Beatle John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono, 1969

Credit: Alamy

What was the first song John Lennon wrote about Yoko Ono?

Fri 29 November 2024 14:00, UK

While John Lennon can claim to have had several muses throughout his life, there was none who had quite as profound an effect on his artistic output as his second wife, the Japanese multidisciplinary artist Yoko Ono. The relationship between Lennon and Ono blossomed in the late 1960s, around the same time that the Beatles were working on their ambitious double LP, The White Album, and their clandestine affair would ultimately lead to the separation of Lennon from his first wife, Cynthia in 1968.

The two of them would regularly inspire each other’s work and regularly contribute towards projects for the other, with Lennon’s work becoming increasingly inspired by Ono’s more avant-garde artistic leanings. Lennon himself would also bring Ono into the studio to perform on multiple songs for The White Album, with her contributions appearing on ‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’ and ‘Birthday’ in the form of backing vocals and on ‘Revolution 9’ in the form of tape looping experiments.

Of course, Lennon also wrote songs directly about Ono and their romance, both early on in their relationship and right up until his assassination in 1980. Some of these songs were explicit in their references to Ono, with tracks such as ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’ from Let It Be chronicling their early relationship and marriage, while solo efforts such as ‘Love’ are clearly about the intense emotions he felt for his wife.

However, there are a number of tracks that are a little more oblique in how they reference the relationship between the two artists. For example, the song ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey’ on the surface of things seems like a garbled mess of surreal lyricism, but in fact tells a story about his bandmates’ initial reactions to his new relationship, while ‘God’ only briefly mentions how he doesn’t believe in any ideologies other than “Yoko and me”, turning a song largely about rejecting worshipping idols into a song about his marriage.

There are several other instances of songs that Lennon wrote for Ono, some more open for debate than others or lacking in explicit confirmation of the song’s subject matter, but throughout the latter part of The Beatles’ career and Lennon’s solo endeavours, her presence on his mind was constant, and she would have a huge part to play in the trajectory of his later career.

So, what was the first song John Lennon wrote about Yoko Ono?

Depending on how much you want to believe or stretch your imagination about what constitutes a song ‘about Yoko’ or simply one that references her, there are a couple of answers to this question.

The first song that John Lennon wrote that has been confirmed as being about Ono is widely regarded as ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’, a song that uses double entendres about guns to refer to sexuality, and said gun being warm due to it having just fired off a round. Both the “girl who misses much” and “Mother Superior” in the song are Ono, and her jumping the gun is his way of describing her as a holy figure who he is sleeping with.

Others have suggested that this sexually suggestive song is also about drug use, with the line “I need a fix ‘cause I’m going down” possibly being a reference to a junkie searching for another hit of their substance of choice. Lennon himself refuted the claim, stating that the song is purely about his sexual desires for Yoko and that due to it being written early on in their relationship, explores the lustful nature of their most intimate encounters.

While ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ was written in September 1968, a song from the same album recorded earlier in the same year makes an allusion to his relationship with Ono and places it in an unusual context.

As mentioned previously, Lennon had a number of muses in his life, and his attachment to his mother, Julia, was another source of inspiration for him throughout, with him writing the ode ‘Julia’ in her honour. However, there is a curious line in the first verse that reads “ocean child, calls me”, which refers directly to how the name Yoko, when translated from Japanese to English, literally means “child of the sea”.

To have the song simultaneously be addressing his deceased mother and new lover at once, having only earlier in the album expressed explicit sexual feelings towards the latter, feels somewhat Freudian, and there is debate as to whether this song is truly about Ono or Lennon’s mother. With that in mind, it is probably safe to assert that the first song that John Lennon wrote solely with Yoko on the brain is ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’.