John Lennon and Yoko Ono's wedding anniversary -
how their love affair began
http://www.examiner.com/john-lennon-in-national/john-lennon-and-yoko-ono-s-wedding-anniversary-how-their-love-affair-began?CID=examiner_alerts_article
March 20th, 2011
Shelley Germeaux
Since John Lennon's tragic death on December 8, 1980, his wife Yoko
Ono has continued to pay tribute to John's memory through concert
tributes, new releases, remastered music, and museum exhibits. One
year ago, the John Lennon Museum in Saitama, Japan, did an exhibit
devoted to their marriage entitled "Wedding Days".
Today, to commemorate what would be their 42nd wedding anniversary,
the Iceland Peace Tower has been lit.
This article covers the history of John and Yoko's romance, from the
time they met in 1966 until their marriage on March 20, 1969.
Cynthia Lennon recalled the moment she first realized that something
was really amiss with her husband John Lennon. It was May of 1968,
and John was about to go to New York with Paul McCartney to unveil
their new company Apple Corps. Rebuffing Cynthia's request to go with
him, he suggested she instead go on holiday with some friends in Greece.
"He was upstairs lying, fully clothed, on our bed, staring into
space, not saying a word. It was as if so much was on his mind he
couldn't speak….he had obviously got to the brink of planning what he
wanted from his life and what was going to happen a week later with
me on holiday." Instead of walking her out to the taxi, he didn't move.
Indeed there was a lot on John's mind. Just three months earlier they
had been in Rishikesh, India, for a meditation get-away with the
Beatles and their families. Whereas John and Cyn usually went
everywhere together, John suddenly began getting up early to go off
by himself, and turned a cold shoulder to her. What she didn't know
was that besides "finding himself" through meditation and relaxation,
which he sorely needed, he was also secretly retrieving brown paper
envelopes containing letters from Yoko Ono, with simple messages like
"Breathe" on them. By the time he got back from India, he couldn't
stop thinking about this "weird Japanese artist" who intrigued him so
much. Cynthia had noticed Yoko had been calling on the phone, sending
letters, etc, and had even stopped by. She was suspicious. But John
convinced her to sluff it off.
John had met Yoko eighteen months earlier on November 9, 1966 at the
Indica Gallery in London, in Mayfair. He had heard about this
"amazing artist" from John Dunbar, who ran the gallery. He had been
there often to see Dunbar, so he went that night, only to find out
that Ono's exhibit actually wasn't opening until the next day. But
Yoko allowed him to look around. He saw to his bewilderment, a fresh
apple on a stand, and the famous "Ceiling Painting" that could only
be seen by climbing up a ladder and reading it with a magnifying
glass. He looked through the glass to see a tiny note that just said
"Yes." He was impressed.
Nothing happened. But it did---a connection was made between them
mentally during that first meeting, and the seeds were planted.
John was ripe for change. He was to say in interviews that his
marriage to Cynthia wasn't awful by any means, it was just "on
amber…not red and not green." And he was bored. Cynthia was a great
housewife and mom, living an ordinary life. He was a Beatle who was
experimenting on a daily basis with cocktails of drugs, alcohol, art,
music and definitely---women. He had grown a lot since he first met
Cyn at art school, and since he was a mop-top Beatle in the early
days of the Fab Four.
He said in his second book, Skywriting By Word of Mouth, (the closest
he ever got to an autobiography; he died before he was able to finish
and publish it, and it was post-humously published in 1986) that "I'd
always had a fantasy about a woman who would be a beautiful,
intelligent, dark-haired, high-cheek-boned, free-spirited artist….my
soul mate." He then acknowledges that after his visit to India, he
decided she had to be Oriental. Well, he'd already decided it was
Yoko at that point, as he had her letters neatly tucked away in his bags…
He was impressed by Yoko's humor inherent in her art pieces; he
enjoyed her book "Grapefruit" (which she sent him) with simple
sayings in them, including "Imagine," inspiring his song of the same
name years later. As well, later Yoko would comment that she was
impressed with his wordplay and outlandish art in his book, "In His
Own Write", including a drawing of a large woman with flies all over
her. It inspired her film, "Fly."
