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| Last 2 photos taken by Fred W. McDarrah |
I found this interview to be extremely interesting. What makes it interesting is that the interview takes place in October 1973, during the time that Yoko was performing at Kenny's Castaways and promoting her solo album. It was just a few days before Mind Games was released. What the interviewer, the great Joe Pope from the Strawberry Fields Forever fanzine, and the rest of the world didn't know was that John and Yoko had just separated, and John was in L.A. with May Pang while Yoko was in New York with Dave Spinozza. Although when Yoko says that John is in L.A. in this interview, it had to have raised an eyebrow or two because John and Yoko had never been away from each other like that before. I think it is pretty amazing that someone who wrote a Beatles fan magazine was allowed into the Dakota and was able to sit at the ktichen table with Yoko and had this conversation.
Strawberry Fields Interviews Yoko Ono
By Joe Pope
Strawberry Fields Forever
Issue #6
Yoko recently did a week at Kenny's Castaways in New York City in preparation for an upcoming tour. During the week, Strawberry Fields Forever was fortunate enough to be granted an exclusive interview with Ms. Ono. We sat for two hours in her kitchen among piles of groceries and pressing clips, and talked about music, her events, politics, Beatles, the women's movement, Nutopia, and her husband, John. Here's what she said:
Yoko: ... But you know, I especially like that song, "Strawberry Fields." I'm glad you picked that title instead of "Hello, Goodbye", you know.
JP: Well, we picked that title because Strawberry Fields is like the mythical Beatles heaven, and forever is when we want it to end.
Yoko: It probably will be forever. It'll just go on, you know, in their minds, at least.
JP: It's amazing how deeply involved in the Beatles a lot of people still are. I still know a lot of 24-hour-a-day Beatles fans. But anyway, let's talk about your new album.
Yoko: Yes.
JP: Oh, by the way, did you see the misprint on your album title in Rolling Stone?
Yoko: Yes, yes, I did.
JP: Did you wish you had thought of that title? It seemed to me to be a great misprint. They called it "Feeling in Space" instead of "Feeling the Space", and it made it sound like a Lennon pun on "Falling in Space." Didn't you wish you had used that title after you had seen it?
Yoko: Well, no, because "feeling the space" is a line from "Run, Run, Run", and that's the way I felt. Many people came up later with how about "filling the space", and I said.... it sort of became a running joke, but it was all right. "Feeling the Space" is good.
JP: Yeah. Yeah, I talked to Dave Spinoza about that last night, and he said he told you his idea for a male-chauvinist album was called "Filling the Space."
Yoko: Right, right, that was Dave's idea.
JP: Let me see. I've got a couple of questions written down here. Feeling the Space, along with the Approximate Infinite Universe, are both distinctly different from your earlier works. Both are albums which might appeal to a mass audience, while your other albums could only be enjoyed by people who had to work to understand what you were trying to say. Why have these last two albums been so different from your other things?
Yoko: Oh, is that a question? I thought you were reading from a review or something.
JP: I was. It was my own mini review!
Yoko: Yes. Yes, I don't see much difference, really. When I produced it, and I'm rather proud of the production end of it, since I did it myself, I felt that I should redo it very clean and tight, and with a sort of neat format. Also, make sure that every song had a different style of music to it, and just sort of making it into something that's very accessible in that scene, not just hard rock, because that would just appeal to hard rockers, and many of the middle American women are not into hard rock, and understandably so. I think that the hard rock scene is beautiful, but at the same time, there's something so serious about it. I mean, you know, they seriously fuck around, and they seriously drink, seriously sniff drugs, and seriously sing. It's all that,
JP: It's good that you're saying that, because there's one thing that many people have been saying about this album, that your sense of humor is finally starting to come out. There are four or five songs of puns and a Nixon thing and ....
Yoko: ... but you see, I'm surprised about people saying things about me that I have no sense of humor, because the whole idea of the Bottoms film or a Bed In and all that is all sort of like a put on, you know, a big big put on. I thought I was known for the put-ons, but when people want to criticize me, they would just use any means to do so, and that's understandable in a way. I've been attacked a lot, and I got sort of pissed off about it, but I went through that once and came out of it, and the most interesting thing is that the criticisms were so irrelevant. That's the thing that set me the most. I mean, if they said I was five foot two or something like that, I could accept it.
