennon: I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier (short film, 1971)

Yoko Ono: Mrs. Lennon (short, 1971)

Freedom (1970)

Apotheosis (1970)

John Lennon, Ono and the Plastic Ono Band: Instant Karma! (short, 1970)

The Beatles: Something (short, 1969)

Plastic Ono Band: Cold Turkey - First Version (short, 1969)

The Beatles: The Ballad of John and Yoko (short, 1969)

John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band: Give Peace a Chance - Version 1 (short, 1969)

Two Virgins (1968)

Her ill-wishers called her a demon in female form, and him a resigned victim. Beatles fans blamed her for the breakup of the famous Fab Four. The Beatles themselves didn’t like her either. Except, of course, Lennon. About meeting Yoko, he said: “It was like I had won a big prize.”

Love story

Meeting.
When they met, she was 33 and he was 27. She is a well-educated Japanese aristocrat and an unrecognized artist. He is a half-orphan who escaped poverty and became a star at the very top of Olympus. At that time, the Beatles were already at the peak of their fame. Because of their tour, the British Prime Minister once even postponed his trip to the USA - his visit threatened to go unnoticed.

By the age of 27, John Lennon had crazy popularity, a million-dollar fortune, a 100-bedroom house, luxury cars, a wife and son. He had everything and he was bored. The famous four turned into rich, prosperous ordinary people. Behind the scenes of popularity were drugs, alcohol, endless multi-day parties and promiscuous sex. Lennon was depressed and lacked an answer to the question “How to live on?” And it is unknown what weighed on him more, boring family life or “marriage” to the Beatles.
They met Yoko at her exhibition. Not to say that Lennon was impressed by her work or by herself. The high-cheekboned, black-haired Japanese woman was not at all the type of star who preferred the Brigitte Bardot type. However, the artist turned out to be very persistent. That same evening she wrote in her diary: “It seems that I have found someone I can love.” And Yoko always knew exactly what she wanted.

Soul kinship.
Lennon began receiving postcards with the inscriptions “Breathe”, “Dance”, “Look at the fire until dawn”. She called him and talked with him for hours about art. She was lying in wait at the house. She wanted to conquer him. And she succeeded. After some time, John discovered that he was not indifferent to her. After some time, John discovered that he did not want to live without her for a day. “The child of the ocean is calling me,” he sang in one of the songs. (Yoko means “child of the ocean” in Japanese).

They were similar. Rebels. Experimenters. Seekers of the new. They immediately divorced previous spouses and got married. Their honeymoon took place in Amsterdam, causing a stir with their "bedside interview". The reporters gathered outside their Hilton suite expected scandalous couple would like to give an interview while having sex, but Yoko and John, in white pajamas, sat on a bed in a flower-decorated room and talked about peace - it was their protest against the Vietnam War.

The album “Two Virgins” was also shocking. On the cover, Yoko and John were photographed in Adam and Eve costumes, and there was no music at all in the album - only groans, creaks and other sounds.

They took part in demonstrations, made films, and John recorded songs. However, critics wrote: “The songs have become weaker.” Former fans said: "Yoko John is no good." John became depressed again.

Life in unison.
Yoko suggested that they separate for a while. Together with John's Chinese assistant, she sent them to Los Angeles. She knew John needed time. He must decide for himself who he is and where he is. More parties, new friends and girlfriends. And new songs. Lennon's compositions again found themselves not at the top of the charts. However, was he happy? John is mad with longing for Yoko. He missed her catastrophically, painfully.
He wanted to return. Yoko did not accept him: “You are not ready to return yet” - Yoko was for John as Don Juan was for Carlos Castaneda. "She is a teacher. I am a pupil. She knew everything when I didn’t know a damn thing, when I was a man from nowhere.”
A year and a half later they met. And they never parted again. On October 8, 1975, John's 35th birthday, Yoko gave birth to his son. Lennon found peace: “I’m freer than ever and ready for new creativity.” They lived in unison - until that fatal shot in December 1980.

Passion for love or passion for outrageousness?
What united these two more? “Why doesn’t anyone believe that we just love each other?” Lennon laughed. “We just loved each other. - Yoko says now in rare interviews. “The rest is pop history.”

