“Powerful”: Yoko Ono on John Lennon’s simplest masterpiece
No one was a bigger John Lennon fan than Yoko Ono and no one was a bigger fan of Yoko Ono than John Lennon. After the couple met in November 1966, they were inseparable as they became partners in love, life and music, collaborating on work together and forever reshaping the sound of each other’s individual output. Ono encouraged Lennon to be more experimental and more daring, but still, the song she thinks is his most powerful is a simple one.
There is a tired and misogynistic subsect of music fans who still like to falsely claim that Yoko Ono split up The Beatles. That old argument ignores the fact that the band had been spiralling out of control for a while, marred by the death of their manager, a series of band business decisions, and ever-worsening relationships between the old friends. Instead, it lays blame on the shoulders of a woman who actually encouraged the band to push on into new and interesting places.
Long before Ono met Lennon, she was a name to note in the world of music and its convergence with performance art. She shared the same realm as John Cage, who was interested in the connection between sound and art. Ono had the same fascination, as many of her performance art pieces involved a concert audience and audio.
When Ono and Lennon met, he seemed interested in it too. There is no denying that a track like ‘Revolution 9’ would never have happened without the performance artist’s influence. Arguably, neither would any of Lennon’s more political pieces if it wasn’t for him meeting a woman who had always been invested in fighting for peace.
On the other side, Lennon influenced Ono to try her hand at more mainstream sounds, working together on rock albums like their duo project Double Fantasy, and releasing timeless tracks together like ‘War Is Over’.
They were each other’s biggest cheerleader, so for Ono to attempt to pick a favourite John Lennon song would be too difficult. She saw every side of him as an artist as well as a person, making it impossible to decide on a favourite version of her partner. But one track does stand out as particularly powerful simply because of its simplicity.
While the song is registered to the two of them, Ono admits that it was mostly her husband’s. “‘Give Peace A Chance’ is basically John’s idea,” she said, “I might have thrown some words in.”
The context of the track’s creation also adds to Ono’s love for the song as she recalled, “It happened spontaneously in the hotel room [Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel, during the 1969 Bed-In].” Following their wedding, the couple cast off a Honeymoon to instead hold a protest as they refused to leave their bed, once in Amsterdam and once in Montreal. During the time spent in the hotel rooms, they had press, friends and political figures visit them to discuss issues. They’d also call up politicians and spend time mailing acorns worldwide to be planted as symbols of peace.
During their Bed-In in Montreal, the idea for ‘Give Peace A Chance’ popped into their minds, so they invited figures like Allen Ginsberg, psychologist Timothy Leary, actor Dick Gregory and more to come and sing on the song, which was recorded by André Perry in their hotel room on 1st June 1969.
“I thought it was great,” Ono said, “But, you know, it’s a political song.” She compared it to one of his more introspective, artistic tracks, adding, “When John writes something extremely artistic like ‘Scared ‘, that’s a different story. I really admire it; it’s fantastic.” But to her, there is something so special about Lennon’s simple approach to politics.
“With ‘Give Peace A Chance’, it’s very important when you try to communicate on a very wide level,” she said. It’s the simplicity of the track that makes it impactful as she added, “You have to choose very simple but powerful words to get the message across.”