JP: Maybe the criticism was so irrelevant because so many people couldn't understand what you're trying to do. Maybe this time, if there's criticism, it at least be constructive criticism,.
Yoko: Maybe.
JP: ... because this time it's music that everyone can understand.
Yoko: Yes, but I thought Universe was like that, and also my early songs, like "Remember Love" and "Who Has Seen the Wind" all those little songs that were the B sides of the singles, I mostly sort of... They were pretty straight songs, straight in sort of an Andy Warhol fashion
JP: In a... what did you say? I didn't hear you.
Yoko: an Andy Warhol fashion, in that I was singing sort of intentionally off-key, you see. I come from the art world, and I feel a bit embarrassed about making a record with a singer... singing like a high school choir. It's very opera or something, so I thought a little off-key would be nice, but obviously, people didn't agree with me.
JP: You just mentioned a few minutes ago that you produced this album, and I noticed in the liner notes that you arranged it. I thought you hadn't had any formal music training.
Yoko: Well, I think among the pop writers, most of them can't even read scores, so from that perspective, formal is useless. I had classical music training for a long time, which helped immensely. "She Gets Down on Her Knees", for instance, is a very complicated arrangement, so just telling them the chords isn't enough. I had to write notes, and then I had to pass some along to the musicians, and the first thing they said was, "Did David write this?"
Producing albums and pretty major albums accompanying John, but still, people would think of John doing the production rather than me. So it's a very unusual situation when John and I produce an album; most people not only ignored the fact that I co-produced, but they even went so far as to say that John was a female chauvinist because he was giving credit to someone who didn't do anything.
JP: Paul was accused of doing the same thing with Linda when they co-authored some songs.
Yoko: Yes, so consequently, I had quite an incentive for doing the album, just to show them that I can do it.
JP: John has said several times, though, that he would have liked to produce much of his own stuff. "Power to the People" is one that I can think of offhand. He said he wanted to produce these things himself, but he couldn't play a note and then go back to the control room and fiddle with the knobs, and then come back and play again, because it loses the feeling. How did you get around that?
Yoko: Well, again, the incentive was there, and I wanted very badly to do the whole thing myself. One thing that got me a bit mad was that in most reviews of the album, they didn't even mention that I did produce it myself. I mean, if Ringo or somebody had produced their own records, you know, it would be mentioned, and I really did it alone, because I've seen John doing an album in the final stages, the mixing and all, and there are always so many people around, but when I mixed, Feeling the Space, there was not a soul around.
I think it has to do with the fact that...I don't know what it has to do with. (Yoko laughs) In other words, women do not get a lot of encouragement.
JP: Uh huh.
Yoko: ... and most men probably feel foolish to be sitting around while a woman is working.
JP: Yes, most men would.
Yoko: If a man is working, there are many men and women who would be happy to sit around and maybe give a little encouragement here and there. When John and I are producing, it's not that they don't sit around at all, but that they sit around John. When I'm working, I don't get men sitting around, but I don't get women sitting around either, because most women are at that point in their lives where they're terribly depressed and repressed, and they can't think of anybody but themselves. It's quite understandable. We have had our hands full of problems, every one of us.
JP: I heard several months ago that you were supposed to do a tour with an all-female band. Was there any truth to that, or was that just a rumor?
Yoko: Well, before I met the Plastic Ono Super Band, I called Jim Keltner, and I said, "Do you know any guitarists I can use?" And he said, "David Spinoza." So I called David, and he got all his friends, and the Plastic Ono Super Band came about like that. But before I met them, I was looking for a female band in order to record this album and to back me up on stage, and so, in order not to disappoint them and give them false hope, I told my assistant to go around to all these gigs and take a video film of them, and I would check them out.
It's very hard to find a female band that's really right there, or very versatile, because they were not given a chance to play that role. And then there was one female group who was very good, and I understand that they didn't want to back me up, because they said "We have our own songs, dear," and so being Yoko Ono made it very difficult to find a women's group, which is very interesting.
JP: There were several women's groups that have finally started to make waves, though, like Birtha and Fanny and.....
Yoko: Also, I think Isis, they're very good, extremely good, in fact.
JP: Aren't they the group with the brass section?