Bad boy

John Winston Lennon was by no means the pride of Quarry Bank School. The teachers all moaned as one - the boy was not only impudent, aggressive, extremely sloppy, but also very sarcastic. No one could make fun of it the way John could. During lessons, he entertained himself and his classmates by drawing pornographic pictures, and during breaks he smoked and pulled off girls' panties. Children from respectable families avoided him, but John was not bothered by this. How could such trifles worry a boy who was born during the bombing of Liverpool by German aircraft?

The easy approach to life seems to have been inherited from mom and dad. His parents separated shortly after the birth of the child. Why they got married - no one still knows. Julia managed to be late for own wedding, because on the way to the altar I decided to watch a movie. Four years later, her husband Alfred left in an unknown direction, having first, however, said a warm goodbye and promised to return someday.

Little John was taken in by Aunt Mimi. She and Uncle George had no children. Therefore, Mimi Smith had the most noble goals - to raise a gentleman out of a boy. But everything went to waste - her pupil was a born rebel. When neither screams nor threats helped, the aunt began to cry - and John took up his textbooks. But not for long. Mimi never approved of his guitar hobby. “The guitar is wonderful. But with her, you’ll never earn a piece of bread,” she grumbled. Then, when the Beatles become deafeningly popular, John will buy his aunt a huge mansion on the coast and decorate the hall with a marble plaque with these very words.

In the meantime, he leads a well-known gang of hooligans in Liverpool and welcomes his mother’s return with great joy. Still would! Her jokes and antics delighted all of John's friends. For example, Julia could easily appear with trousers on her head, making a kind of turban out of the trouser legs, and walk down the street with the most equanimous look. Her philosophy was in two words - “spit it and forget it”, and she and her son had great relationship. When John turned 19, Julia died in an accident - she was hit by a police car. An independent life began, which did not promise anything good. All John could see was a street gang, a poor shelter, a prison or a mental hospital.

The Beatles

There are such happy turns in life that people do not even dare to dream about. What is this? A gift of fate or a well-deserved reward? However, having inherited her life philosophy from his mother, John was unlikely to ask himself such questions.

When the Fab Four become the world-famous Beatles, John Lennon, in his characteristic manner, will declare that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. At 23, he had everything - world fame, millions, huge mansions with a hundred rooms. John, Paul, Ringo and George will be awarded medals British Empire, and this will be the reason loud scandal- Dozens of holders of the order will return their awards to the British government, sincerely not understanding how they can bestow such a high award on “the scum from the outskirts of Liverpool.” The British Prime Minister will be forced to postpone his visit to the United States - only because it coincided with the Beatles' tour, and against the backdrop of general hysteria, it could simply go unnoticed.

Touring turned into a conveyor belt, bringing them new millions, their songs became hits one after another. Young girls fight in ecstasy at concerts, and Mark David Chapman, who years later will empty his Colt at John, wears an “I am John Lennon” badge on his chest.

John first got married when his girlfriend Cynthia, a girl from a decent family, accidentally became pregnant. She was good loving wife, who never argued with him and meekly endured all his antics. However, the musician increasingly began to fall into depression. Absolutely everything irritated him, including his own creativity, and his natural sarcasm became cynicism. From rebels, the Beatles turned into the most ordinary inhabitants - quite prosperous and just as boring. John felt sad. And then Yoko appeared in his life.

And I love her

They met in London at Yoko's avant-garde exhibition, which Paul McCartney advised Lennon to attend. At that time, Yoko was in her second marriage. Her fate was quite unusual for a Japanese woman - the girl was willful and hard as flint from childhood. Against the wishes of her parents, she married a talented but poor composer, also Japanese. His career did not work out, but thanks to him, Yoko met New York avant-garde artists and decided that she should devote herself to this type of art. However, all her performances, happenings and installations evoke only wry smiles from critics. Yoko becomes depressed and repeatedly tries to take her own life. But faithful husband is always there to save her.

Yoko came from a wealthy and noble family, which did not need scandals at all. However, rumors about the adventures of the rebellious daughter reached Japan. Yoko is forcibly returned to her homeland and placed in a psychiatric clinic to be treated for depression. It was there that Anthony Cox, a great connoisseur of the young artist’s work, found her. He came to provide support. And he left, taking his wife to New York. There is interest in Yoko's exhibitions. And soon the couple has a daughter. It seemed that life was finally getting better. And then, like a bolt from the blue - John.

