I was the perfect age for the Beatles. When the Fab Four first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, I was ten and at a sleepover at Liz Goldberg’s house. We turned on the TV, lay on her mother’s bed, and screamed and kicked our legs, along with millions of other American girls.
Later we had Beatles parties where everyone chose their favorite Beatle. Most girls chose Paul, the doe-eyed “handsome one.” I always chose Ringo to be different. Beatlemania.
Our first junior high dance started with girls and boys standing on opposite sides of the gym. When “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” the first song, played, some brave boys crossed the gym to ask girls to dance. It was followed by “I Saw Her Standing There.”
And so it went. Every new album release was the background music to a different stage of my life. The “Sargeant Pepper’s Summer” saw us dropping acid.
All this a prelude to David Sheff’s new biography “Yoko.” It’s not an understatement to say she was, for a time, the most hated woman in America. The only one I can think of that come close are Glenn Close’s bunny-boiling character in “Fatal Attraction
According to Sheff and now well-documented, Ono was not responsible for breaking up the Beatles, as many claimed, not a Svengali who lured Lennon away . In fact, when Lennon met Yoko, whom he pursued, he was depressed and unhappy with being in the band.
True, the other Beatles didn’t welcome her because, among other reasons, John insisted on having Yoko at every rehearsal and included her in all band decisions ( she was prone to making all decisions through repeated reading of Tarot cards). Undisputedly, however, she was the target of widespread misogyny and racism.
Both John and Yoko had sad childhood which meant a sense of connection for them .Yoko was the daughter of a cold, aristocratic mother. Lennon's parents separated when he was four and he ended up living with his Aunt Mimi. His father was largely absent.
Sheff’s book is meticulously researched revealing aspects of John and Yoko’s life and art that may be unknown to readers. But it’s essentially a love letter to Yoko. For both her conceptual avantgarde art and her singing, he has nothing but praise. It amounts to hagiography.
I admittedly am not a fan of avantgarde art so I can’t assess that. But I do remember shuddering at what many called Ono’s “caterwauling.”
Sheff’s perspective might be explained by the fact that he has had a close, personal relationship with Ono since doing the last interview with her and Lennon before Lennon was shot.
He also dispassionately recounts the fact that Yoko abandoned her older daughter, Kyoko, and left the care of Sean to John. She was always too busy.
It’s all there: the bed-in, the heroin period, and the assasination, still chilling to this day. Sheff describes in painful detail how the long period of tribute to Lennon, during which fans gathered outside the Dakota, where the couple lived, and played John’s songs for hours on end, was agony to Ono.
In later life, Ono, now 92, has gotten validation from the art and music world and became an icon to feminists the world over and an eminence gris in the anti-war movement. Now 92, she reportedly lives a largely private life. It’s been hard-won.