Yoko: Yes, I didn't know about them until very recently. I just sort of happened to go into this club and they were playing. But the point is, I think they would still rather play their own gigs rather than back me up, and I don't blame them. I really think that women, if they have any chance at all to express themselves, they should do it instead of backing someone up, or whatever. You know?
JP: Right.
Yoko: And if Isis can do it, that's fine, that's better. I wouldn't mind using Isis for a second act when I do something. That's something that I can think of, but it's very difficult at this point because it's a transition period, and I'm not really as liberated as you or anyone thinks. I'm just a person struggling, as the other sisters are, and trying to reach them because I'm struggling too.
JP: You said you wouldn't mind using Isis...
Yoko: ..as a second act.
JP: ...as second act. Well, someone told me that this gig may be a trial run for a Plastic Ono Super tour. Is there any chance of that?
Yoko: There is a Plastic Ono Band Super. I'm mean, Plastic Super... (Yoko laughs and pronounces her next words distinctly) a Plastic Ono Super Band tour idea, and I think that will happen, but I don't think I can take Isis for that. We're playing it by ear now, and when it happens, it happens. I don't know that you should even mention I'm thinking of Isis, because there might be many beautiful groups that I don't know about yet....
JP: Yes.
Yoko: ...that are formed by sisters. I guess I would like you to point out that I was impressed by Isis, but that was just it. For this tour, I don't think I could use any second act because of financial reasons.
JP: It sounds like that even though some of the details have to be worked out, the tour is definite.
Yoko: I don't want to say anything definite, but well, we're planning on one.
JP: It sounds at least approximately definite.
Yoko: Yes. Yes! (Yoko laughs)
JP: I sure hope there's a tour. Everyone keeps talking about touring, but no one ever seems to do it. Paul says he wants to come to America. George is always talking about touring. Now, maybe Ringo...
Yoko: Yes.
JP: If the tour does happen, will your old man be going with you?
Yoko: Hmmmmm?
JP: John!
Yoko: Right now, I think it's.... I think he's in a different place, and that's fine too. I don't think a couple should try to impose each other's plans; it's unhealthy.
JP: Why hasn't he been to Kenny's Castaways the last few nights?
Yoko: Simply because he's in LA doing an album.
JP: Oh, I didn't know that. I thought that album had been completed.
Yoko: Yes. He's making another one with Phil Spector.
JP: Wow, that's fast. You mean another one after Mind Games?
Yoko: Yes, that's a great album, but the one he's making now with Phil Spector sounds very exciting. Mind Games, I think, will be bigger than Imagine, but I'm already looking forward to hearing the new one. He has very many interesting players, names of which I don't know, and wouldn't know anyway, and it's oldies, you know.
JP: That's great! John's always been a great rocker!
Yoko: Hard rock oldies, and that's great because that's something he's always wanted to do.
JP: Yeah! I read an interview by John the other day, and he kept bringing up "Some Other Guy" by Gene Vincent over and over again, like it was some sort of sacred hymn. I hope that he finally gets a chance to record that the way he'd like to do it. Getting back to your album, though, would you say you're satisfied with it at this point?
Yoko: Well, when you finish an album, yes, I was very satisfied, but when I finish an album, by the time it gets out, I'm on to something else.
JP: Most artists experience a sort of down after the release.
Yoko: Yes, but we try to get around that. You notice that there are four songs that I'm singing in the gig that are not on the album, and there are many more new songs every day in my mind, so I'm already concerned about the new songs, and I'll be recording many of them soon.
JP: So soon? It seems like you're both getting really energetic. It's been about 18 months since...
Yoko: Well, I don't know what to do with them. I don't want to shelve my songs, so I record them.
JP: Yes, but it's been how many? Seven, eight months since Universe, and 18 months since Imagine, and now you're both doing two in a row.
Yoko: It's not really like that. There's always about a seven-month lapse. I mean, you have to think in terms of when it was written or when it was recorded, because you see, you write it and bring it to a recording studio, and for some physical reason, it can't be recorded immediately, and then you finally record it and remix it, and by the time it gets out in the record stores, it's three or four months again. It appears to be like that, but I recorded Feeling the Space in June.
JP: In June?
Yoko: Yes, so you can see what I mean.
JP: But Mind Games, John's new album, I thought that was recorded only a few weeks ago.
Yoko: Yes, that was very fast, but you know now we're both doing something we like, and it's great.