Their first meeting impressed Yoko much more than John. Returning home to his wife Cynthia, he shared with her his impressions of the opening day, calling it “fucking dregs.” But Yoko realized that this man was sent to her by fate itself. And she began to seek his attention by all possible and impossible means.

Her antics were quite in the spirit of the avant-garde. She could sit for hours at the gate of the Lennon house in Kenwood, looking for a reason to get inside. She bombarded John with threatening letters and demands for money. She sent short but thoughtful messages on postcards: “I am a cloud,” “Breathe and remember,” “Look at the lights until dawn.”

And one day she seriously scared poor Cynthia by sending her a package. The box of Kotex sanitary pads contained broken cup smeared with red paint. Yoko, without any embarrassment, could talk to Lennon on the phone for hours. They found many common themes: social injustice, the search for an artist and creative crisis, wars.

Meek Cynthia fell into a stupor from all this. And John was at first annoyed, then surprised, and then interested. And the day came when he finally understood why he was so attracted to this crazy Japanese woman. She had the firmness and purposefulness of his beloved Aunt Mimi and the slight foolishness of his mother - dear and unforgettable Julia, who with her antics could give odds to any avant-garde artists.

Yoko was seven years older than John. But this did not stop him from deciding that the aspiring artist needed his strong shoulder and practical advice. He was delighted and bewitched by her. What directness of judgment and independence from any opinions! And how she makes love! In the summer of 1968, John and Yoko began to live together. They spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam, inviting journalists to their bedroom, with whom they willingly talked without leaving their bed.

John began to bring his girlfriend to rehearsals, which caused a real storm of protest and indignation from the members of the quartet. Women at rehearsals was an unspoken taboo that no one broke. Such an unkind reception offended John to the core. Disagreements had been brewing in the group for a long time, which only worsened over time until they completely led to disintegration. The appearance of Yoko only accelerated this decay.

But they felt good together - so good that John never tired of repeating that he and Yoko had one soul between them. And even when registering the marriage, he replaced his middle name - Winston - with It. Their relationship, like the relationship of any other couple, was tested to its strength. But every time John returned. Critics noted with bitterness that John's songs were getting worse year after year, but he was not particularly worried about this. John Lennon turned from a rebel into an ordinary prosperous person - well-fed and happy with life. He loved the house and loved playing with his son Sean. And once he scolded journalists who dared to notice to him that he was under the excessive influence of Yoko.

“I live for myself, for her, for our baby... If this is unclear to you, then you don’t understand a damn thing. Everyone praises the Rolling Stones - that they have been together for 120 years. Hooray! They haven't divorced yet! And in the 80s they will start asking: “Listen, why are they still together? Can’t they do it on their own?” And they will show photographs of a skinny man who keeps twirling his ass, and four men with mascara on their eyes, who are all trying to look cool... Yes, they will soon become a laughing stock - they, not married couple who sings, lives, and creates something together!”

Shot

Mark David Chapman would have been an unremarkable person if not for his manic desire to be like his idol in everything - John Lennon, in whom, however, he was beginning to be disappointed. Chapman was also married to a Japanese woman and practically lived on her support - without money, without prospects, without work, and also suffered from schizophrenia.

All he had were John's old notes. The real John is a rebel, a bully, a daredevil and a romantic. The John he saw now was a traitor - well-fed and smooth. The idol turned out to be fake, which means it was time to overthrow it. But first I wanted to hear the answer to my question: “Is this true, John? You gave up?".

On December 8, 1980, Lennon left the house as usual. His head was filled with upcoming affairs, and, immersed in his thoughts, he did not pay attention to the man who took a step towards him. The killer called him by name - and a shot rang out.

You may say I am a dreamer

The life of John and Yoko was like one big happening: scandals, quarrels, attempts to take their own lives, treatment in psychiatric clinics, participation in all kinds of demonstrations, holding sit-down strikes, fighting for Indian rights...

