{"id":200191,"date":"2025-10-09T11:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T11:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/200191\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T11:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T11:04:13","slug":"sean-ono-lennon-people-say-i-grew-up-in-the-shadow-of-my-dad-but-yoko-really-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/200191\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Ono Lennon: \u2018People say I grew up in the shadow of my dad \u2013 but Yoko really did\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A lot of older people think, \u2018Oh, everyone knows The Beatles<\/a>; everyone knows John Lennon.\u2019 And that\u2019s simply not the case,\u201d says Sean Ono Lennon<\/a>. \u201cI meet my niece and nephew\u2019s friends, I talk to Gen Z kids, and some of them don\u2019t know the difference between The Beatles and The Monkees, I swear.\u201d The son of the late Beatles star and artist Yoko Ono might have a point. For anyone over a certain age, the Fab Four are an immutable part of the culture, as constant and familiar as the air we breathe. But who says it\u2019s going to stay that way?<\/p>\n

This was, in short, the core motivation behind Lennon\u2019s new project, a lush new boxset of 123 remastered recordings by John and Yoko, during the period when their political activism was at its most daring. The release follows on from this year\u2019s documentary film One to One: John & Yoko, which focused on the couple\u2019s 1972 benefit concert for the children at New York\u2019s Willowbrook school (who were victims of a massive abuse scandal) and their politically radical life in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s. The boxset contains extensive, cleaned-up recordings from the performance and others around that time, with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder<\/a> and Keith Moon among the collaborators.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people think we need to stop putting out new versions of this music, I think they\u2019re very wrong,\u201d says Lennon. \u201cBecause I don\u2019t want to live in a world where people don\u2019t know that music. So I have a duty to keep putting it out and making it sound as good as possible, and finding ways to get young people interested. And it\u2019s not just for me and my parents. It\u2019s for the world \u2013 I don\u2019t think the world can afford to forget The Beatles or John Lennon.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is something faintly surreal about speaking to Lennon, who resembles his late father so very much, facially. He has the same long, ovular face. The same shrewd eyes. (His styling doesn\u2019t exactly discourage comparisons either: on our call today he has long, straight hair, a beard, and tinted glasses rest on the bridge of his nose.) At 50, he is now a decade older than John was when he was murdered, 45 years ago. <\/p>\n

Often, the children of celebrities take pains to obscure their background, lest they be hit with accusations of nepotism, or professional privilege. Lennon, though, wears his lineage with pride. Like his half-brother Julian, Lennon is also a musician, having been a member of the bands Cibo Matto, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger (formed with his longterm partner, Charlotte Kemp Muhl), and the Claypool Lennon Delirium, as well as the revival of the Plastic Ono Project, his parents\u2019 former musical group, which Ono revived in 2009. \u201cUntil the 20th century, most people did what their parents did,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s quite natural. But I do think in the modern world it seems weird, because most people expect you to reject your parents in a way, especially if they were famous. But there are only really two options \u2013 go out of your way to avoid what your parents did, or embrace it.\u201d <\/p>\n

While he was just five years old when John was shot dead in New York, performing has been a way of connecting with his late father. \u201cI first was interested in music because of my dad,\u201d he says. \u201cI always felt like music was a way of getting closer to him.\u201d He smiles, ever so slightly.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

John and Yoko performing together at the benefit gig, photographed by Michael Negrin (Yoko Ono Lennon)<\/p>\n

Lennon gives long, considered answers to the questions I pose, tightening up only slightly when I ask about Ono\u2019s current life, as a 92-year-old retiree. \u201cI live with her mostly, actually,\u201d says Lennon. \u201cI try to give her privacy now \u2013 she doesn’t want to do press and she\u2019s not interested in being a public figure any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople always talk about how I have grown up in the shadow of my dad \u2013 which is true, but my mum really did.\u2029She had a thriving art career, and then as soon as she got together with my dad, that sort of went out the window for a while. People think about how Beatles fans didn\u2019t accept Yoko, but the avant garde fans didn\u2019t accept The Beatles! The modern art community was very snobby about rock and roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such a clich\u00e9 to say \u2018The world wasn\u2019t ready,\u2019 but I think in the case of Yoko Ono, it\u2019s really applicable<\/p>\n