JP: One thing that really stands out about this album is the lyrics. What about "Yellow Girl"? Is that autobiographical?
Yoko: Yes, yes, they all are, actually. I don't know of any other life.
JP: Uh, huh. So, who is Sally Kegley in "Women of Salem"?
Yoko: That's me too!
JP: That's you too?
Yoko: Yes.
JP: Is that you as you see yourself now, or is that you in a previous life?
Yoko: Could be either way, I suppose.
JP: There's one line in "Yellow Girl" that really struck my mind. "My life is sharp as knife, but remember, it cuts both ways." What did you have in mind when you wrote that?
Yoko: My life all the way.
JP: And it cuts both ways?
Yoko: Yes.
JP: Ah, I'm afraid I still don't understand that part.
Yoko: Well, everything is double-edged.
JP: That's true. The impression I got was that everything you did, besides having an effect on the outside world, also affects you, and affects just as deeply your own personal inside world.
Yoko: True. And if you have a life that's double-edged, that's the only statement I can make about that. Actually, it's like if you're strong, then you get a lot of pressure from just being strong, and therefore you become very weak, vulnerable, and all that. If you stand up and get hit, and if you sit down, you rot; everything is double-edged.
JP: "Growing Pain" is interesting in an autobiographical sense, too. The first half seems to describe you, and the second half seems to describe John as you see him. Is that true? Is that about you and John?
Yoko: Not necessarily. It's just about a man and a woman, that's all.
JP: Yes, but there are several lines that seem to fit you both exactly, like for instance, "I'm a sphinx", and you're a sphinx on the cover of the album, and "He was an infant blinded by his mother's sorrow", and everyone knows about John's unhappy childhood.
Yoko: Anyway, you interpreted, I guess.
JP: Another thing struck me as I was reading through the lyrics last night. Are you familiar with the Rubber Soul album by The Beatles?
Yoko: No.
JP: Good. I was hoping you'd say "no". Well, on that album is one of John's most blatantly sexist songs, called "Run for Your Life."
Yoko: Oh?
JP: And it's one of the few songs in which he mentions death and the death theme seems to run through all your work, both in your art events and your music. The chorus to "Run, Run, Run" on your new album is that same phrase, "Run for your life". Is there any connection?
Yoko: (Yoko seems pleasantly pleased at the connection between her and John's song.) No, I hadn't thought of it.
JP: In fact, I may have been pulling things out a bit too far, but there's a line in "Run for Your Life" that goes, "Run for your life if you can, little girl, hide your head in the sand, little girl", and it says here, "Run for your life. I came out of the darkness", which could mean he came along and took your head out of the sand, like....
Yoko: Wow, that sounds like AJ Weberman! Now, I mean, look, I really don't relate to it at all. It's almost like saying I use the word "come" and Chuck Berry used the word "come", so there's a connection, that kind of thing.
JP: Uh, huh.
Yoko: It's totally something that happened by chance, but it's interesting. It's an experience I had when I was a child. Once I was in the garden, and it suddenly became very dark, and I started to run, and went home, and when I ran inside the house, nobody was home. It was very frightening. It was just that.
JP: Uh, huh. There may not be any connection there. I didn't think there would be, in fact. But there is one line in another song. Let me see if I can find it, because I didn't write this down, but it's an obvious cross reference to a Dylan song. Here it is in "She Hits Back", which is the first song on the album in which John O'Cean appears. "She's been taking Memphis Blues all her life." Is that any reference to Dylan ?
Yoko: I don't really know his songs, though I respect him very much. "Blowing in the Wind" is the only one I really know. What is it in reference to?
JP: The line is, "Oh, Mama, could this really be the end to be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again?"
Yoko: That's very interesting, but I meant Memphis blues as sort of a double take of blues and blues pills.
JP: Uh, huh. John O'Cean, I imagine is someone we've already met before in a previous incarnation. Why did he use a pseudonym?
Yoko: Oh, well, he has to; he has a contract. If he plays or performs, then this record would be treated as a Beatles record, and I would get less commission.
JP: Wow, I was wondering about that, because ...
Yoko: So I said, "How about Ocean?" If I had a child, I'd want to name him Ocean, my next child, that is.
JP: Are you familiar with "Julia", the ocean child from the White Album?
