The Beatles solo album George Harrison never listened to: “That was his and her affair”
Following their psychedelic peak in 1967, the atomising splinters that began to fracture The Beatles‘ collaborative unity began with pace once John Lennon found his creative and political muse in Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono. While their coupling has been plagued with misogynistic clichés about Ono breaking up the band, their mutual spark indeed accelerated the cracks already emerging in the band, inspiring each other to immerse themselves in the cultural radicalism that would define their early 1970s beyond the need of being a Beatle.
Shortly before recording the double The Beatles LP, Lennon and Ono collaborated on an experimental LP at his Kentwood home studio. They’d met two years earlier at her Unfinished Paintings exhibit in London’s Indica Gallery, struck by her work’s simple affirmation of positivity when engaging with Ceiling Painting/Yes Painting, featuring a small step-ladder and a magnifying glass to view the words “yes” on the ceiling.
After constant correspondence and initial professional support, Lennon soon became smitten, sneaking in a lyrical ode to his growing passions when penning ‘Julia’, “Ocean child calls me”, referencing the Japanese translation of “Yoko”.
While his wife Cynthia was away on holiday for two weeks in May 1968, Lennon invited Ono to his Surrey home and spent all night in his attic crafting musique concrète tape loops from noise collages already assembled and demoed previously. Adding screaming, improvised chat, amplifier feedback, birdsong, and two 78rpm discs of old 1920s big band recordings, the pair finished their daring sound experiments around midnight before sleeping with each other for the first and consummating the start of the romantic relationship. According to Cynthia, upon her return, Ono was wearing her bathrobe and offered a glib “oh, hi” while drinking morning tea with Lennon.
Released in November, a few days after The Beatles, and the third album issued on the newly-formed Apple Records, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins was largely met with critical derision, viewed as a less cohesive indulgence compared to ‘Revolution 9’ recorded in June. It was the cover which grabbed attention, a black and white snap of the two of them completely naked, illustrating their self-perception as ‘two virgins’ about to embark on a new world of creative revolution.
The quiet Beatle George Harrison could always be relied upon for a wry angle that cut through Paul McCartney’s charitable optimism and Lennon’s grandiose pretensions. Despite dabbling in the musical underground himself, his first two solo albums were electronic pieces recorded on the Moog synthesizer and he assisted on ‘Revolution 9’ with sample searches in EMI’s vast tape library, Harrison was open about his indifference to Lennon and Ono’s creative whirlwind.
“I don’t think I actually heard all of Two Virgins; just bits of it. I wasn’t particularly into that kind of thing,” Harrison confessed on 1995’s Anthology series. “That was his and her affair, their trip. They got involved with each other and were obviously into each other to such a degree that they thought everything they said or did was of world importance, and so they made it into records and films”.
It was an astute observation. Lennon and Ono’s relationship had become a major thematic guide to their art, regardless of whether it was interesting to anyone else, and while his final album Double Fantasy exists with a eulogical poignancy in light of his 1980 assassination, the initial reception was one of fatigue at the pair’s perennial broadcasting of their marriage. Two more experimental LPs followed by the close of the 1960s, Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album, but Two Virgins stands as one of the key chapters of the couple’s story, displaying admirable creative ambitions while also pointing toward future conceptual misfires.
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