By sending Cynthia to Greece, and saying they both "needed space,"
inside, he knew it was "now or never" with Yoko. So on the night of
May 18, John worked up the courage to call Yoko up and invite her to
his estate called Kenwood at Weybridge. She'd have to come by taxi.
She arrived around midnight; both recalled they were suddenly struck
with shyness, and all they knew how to do was go to the studio and
listen to "far-out" tapes John had made and electronic music and some
comedy. Yoko suggested they make one themselveswhich was later
released under the title, "Two Virgins." John recalled lovingly, "it
was dawn when we finished, and then we made love. It was very beautiful."
This entry in Skywriting indicates John's realization that his life
suddenly changed so much when he fell in love with Yoko that night,
that he was actually re-born, and that his life to that point was now
just a faded memory: "I finally met Yoko and the dream became a
reality…the only woman I'd ever met who was my equal in every way
imaginable. My better, actually. Although I'd had numerous
interesting "affairs" in my previous incarnation, I'd never met
anyone worth breaking up a happily-married state of boredom for.
Escape at last! Someone to leave home for."
Cynthia would return to find the two seated on the floor of the
sunroom wearing identical bathrobes. Cynthia fled in shock. Later she
would say that she could see that they were of "one mind" and there
was nothing to be done to save the marriage. Despite "making up" with
John two days later, she decided to flee on yet another holiday to
Italy with their five-year-old son Julian. "Feeling the space" so to
speak,Yoko left her husband Tony Cox and moved in with John within hours.
It was during this time that John and Yoko created two films devoted
to their new love –Smile, showing John's face close-up with various
expressions; and Two Virgins which featured a sequence of their
faces merging, with embracing silhouettes.
Cynthia came back, and John moved out, and he and Yoko would stay in
various places like vagabonds for a time, including Paul McCartney's
house at Cavendish Road in London, then 34 Montague Square (owned by
Ringo Starr, previously lived in by Jimi Hendrixnow adorned with a
Blue Heritage Plaque in honor of John and Yoko's having lived there.)
This was where the cover of Two Virgins was photographed, of John and
Yoko nude.
Yoko would subsequently be treated to John's voracious jealousy, a
shocking development for an independent rebellious woman like her, as
well as his demand that they be together all the time. He began
taking her into the studio at Abbey Road, during the recording of the
Beatles' White Album, (from May 30 – October 14, 1968) and her
presence was met with stand-offish disapproval by the rest of the Beatles.
A few months later, and after their divorces were final, they were
married at the Rock of Gibralter on March 20, 1969, after a great
amount of frustration, which inspired the song "The Ballad of John
and Yoko." (first released as a single, then included on the album
Hey Jude, 1970) At the same time, they staged a Bed-In for Peace at
the Amsterdam Hilton. This was followed by another bed-in in
Montreal, Canada, on May 26, because they were not allowed into the
U.S. due to Lennon's cannabis conviction in London.
As a wedding gift, John presented Yoko with a suite of original
drawings depicting their wedding and honeymoon, which he entitled Bag
One. But when they tried to present it publically in an art exhibit
in London, Scotland Yard confiscated the erotic drawings, and shut
down the exhibit, calling the art "pornographic." They eventually
returned most of the artwork, some of which had been damaged, and the
courts exonerated Lennon under the obvious reason that other famous
artists before him had done erotic art. 300 sets were made, and John
signed all of them. These pieces are rare and now very highly collectible.
John and Yoko took up many political and activist causes, including
their protest against the war in Vietnam. Standing up for peace,
freedom and love, they were continually met with rejection and
threats. They made avant-garde films and music together, in fact
everything they did from that time forward, for a time, was inspired
by each other. John included Yoko's name in many of his songs,
including Oh Yoko, Aisumasen, and God. After a separation from
1973-75 when John had a long term relationship with his assistant May
Pang, John and Yoko reunited and had a son, Sean Lennon on October 9,
1975. After five years spent out of the public eye, taking care of
Sean, they recorded the album Double Fantasy, released in November of
1980. Less than a month later, John was murdered outside his home,
the Dakota Apartments in New York.
--
Books referred to for this article, besides the links included above:
John Ono Lennon, Ray Coleman; Skywriting by Word of Mouth, John
Lennon; John Lennon: the Life, Philip Norman, John, Cynthia Lennon
.
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