Were John Lennon and Yoko Ono the power couple we thought they were?
John and Yoko. Lennon and Ono. You don’t even have to give their full names to recognise one of the greatest power couples in all of music history.
The Beatle and his artistic muse became so enraptured in each other’s orbit, and so famously in the glare of the public eye, that they almost couldn’t be separated as two distinct people. Put simply, their relationship was so powerful, so magnetic, and yet in some ways so toxic, that it could never be fully pulled apart and dissected.
On the face of it, they were a partnership that stood for beacons of peace, plastered their faces to causes in aid of the greater good, and became sonic powerhouses, but was that really all just a ruse, a publicity stunt, or a means to cover up the truth – the answer isn’t as clear-cut as you might expect.
Like any marriage played out in public, it was only natural that Lennon and Ono were not the picture-perfect partners that everyone wanted them to be – there is a certain level of understanding about that, but with well-known accusations dating as far back as 1968 that Lennon allegedly triggered a miscarriage in Ono from beating her, the cracks were definitely chasmic.
But nevertheless, the couple were married in Gibraltar in 1969, and the world fawned over their images, as the latest mainstream romantic idols that everyone who was anyone pined to replicate. Here was one of the most famous pairings on Earth, but their love was far from a plain-sailing ride.
It was in 1973, two years before the birth of their son Sean, that Ono first reported marital problems to her and Lennon’s shared assistant, May Pang. Yet what no one could have predicted was the solution she came up with next – to make her own husband have an affair with that very same woman and effectively send them off in exile to LA for two years until she called them back.
Having an avant-garde approach to life, to put it mildly, was something largely written into Ono’s DNA as an artist, but to extend this to the complexities of her own life was a different kettle of fish entirely. Yet even still, it was beyond many people’s beliefs that the marriage was reconciled; they had their son shortly after they got back together, and they were on even keel again.
Of course, it was other aspects of life that got in the way during the final five years of Lennon’s life, what with a career decline and seemingly a lack of artistic ambition until it was almost too late. Double Fantasy was the sonic representation of a couple who were absolutely stronger together in both a professional and private context – but then, he was gone.
That obviously signalled the end of the story in a lot of respects, but only really in the sense of Lennon’s physical life on Earth. If there is anything Ono has made sure of in the decades that have followed, it’s that her husband’s legacy and memory have never been diminished by anything they may have endured behind the scenes.
But then again, some four-and-a-half decades on now from Lennon’s death, the web of privacy she sought to build at the time has shown certain signs of unravelling. Paul McCartney revealed recently that she speculated to him at the time of the Beatle’s passing that he could have been gay or bisexual, but simply didn’t have the experience of being romantic with men to ever properly explore it.
It goes without saying that no one, not even Ono, will ever be able to fully figure out whether this was truly the case or not, but even this slight lifting of the lid proves that the pair’s relationship was a lively, writhing can of worms. To start a new speculative chapter on a musical icon who has been dead for 45 years feels wrong, but when that comes from the woman who was closest to him, it certainly says a lot about the type of relationship they had.
Artists can be renowned for trouble in their romantic lives, with Lennon being far from the only example on that front. Yet even now in her elderly age, Ono is still intent on maintaining an enigma surrounding the love of her life: unfaithful, unpredictable, and unknowable as he may have been. Ultimately, John and Yoko were no power couple. They were as complex as they come – but that’s just how they wanted to be.