Yoko: Yes, that ocean child was me, because of my name. Yoko means "ocean child."
JP: I was under the impression that Julia was about John's mother.
Yoko: Yes, Julia means ocean child, but Yoko does too!
JP: What about "Men, Men, Men"? As I listened to that the other night at Kenny's Castaways, I got the impression that you were giving the women's movement a little poke, because...
Yoko: Why was that?
JP: Well, the lyrics and the way you sing it.
Yoko: I was under the impression that I was giving a little poke to men!
JP: Yeah, but it seems...
Yoko: It's a reversal situation, isn't it?
JP: Yes, but even though the roles were certainly reversed in the lyrics, you sort of camped it up a bit, and did a bump and a ring, and it was like, um...
Yoko: You don't have to be so prudential about the feminist movement, we're all human too. I mean, I have sexual drives too, and...
JP: Yes, but...
Yoko: I don't think the answer is to go back to the Puritan concept for women or people.
JP: I agree with that completely. The feminist movement shouldn't be prudential, but it is, especially where the male sex drive is concerned. I heard a comedian the other night doing a bit about how he didn't know what to do, because he's trying so hard all his life to be hip. In the 50s and 60s, he followed Lenny Bruce and fought for the repeal of the pornography laws, just so he could look at all those dirty books and still be cool. And now that pornography is, for all practical purposes, legalized. Now the women's movement comes along and tells him he's a pig if he reads that sexist trash, so he's back where he started. He's extremely uncool if he looks.
Yoko: Yes, yes, that's great. I believe the sexual habits should be left up to the individual. If the woman would be free from repression and all that, and if man would be free from taking that role of being a man in society, I think our sexual habits would change considerably. I don't know what it's going to be like. It might be that the women would enjoy pornographic books, or maybe men would get turned off by it because they've had enough of it. I don't know what it would be like, but things would sort of fall in place. Things would be different. Now there is such an opposite situation that would not happen.
JP: Right? You know, it seems like the women's movement is bringing those poles further apart right now, but they're doing it in such a way that eventually they'll have to end up much closer together, much the same way that when pornography laws are repealed, there is suddenly a dramatic increase in the sales for the first few months, and then it would taper off and settle back down to normal. It seems like, I mean, I hope that's what the women's movement will eventually do.
Yoko: It was so funny. The other day, I was talking to Allen Ginsberg, saying it's really amazing, because I don't walk on the street so much these days. So, I decided to do that, and so I started to take a walk, and it's a very enlightening experience After five years...., I was walking with a girlfriend of mine, and we got all this "Hey baby" and wolf whistles and all that, I thought, "Oh, is this what women are still going through?"
So I said, "Oh Allen, you know what they're going through, they're still going through the 'hi baby' and all that," and he said, "Well, nobody ever calls me 'hi baby', nobody says I'm pretty, and nobody whistles when I'm walking." And I just realized that men are really dying for it!
JP: Right.
Yoko: Men are dying for attention, they're resent women for it. Oh, those sickening battles.
JP: If I got whistled someday, I'd remember it for the rest of my life!
Yoko: You know what I mean, then.
JP: Every male knows what you mean.
Yoko: So, I thought "I bet Allen Ginsberg never got a wolf whistle in his life, and if he did, the whole situation would be different, and his poems might be different."
JP: Right.
Yoko: And I thought about that for a while. It's very interesting.
JP: Let's get back to the album for just a minute, and then we'll move on to some other things. You got a little help from your friends..
Yoko: The musicians were a great help. They're really nice people. In the beginning, they were a bit nervous. I called David, to be fair, and told him that John was not going to be on the session. I said, "I had to tell you that because you're coming all the way from LA", and he said, "Okay, that's fine." I had to tell him, because everybody gets nervous if Mrs. Lennon is doing it. But Dave called back, and he said: "John might not be in the session, and he was afraid they might lose direction, but he was willing to come and see." That's the kind of thing people might take for granted that would be said about me. I'm a composer who's been composing for such a long time, and can you imagine, say Stockhausen or Lamont Young calling up a musician and saying, "Well, my wife isn't coming, but is it all right?" Would the musicians say, "Well, in that case, I'm afraid we'll all lose direction." I was startled, but then I had to remember, yes, I am Mrs. Lennon, and that's just the way it is.
