A Song I Wrote For Yoko Ono

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Yoko Ono is a fascinating figure as an artist, feminist, consciousness-explorer and cultural icon.

Her work asks us to step out of the comforts of our bourgeois value system and remember what it means to be a true human being with infinite possibility.

The story goes that John Lennon first met Yoko at an art exhibit she had in 1966. John says he was intrigued by one piece that was "a ladder which led to a painting which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a black canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. This was near the door when you went in. I climbed the ladder, you look through the spyglass and in tiny little letters it says 'yes'. So it was positive. I felt relieved. It's a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn't say 'no' or 'fuck you' or something, it said 'yes'. "

YES! That is the belief at the core of Yoko Ono's work. The hatred and vitriol that was directed at her when her and John got together was not only misogynistic, but also racist and culturally elitist. White pop culture could not comprehend that their "golden boy" Lennon had fallen for a powerful, confrontational Asian woman who didn't ascribe to their value system.

Her contrary nature is actually deeply spiritual. I highly recommend checking out her book GRAPEFRUIT when you have the chance, and gently blow your own mind. I like to open this with my daughter and consider the instructions....

"Take a tape of the sound of snow falling"

"Walk all over the city with an empty baby carriage"

"Imagine one thousand suns in the sky at the same time".

It is my belief that this type of abstract, feminine, poetic thinking holds part of the answer to our current internal and social conflicts. Yoko has always invited us to think bigger, more sensitively, and to remember our connection to each other and to this planet.

Here is my song for Yoko Ono.

@benleemusic

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