Musician Sean Lennon, the son of late Beatles star John Lennon and his wife, fellow musician Yoko Ono, has suggested his parents were the first true “power couple”.
John and Yoko are the subject of a new documentary from Kevin Macdonald that explores their relationship and work around the time that John was organising his only full post-Beatles concert at Madison Square Garden in 1972.
The film, which was made with the cooperation of Sean, Yoko and the Lennon estate, includes extensive archive footage along with audio recordings of interviews and private phone calls.
“Anyone who pays attention to John and Yoko in the latter part of The Beatles, and then together through the Seventies, can see that my dad had this feeling that John and Yoko had sort of fused into one person,” Sean told The Telegraph in an interview this week.
“He had all these terms [such as] ‘JOKO’! He said that they were one, and there should be one word: JohnandYoko.”
“I think a modern psychologist might say that [my dad] was a bit co-dependent,” he continued. But the reality is, he didn’t want to individuate any more.
“They were the first power couple, like Brangelina or whatever. He wanted them to be an institution beyond just marriage and family. He wanted them to be an artistic union, a political union, a romantic union.”
The documentary also delves into the racism and hatred Yoko received from Beatles fans and members of the public who blamed her for breaking up The Beatles.
In 2021, Yoko appeared to agree with fans who suggested that Peter Jackson’s three-part documentary, Get Back, had helped to dispel this notion, as archival footage showed her sitting quietly reading the newspaper or knitting while the band are at work.
“The thing with Yoko, though, that they have to say, is that she doesn’t impose herself,” Jackson pointed out in an interview with 60 Minutes. “She’s writing letters, she’s reading letters, she’s doing sewing, she’s doing painting, sometimes some artwork off to the side.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 6 Music last year about the Grammy-nominated expanded box set edition of John’s 1973 album, Mind Games, Sean discussed the influence his mother had on his father’s work.
At the time he was writing his fourth solo album, Mind Games, John was in the middle of his famous 18-month separation from Ono, a period referred to as the “Lost Weekend”.
“A lot of people said like, ‘Yoko wasn’t around for this record, why are they featuring her in the booklet’ or something,” Sean began. “And I think there’s a lot of history, there’s a lot of assumptions made about that time period because they were sort of on their way towards that famous separation that people call the Lost Weekend.
“But the truth is, even when they were apart they were always talking, so I don’t think they ever really broke up, all his stuff was still in the apartment with my mum. It’s not like they had a real separation. And on top of it, all my dad was thinking about was her.”
He pointed to the album artwork for Mind Games: “It’s a collage of my mum literally the size of a mountain, and he’s this little tiny thing sort of fading into the background.
“And I think it’s clear what his view of my mum was in his life. She was monumental, obviously. And the whole album is about her.”
One to One: John & Yoko shows in IMAX exclusive previews on 9 and 10 April – and is in cinemas nationwide from 11 April.
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