JP: Speaking of the musicians on the album, why did you list so many of their phone numbers?
Yoko: Well, they're not necessarily real phone numbers,
JP: Oh, they aren't?
Yoko: Some of them are. I just left it up to them. The idea, though, is that they're like call girls with their measurements and phone numbers and all that,.
JP: Right.
Yoko: It's another, another reversal situation, and they've got a great kick out of it. The ideas of it, all the musicians were really helpful. Dave was a bit nervous at first, but once you get into doing music, well, music is a language that brings people together.
JP: Why is John listed as six foot eight?
Yoko: That's what he wanted to say.
JP: That's what he wanted to say?
Yoko: In fact, I left it completely up to the musicians. Each one said exactly what he wanted to say.
JP: I thought "Street Talk" was supposed to be released as a single.
Yoko: Yes, yes, I thought that too. But then I finally made it into "Men, Men, Men." It was initially "Women Power", but then I changed it to "Woman Power". I thought it had a sense of humor, but somehow people took it too seriously.
JP, I sort of like that one. It's the one where your sense of humor comes out the most.
Yoko, I think so. Yes.
JP: Which is something that any movement has to have, any movement at all. On the cover of Ms. this Month, there's a cartoon that says, "Does the women's movement have a sense of humor?"
Yoko: Well, I really don't regard myself as a representative of the movement or even being in the movement actively. I really think that I'm just a woman who's trying very hard to reach people, and I think most women in the movement are like that. I'm just trying to define myself and distinguish myself from the women who believe in the politics of the women's movement. I don't believe in politics so much.I think that's the side that kills any movement.
JP: You don't believe in politics, but I noticed on the way here that this isn't Yoko Ono's apartment or the Lennon's apartment, but it's the Nutopian Embassy. You've got a very nice bronze plaque on the door.
Yoko: Yes, but that's not political, that's just an event.
JP: Well, it's political in a sense.
Yoko: Yes, but when I say, when I say politics, I'm talking about the establishment politics that they create.
JP: Yeah, but anything is essentially politics, whether it's the Nutopian Embassy or attracting wolf whistles as you walk down the street.
Yoko: Yeah, right.
JP: You know the first time I've heard of your Nutopian event. Well, it was last spring. I had come to New York because I'd heard that you and John were doing a telethon with Geraldo Rivera.
Yoko: Oh, that was a rook. What a job.
JP. Right? I came down to see you, and it turned out your segment of the telethon was prerecorded, and to top things off, you were in Boston that same weekend, which is where I live.
Yoko: Oh, that's too bad.
JP: So we crossed tracks. If I could, I'd like to ask you a few personal questions.
Yoko: Yes, go right ahead.
JP: What happened with Kyoko?
Yoko: I don't know. I gave up on it. I just feel that if she wants to reach me, she will. She's 10 years old now. The time that I had known her, she was only five, so I think she has to grow into someone who was very much herself. She'll get in touch with me when she's ready.
JP: Someone brought this up last night, lots of people are wondering about Julian. When was the last time John saw Julian?
Yoko: That's sort of the same scene.
JP: Right, but no one mentions that in the press --that John is having the same trouble with Julian. They can't see each other either, since John can't leave the US.
Yoko: Yes, but I don't think it's really trouble in either case, because if we really wanted to devote ourselves to the children and seeing them, we probably would have done something about it, except that consciously we were more interested in our own lives, and people might consider that as being a bit selfish, but you have to be realistic about it. Cynthia is very devoted to Julian, and my ex-husband is very devoted to Kyoko, and truthfully, neither John or I is that devoted, and that was the reason we lost contact with them. We have a sort of spiritual communication, a mental communication with them, and I'm talking about a level of ESP. You don't lose that. I guess we're not mature enough, or I don't know what the reason is, but at this time of our life, we're more interested in doing what we can do about ourselves.
JP: What about John's immigration status now? The fight in the courts, how does that stand?
Yoko: That's sort of up in the air, but the Watergate thing certainly helped us. I mean, not legally, but feeling-wise. I think it's going to be all right, but we don't know. We're just crossing our fingers.
JP: How did you happen to end up at the Watergate, anyway? Was it just for that reason?
Yoko: No, we just wanted to see an historical event, that's all.
JP: I read one quote that said you just happened to be in the neighborhood, just happened to be in Washington, so you thought you'd drop in.