Were these two happy together? Apparently yes. This was love - real, even if it did not fit into the framework generally accepted standards and performances. And then, standards in love - what could sound more ridiculous?

John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool. From 1960 to 1970 he was the lead singer of the Beatles.

Yoko (Yoko) Ono was born on February 18, 1933 in Tokyo. Yoko received a good education in Japan and the USA. In 1956, Yoko married Toshi Ichiyanagi, a talented but poor composer. Unsuccessful attempts to assert herself in America led the aspiring avant-garde artist to depression, suicide attempts, and ended with her parents taking their daughter back to Japan and placing her in a psychiatric clinic. From there, Yoko Ono was rescued by a fan of her work, Anthony Cox, who took her to the USA and became her second husband. In 1963, the couple had a daughter, Kyoko.

In the same 1963, a son, Julian, was born to the married couple John Lennon - Cynthia Lennon, who married in 1962.

Here's how John Lennon talked about his first meeting with Yoko:

“It was in 1966 in England. I was told that a Japanese avant-garde artist, who had come from America, was organizing a happening. I walked around the exhibition and saw a ladder, climbed up it to the ceiling, found a suspended pipe there, looked into it - feeling like an idiot - and read one word "Yes". And in those years it was considered avant-garde when a person smashed a piano or a sculpture into smithereens, in general, everything was anti-, anti-, anti-. Boring denial. And then I read this is “yes” and I decided to stay at this exhibition among nails and apples.

There was one inscription that piqued my curiosity: “Drive a nail.” I asked: “Can I drive a nail?” Yoko replied: “No, because the opening is scheduled for tomorrow.” But then the owner of the gallery approached her and whispered in her ear: “Let him knock it in. You know, he’s a millionaire. Maybe he’ll buy this exhibit later.” They began to whisper and confer. Finally she says, “Okay, you can hammer this nail in, but first you have to pay 5 shillings for it.” And so I say: "Okay. I'll give you an imaginary 5 shillings and drive an imaginary nail." That’s how our meeting happened, she felt something, I felt something, and the rest is, as they say, history.”

After this meeting, Yoko wrote in her diary that she had found the person she could love. Lennon began receiving postcards from her with short inscriptions: “Dance”, “Breathe”, “Look at the lights until dawn”... Yoko called him and delivered long monologues: about social injustice, the spirit of the times and herself, experiencing great creative difficulties in the avant-garde to the artist. Lennon listened to her extremely carefully. He was used to women who obeyed him. Yoko was completely different. He felt that he had to obey this Japanese woman who was 7 years older than him.

Lennon said this about his beloved:

"She is a teacher, and I am a student. I am a famous person who is thought to know everything, but she is my teacher, she taught me everything I know. She already knew everything when I didn’t know a damn thing, when I was a man from nowhere. She is my Don Juan [Castaneda's spiritual teacher]."

"Next to Yoko, I became free. Her proximity made me a whole person. Without her, I was only half."

Yoko said about her role in Lennon's life:

“Before meeting me, he had his own life experience, which I didn’t have, so I also learned a lot from him. It’s a mutual process: maybe the whole point is that I’m a strong person, I have a lot of feminine strength. Women develop this power in themselves - in their relationships with men. Women have an inner wisdom, while men have a different kind of wisdom: dealing with society - because they are the ones who created it. Men have never developed an inner wisdom: they have "They simply didn't have time. Therefore, most men rely on women's inner wisdom, whether they want to admit it or not."

Yoko Ono and John Lennon separated from their spouses and began living together in 1968. The following year, the Beatles broke up. Many blamed Yoko Ono for the group's breakup. Lennon began bringing his beloved to the band's rehearsals (although at the beginning of their career the Beatles agreed not to invite wives and girlfriends to the studio). Paul McCartney, seeing how Lennon's musical tastes were changing under the influence of Yoko Ono, began to take leadership of the group, which caused Lennon's displeasure.
Lennon's musical experiments began in the first year of his marriage with Yoko Ono, even before the breakup of the Beatles. In 1968, Ono and Lennon released the album Two Virgins. There was no music on it: the record contained a chaotic collection of noises, moans and screams. According to Lennon, the album was recorded in one night. Even more striking than the content was the album's design, which featured photographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Adam and Eve costumes.

