New book about Yoko Ono reveals her artistic genius, gravitas, greatness

By Tom Siebert

When Yoko Ono was reluctantly thrust onto the global stage in the late 1960s, she was called “ugly,” a “screamer,” and the “dragon lady” who broke up The Beatles.

More than five decades later, winsome writer Madeline Bocaro sets the record forever straight in the epic, vividly detailed book, In Your Mind: The Infinite Universe of Yoko Ono, revealing John Lennon’s otherworldly half as a beautiful woman who could sing pretty songs, and on the contrary, wanted the Fab Four to stay together.

I was ready to read a 558-page book about Yoko after recently re-listening to 1980’s Double Fantasy and realizing that her seven songs on the Grammy-winning album were better than John’s seven, as she brilliantly reached into rock, new wave, American folk, Eddie Cantor, and Marlene Dietrich music.

I learned from Ms. Bocaro’s book that Ms. Ono’s musical skills were developed growing up in an aristocratic Japanese family, learning piano at the age of four, and later studying at prestigious Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.

Moreover, Mr. Lennon was not the first Beatle whom Yoko met. In the fall of 1966, she approached Paul McCartney on behalf of John Cage, asking if the avant-garde composer could use some of the song-writing duo’s lyrics for a book of music manuscripts.

Paul referred her to John, who a few weeks later, on Nov. 7, coincidentally walked into a London art gallery where Yoko was preparing an exhibit of her conceptual works. One of those art pieces was a ladder, which Mr. Lennon climbed atop and gazed into a magnifying glass pointed at the ceiling, where a small white canvas had the word “YES” written on it.

He was impressed with the positive message as well as the messenger, and within less than three years, on March 20, 1969, they were married, instantly becoming the most famous couple on the planet.

The multimedia crush was, well, crushing, and inspired them to hold a honeymoon “bed-in” at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel to protest the then-raging Vietnam War.

“Their lives were not their own,” Ms. Bocaro writes. “John and Yoko were messengers, using fame as a tool to promote peace and to give us hope.”

The horror and haunt of war had shaped each other’s world vision. John grew up playing in the Liverpudlian rubble of World War II, while Yoko’s family sheltered in a bunker during the apocalyptic firebombing of Tokyo in 1945.

The once-wealthy family faced starvation and was forced to beg for food, a circumstance that first fired her artistic imagination.

“The painting method derives from as far back as the time of the Second World War when we had no food to eat, and my brother and I exchanged menus in the air,” Yoko stated in an art catalogue from that fateful 1966 exhibit in London.

In Your Mind: The Infinite Universe of Yoko Ono also includes meticulously dated and described entries about her books, poetry, films, concerts, songs, albums, and recording sessions, in addition to pulled quotes from media articles and excerpts from the author’s own interviews.

Ms. Bocaro was smart in using real-time quotes in her book, rather than new interviews in which memories are faded, resentments are reconciled, and facts are reimagined.

The screaming, for instance, was not imagined. It stemmed from Ms. Ono’s childhood, when she became aware of the power of a woman’s voice and curious about her mother’s warning not to ever go near the family’s servants’ rooms.

But young Yoko went anyway, only to hear a conversation between two teenage girls, one of whose aunt had given birth the previous day, and she was describing the sounds women make when having a baby.

“There was a totally sanitized image about a woman, you know, they were supposed to be just pretty and make pretty noises,” Ms. Ono told The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, in 2016. “So I was scared, and I sneaked back to my room, but that really stayed with me. And years later, I started to create all sorts of sounds.”

Those sounds, while disturbing to some, reflected her feelings as a “disrespected woman,” Ms. Bocaro comments below that passage in her book, adding that Yoko then “began to carry the torch for the plight of all women.”

Popular music fans, who had grown accustomed to Mr. Lennon’s serrated singing voice, were introduced to the screaming stylings of Ms. Ono on “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow),” a song about her daughter, who was absconded by second husband Tony Cox, on the Live Peace in Toronto 1969 album.

Klaus Voorman, a longtime friend of John’s who played bass guitar at that concert as a member of the Plastic Ono Band, provides the book’s most trenchant quote about the fabled couple’s relationship.

“Up to the time Yoko came into the picture, John, even with all his success and money, was a frustrated, helpless creature,” said Mr. Voorman, who created the iconic cover of The Beatles’ Revolver album in 1966. “When Yoko appeared, he bloomed. It was an amazing thing to see. For him, that was the revolution.”

Indeed, Ms. Ono inspired Mr. Lennon to become a more visionary songwriter, pioneering male feminist, and fervent proponent of peace.

Critics of her music may be surprised to learn that she has had thirteen number one singles on the U.S. Billboard charts, influencing such artists as Pete Townshend, Elvis Costello, the B-52’s, Sonic Youth, and Meredith Monk.

On Dec. 9, 1980, John Lennon was shot to death by a deranged fan, as the couple were walking toward the entrance of their apartment home in the storied Dakota building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Since Mr. Lennon’s still-shocking death, Yoko, along with her son Sean and his stepbrother Julian, have preserved John’s music, messages, and legacy. She also has quietly given away millions of dollars to charities, hospitals, art museums, peace groups, environmental causes, and just friends in need.

The artwork of Ms. Ono, now 89, is still exhibited throughout the world. Her music still fills the global airwaves. And her Twitter feed is a proverbial daily devotional, from which Ms. Bocaro quotes generously in her magnificent book:

“Your fear is protecting you…There are no brick walls…Start with feeling love for the problem. You will then know what step you wish to take…Waves always return…No cloud can cloud us forever…Water is more valuable than gold…The child in you will save you…The light that shines on everything shines on you, too… Silence is the highest form of expression.”

John Lennon was anything but silent about his wife’s creative talent, saying she was as gifted as Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan “rolled into one.”

Ms. Ono remains an inspiration to anyone who has experienced foolish prejudice, unfair criticism, or unspeakable tragedy.

As Madeline Bocaro eloquently concludes: "Yoko is like a polished gemstone––radiating after years of abrasion."