Sean Ono Lennon<\/p>\n

Listening to and reading the material in the new boxset (titled Power to the People), one thing that\u2019s striking is just how significant Ono was, as an artist and activist. Over the past few years, there has actually been a notable shift in the public\u2019s perception of Ono \u2013 from the longstanding smear as the \u201cwoman who broke up The Beatles\u201d, towards a more appreciative recognition of her work and life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time in England, when my dad and mum got together, it was really shocking to see a British guy with a Japanese woman,\u201d says Lennon. \u201cThen you add to that the fact that she wasn\u2019t just arm candy, she was a really radically weird and interesting artist \u2013 incredibly unconventional and wild, in terms of the way she viewed the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before getting together with Lennon, Yoko had been disowned by her parents for a previous relationship (her second marriage, to artist-producer Tony Cox) that flouted cultural norms. \u201cShe came from this conservative world, and she was too radical for Japan,\u201d says Lennon. \u201cShe was too radical for swinging London, too. It\u2019s such a cliche to say \u2018The world wasn\u2019t ready,\u2019 but I think in the case of Yoko Ono, it\u2019s really applicable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

A poster advertising the ‘Power to the People’ event (Yoko Ono Lennon)<\/p>\n

There was also, as Lennon points out, a lot of \u201cunnecessary animosity\u201d directed at his mother. \u201cThere was a small degree to which she didn\u2019t make it easier for some people either,\u201d he says, tilting his head pragmatically. \u201cIt\u2019s a complicated story. But the bottom line is she was misunderstood, and she was misunderstood for over 50 years. And I think she is finally being considered for who she is as an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another factor in this re-framing of Ono\u2019s image has been Get Back, the 2023 Disney+ series composed of vivid, illuminating behind-the-scenes footage from the recording of Let It Be. Ono features intermittently in the series, and the band\u2019s acceptance of her presence completely undermines the longstanding notion of her as a destabilising interloper. <\/p>\n

That spellbinding series was notable for its use of AI technology in restoring the archival footage. AI \u2013 a rightly touchy issue for many artists \u2013 was also used to help isolate John\u2019s vocals in the assembly of the \u201cfinal\u201d Beatles song, \u201cNow and Then\u201d, released two years ago. \u201cI think people really misunderstood what we were doing when we said \u2018AI\u2019,\u201d insists Lennon. \u201cBecause really, what it was, was a better way of filtering noise out of a track. It wasn\u2019t about creating anything \u2013 it was sophisticated noise filtering.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Sean Ono Lennon: \u2018I always felt like music was a way of getting closer to my dad\u2019 (Charlotte Kemp Muhl)<\/p>\n

Get Back was most illuminating on two fronts: firstly, as a glimpse into the band\u2019s immediate creative process; and secondly, as a look at the unguarded human personalities within the group. Power to the People, though, brings to the fore a different side of Lennon\u2019s life, his politics. The 1970s saw John and Yoko organise on many fronts at once; one minute he\u2019s campaigning against the US war in Vietnam, the next against the imprisonment of poet-musician John Sinclair. \u201cTo me, it feels like his activism came from his first principles \u2013 peace and love and humour \u2013 that core belief system that he had,\u201d says Lennon.<\/p>\n

Lennon\u2019s own politics are perhaps a little harder to pin down than his father\u2019s, though he has advocated for progressive causes in the past, and continues to proselytise John and Yoko\u2019s message of peace above all. \u201cIn terms of where the progressive movement has gone, I do think John and Yoko\u2019s philosophy has been too much forgotten,\u201d he muses. \u201cMy dad always said that what [the establishment] can\u2019t deal with is love and humour. And I think that the young activists trying to change the world would achieve more if they were loving and humorous, not violent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does, however, voice doubts about the efficacy of protest in the modern age \u2013 and of modern-day songwriters engaging in it. \u201cI always remember after 9\/11, there was the biggest peace march in history, against the potential invasion in Iraq. And about a week later, they invaded Iraq. It didn\u2019t move the needle at all. Whereas during the civil rights movement, those protests really had an impact on the culture, on the government. People listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

John and Yoko posing for polaroid pictures (Yoko Ono Lennon)<\/p>\n

He continues: \u201cIf Taylor Swift wrote a song about Gaza, I don\u2019t know that it would have the same impact as when, say, my dad wrote \u2018Revolution\u2019. I think people are more cynical than they used to be. Part of it is good, because we\u2019re less enamoured with celebrity \u2013 we don\u2019t worship in the same way. We\u2019re more aware that these are human beings, because we see them, you know, going to the dentist on Instagram. It\u2019s easy to be cynical about it\u2026 and I don\u2019t know what the answer is.\u201d <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what the answer is either. But if there\u2019s one to be found, then Power to the People \u2013 a fascinating time capsule of energised political protest and liberating ideas \u2013 is a good place to start looking. Despite Lennon\u2019s fears, The Beatles are not on the verge of being forgotten. Their music endures, and will continue to for decades to come. But what John and Yoko stood for might be just as important to remember.<\/p>\n

\u2018Power to the People\u2019 is released on 10 October via Universal Music Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-200191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}