Lennon spoke about Yoko Ono's influence on him at that point in his life:

“She made me become an avant-garde artist and take off my clothes, and at that time all I wanted to be was Tom Jones.

"Two Virgins" happened by accident. I realized that there is a crazy person like me in the world - a woman who can make such bizarre sounds, who can enjoy non-danceable and unpopular music, what is called avant-garde.

This is the only word that will work here, but I think that labels like avant-garde are self-refuting. Everyone is accustomed to avant-garde exhibitions. The very fact that the avant-garde can be exhibited contradicts the purpose of the avant-garde, since it becomes formal, turns into part of a ritual. I always perceived it only as variations on such a global concept as music."

Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol and John Lennon

The following year, 1969, Lennon and Ono again surprised the public. After their wedding, they went to Amsterdam and announced that they would conduct a “bedside interview.” Journalists, who decided that the star couple would publicly have sex, gathered at the hotel, where it turned out that Lennon and Ono, wearing white pajamas, decorating the hotel room with flowers, were sitting on the bed and talking about peace (it was at that time that the Vietnam War was going on ). The doors of the room were wide open around the clock. Any person from the street could enter them.

In 1971, John Lennon's album "Imagine" was released. The title track from the album became Lennon's most famous solo song. In 1971, the single "Imagine" reached number three on the US singles chart. In the UK, the single "Imagine" was released only in 1975 and reached number 6 in the charts. However, after Lennon's death in 1980, the single "Imagine" was released again in the UK and stayed at number one for 4 weeks until it was knocked off the top spot by another John Lennon song, "Woman". In 2002, a UK poll found "Imagine" to be the second greatest single of all time, behind Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

In the song “Imagine,” Lennon sets out his vision of an ideal world where people live for today, without hope of Heaven and without fear of Hell. There is no division into states and religions, no wars, no property, no concepts of “greed” and “hunger.” All people are brothers.
Later in the interview, Lennon said that the songs "Imagine" and "Love" could be put on par with any song that was made when he was a Beatle.

In 1973, Yoko Ono decided to break up with Lennon for a while in order to once again give both of them the opportunity to feel free and understand their feelings for each other. Yoko chose Lennon's Chinese assistant May Pang (born October 24, 1950), whom Lennon considered sexy, as his mistress, and sent them to Los Angeles, where they spent a year and a half. Lennon drank a lot at this time.

John Lennon and May Pang

Lennon describes his forced separation from Yoko Ono:

"When Don Juan said... when Don Ono said, 'Get away! You don’t understand anything!” - it was like being exiled to the desert. And she didn’t let me go back, because I wasn’t ready for this yet. I had to figure it out with myself. And when I was ready, she allowed me to come back.
In the early 70s we separated. She kicked me out. I suddenly found myself alone on a raft in the middle of the ocean. At first I thought: “Hurray! How great this is!!! I’ll live a bachelor life again. Hip-hip hooray!” But one day I woke up and a thought pierced me: “What’s wrong with me? I want to go home!” But she didn't want to take me back. That's why we lived apart for a year and a half, and not six months. We often talked on the phone, and I used to say: “I don’t like this life. I always run into trouble. I want to go home. Please take me back!” But she answered: “You are not ready to return yet.”

Judging by Lennon's subsequent statements, he loved May Pang, albeit with a different love than Yoko Ono.

Lennon spoke about life with May Pang:"I have never been so happy. I loved this woman."

The contradictory nature of Lennon's statements confirms that Yoko Ono was right and that temporary separation was indeed necessary for them. Lennon had to decide what was more important to him - inner freedom or life as following his guru - Yoko Ono. When Lennon made his choice in favor of the second option, Yoko allowed him to return. This happened in 1975. On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. John Lennon decided to devote himself entirely to his family for several years and sacrifice his creativity. John Lennon's next album, Double Fantasy, was released only in 1980. This disc was destined to become the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc.

John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980. After his death, the single "Woman" was released from the album "Double Fantasy". The single "Woman" reached number one in the UK singles chart, ahead of Lennon's other hit "Imagine". In the US, the single "Woman" reached number two on the charts.

Yoko Ono is still alive and continues her creative career.