Sean Ono Lennon says Yoko Ono never “moved on” from his father John Lennon
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(Credits: Far Out / Sean Ono Lennon / UMG)
Sean Ono Lennon, the son of Beatles frontman John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, has said that his mother has never “moved on” from the death of her late husband.
On December 8th, 1980, after returning from a recording session to their apartment at The Dakota in New York City, Lennon and Ono got out of their limousine and walked through the building’s entrance archway. Waiting for them was Mark David Chapman, who had a murderous intent, which he fulfilled.
A former fan of The Beatles, over time, Chapman became incensed by Lennon’s lavish lifestyle, the lyrics to the songs ‘God’ and ‘Imagine’, as well as his notorious, if not sardonic, comment that the Fab Four were “more popular than Jesus”. This, and an obsession with JD Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, culminated in Lennon being shot in the back and shoulder from behind as he and Ono returned home.
Ono was rushed to the emergency room of the Roosevelt Hospital in a police cruiser but was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 pm. His murder occurred just three weeks after Double Fantasy, his first album after a five-year hiatus, arrived.
Ono Lennon was only five years old when his father was murdered. Due to Chapman’s murderous rage, he was robbed of a father and took to music as his primary coping mechanism.
During an interview with The Times in July, Ono Lennon explained how significant his father’s music is for him, and why he is custodian of it. This position led to 1973’s Mind Games being released with six different mixes that month as a deluxe boxset. Each variation of the record focuses on a separate element, such as vocals and instrumentation, which allows the album to be enjoyed in a number of unique ways.
“One thing that distinguishes my dad’s solo career is how personal his lyrics became. It is like a diary, and it is my duty to bring attention to my father’s music. Not just my duty to him, but a duty to the world,” he shared. “With the world as it is now, people have forgotten so many things that I never imagined could be forgotten. I refuse to let that happen to this music — it means too much to me.”
What has Sean Ono Lennon said about his mother and father?
In a new interview with Chris Hawkins on his BBC Radio 6 Music show, Ono Lennon reflected upon Mind Games, and what it means, leading to him revealing his own thoughts on the tumultuous relationship between his mother and father. He wishes he could have spoken to his father about the record.
After suggesting that it wasn’t a big hit because there was a lot of great competition in 1973 and his father was touring and promoting himself very much, he revealed what he learned about his parents in the process of putting the new box set together.
He said: “Well one thing I noticed was that my mum was on some of the tapes, you could tell she was in the control room. So a lot of people said oh like ‘Yoko wasn’t around for this record, why are they featuring her in the booklet’ or something. 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 called The Lost Weekend, right? In LA with May Pang. 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.”
Ono Lennon continued: “And on top of it, all my dad was thinking about was her. You look at the album cover, 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. And she’s there in the studio. So I think that was not something that changed my mind so much but it sort of affirmed how deeply in love he was with my mum.”
The singer then discussed his mother’s grieving process for his father, adding: “I think she never has moved on from that relationship.”
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