Yoko: Well, it was almost like that; it was very casual.
JP: One thing that may help John's situation is that the law that he was convicted on may be repealed and made ineffective retroactively, in effect, wiped off the books. Tell me, what's happened to Apple? Has it just ceased to exist?
Yoko: No, no, it's just in London now. They decided that it wasn't worth having a New York office, that's all.
JP: That seems incredible. I mean, Apple artists still sell millions of albums.
Yoko: Yes, but that part Capitol does it. Simply, it wasn't that practical financially. The New York office was really eating money.
J.P.: Why did you choose to play Kenny's Castaways, by the way, when you could have filled a much bigger hall?
Yoko: Well, I don't know. It's just that the space was fascinating. I'm very concerned about space,
JP: and feeling the space..
Yoko: Right, right, and it was a nice space to feel.
JP: Do you know anything about the production of Sergeant Pepper that John is trying to stop?
Yoko: Oh, he's not trying to stop it.
JP: He's not?! I read that he and Paul were both trying to stop it!
Yoko: I think Paul is mainly interested in trying to stop it.
JP: And John's not trying to do anything at all?
Yoko: No.
JP: Well, is he in favor of it then?
Yoko: Well, he thinks if they do a good job, it might be interesting,
JP: Great! That's about it, Yoko. Unless you'd like to quickly sum your feelings about Feeling the Space and what the album, and in particular the concept of the album, means to you.
Yoko: Well, I'd like to say that the first side is mainly different songs singing about what it is like in the male society, like "Coffin Car", "Yellow Girl". Those are all different rituals that we all go through as women in society, and the second side is hitting back in a way. I have sympathy for the musical arrangement too, so that one song can't come after another, even if thematically it's right, because musically it might not be right. So "1000 times yes" might not be hitting back, but it's still a range like that. I really feel that the only thing we can do is try to communicate and reassure one another. I used to think we were struggling to get somewhere, and now I think we're just struggling. That's life. We're not struggling to be something. We are.
JP: Several minutes ago, you said that you didn't think middle-class women could identify with hard rock and roll, but Advance Release said that this album was going to be strictly hard rock. What happened? There's only one rocker on the album, and even that's...
Yoko: Well, "Straight Talk" is a bit of a rock, and "She Hits Back" is a slow rock. There are a few, but you're right. I don't go for one type of music. I like to think in terms of all types, because music is just a form of communication, and that kind of snobbery in each field of music is kind of silly. It has to be rock, or it has to be jazz.
JP: One thing that stands out, and I'm sure everyone who listens to this album will notice right away, is that you don't scream on this album. I noticed the other night, after the second song, you said "I'm just going to sing tonight because I know no one came to hear me scream."
Yoko: (Yoko laughs.) Well, I guess I've done a lot of screaming.
JP: Haven't we all?
Yoko: It's just the time of my life when I want to talk more than scream.
JP: How would you compare a work like this to something like the flip side of Live Peace in Toronto, which I think was ...
Yoko: That was all right.
JP: Most of it was "Don't Worry, Kyoko", I believe.
Yoko: "Don't Worry, Kyoko" is all right. Sometimes I still feel like doing "Don't Worry, Kyoko", but in those days I was more ambitious in order to widen the scope of music, or whatever. I was experimenting with voice, using voice as another instrument. These days I'm getting less intellectual about....
JP: Less intellectual?!!
Yoko: Yes.
JP: Well, maybe less intellectual as far as broadening the horizons of music goes, but certainly more intellectual in the sense that...
Yoko: You see, I have so many writer friends that they're all stuck because they can't write anymore, and so I said, "Why don't you write detective stories instead of thinking the next piece has to be the masterpiece of your life?" You start to write a detective story, then you relax a little, and then you get into something instead of not being able to write a line. Because they think it's so serious, and it's like the old situation from Camus in The Pest, where a guy's been writing one line all his life, changing it around, but finally he burns it before he dies, and that's very sad. It's very comic to be that serious and pop songs do that for me. I used to think, " Oh, it's only a pop song", but I started to write, and I can write a lot, and some of them are quite good. Whereas when I was dealing with 12-tone, I always thought I'm always thinking the next one will really be it. I used to write songs that were too hard for anybody to sing, and I used to think that's going to widen the scope of music. My music teacher was saying that the history of music was made by composers who dared the musicians to play something that's complicated, too complicated for them to play, but when you compose it, they reach that point. That's how it developed. I was in the classical music field when I heard something. I said, "Right, right, that's where it is", like Schubert, some fantastic things where the violins and musicians will really play, and that's it. That intensity I need, that intensity, I have to get that out. I was really thinking, in the old days, I was dealing well. I think of artists as counterfeiters, in the sense that they are duplicating life, and in the old days, I was interested in making $100 bills and circulating them among 20 people. These days, I'm interested in making dimes and nickels, and they circulate more, and you can still put yourself into it. I'm enjoying that position too. The tarot cards tell me that for the past 10 years, I was in the position of a martyr, the cross, and the next 10 years, I'll be in the position of a fool, which is great, a fool that walks around.
JP: Maybe that's why there's so much humor in this album. It's the first step.
Yoko: And as I'm in this little gig, you know, this little nightclub, that's how the fool starts to walk around. You're right, it's the first step, and it's a good thing.
JP: Yeah, it's a good thing.
Yoko: Yes.
JP. While we're on the subject of pain, at least we were a few minutes ago, have you had any contact recently with Dr. Janov...
Yoko: No.
JP: ...in California, because there's another line here. As I glanced down at this lyric sheet.
Yoko: Oh great, what is it?
JP: In "Growing Pain". Well, first of all, when people speak of growing pains, it always suggest an eventual maturity. "Growing Pain" seems to be saying that you both reach that plateau, at least to some extent, and I somehow associate that song with your relationship with Dr. Janov.
Yoko: I have a few things to say about that, because when I saw the title "Primal Scream" at the Goodwill Center, I noticed it. That's how I read it. I was screaming in my artwork, and I was screaming all the time, and that was a form of art I was dealing with. So, it was interesting that someone else was into screaming as well. So, in a way, I was dealing with pain as screaming before I met Dr. Janov. Dealing with it in my artwork, so it wasn't much of an influence. In fact, it helped me out of it and helped me to clarify and reassure me as to what I was getting into before I met John. If you read Grapefruit, you'll see that all of the instructions or recipes inevitably deal with pain and screaming.
JP: That's interesting that you use the same form as an art form that Dr. Janov used as a therapy.
Yoko: I know it was very interesting in that sense, but it was getting to be too much like a religious experience, like all the disciples were around him, just being awed by him, one of those things.
JP: Uh-huh.
Yoko: And I'm always suspicious, suspicious of religion.
JP: You know, maybe you can combine those two schools of thought to paraphrase what you just said a minute ago. Art imitates life.
Yoko: Yes.
JP: and in this case, art can be therapy, so even though Primal Scream doesn't appear to imitate life, maybe symbolically it does, and that might be the best form of therapy. Of course, if that's true, then therefore all artists need therapy.
Yoko: (Yoko laughs). Yes, that's why I'm saying I don't believe in politics, but I'm doing all these things that are sort of rituals and therapies, it's artistic therapy, and a therapy can bring about an easier life. It's as simple as that. When I wrote Grapefruit, the first statement I made was that, because they wanted to know why I wrote it, I said it was just a solution in order not to go insane, and it's very difficult not to go insane in this society. I mean, you need a ritual to prevent it, to prevent going insane.
JP: Right.
Yoko: Most people are gradually going insane.
JP: How do you mean we need a ritual? What do you mean by that?
Yoko: A ritual for therapy, call it therapy then, if you want to use a different word, you could say you need therapy to prevent yourself from getting too neurotic, saying that we need rituals or therapy, it's the same thing.
JP: In one of John's songs, he says that he doesn't believe in rituals anymore.
Yoko: He certainly does! He might not believe in established rituals.
JP: Right.
Yoko: But when he was saying "I don't believe in this, and I don't believe in that", they were all established rituals he used to believe in.
JP: What did he find to take the place of the established rituals he used to believe in?
Yoko: Well, you can't just name it, then it would be established.
JP: Right. Well, I guess that just about does it.
Yoko: Good, I enjoyed it.
JP: Thanks very much, and I hope to see you again soon. Hopefully, on one of those stops on your tour. If you tour, I know we'll see each other then.
Yoko: Yes, that would be great.
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