Yoko Ono
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2007
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Yoko Ono. She was already an avant-garde artist in her own right when, in 1968, she started dating one of the most famous men in the world, John Lennon. Then, depending on who you listen to, she either stole him from the nation or helped him to focus on what was important to them both.
Now, more than 25 years after John's murder, she discusses how it felt to be so reviled in the press, looks back on their life together and recalls the night of his death. In a remarkably frank interview, she reveals how she still speaks to him - and he still communicates with her.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Beautiful Boy by John Lennon Book: Sai-Yu-Ki Luxury: My life for the next thirty years.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 2007. My cast away this week is Yoko Ono. She was already a noted avant-garde artist in her own right when she started dating one of the most famous men in the world, John Lennon. |
| 0:38.0 | Then, depending on who you listen to, she either stole him from the nation or helped him to focus on what was important to them both. |
| 0:46.1 | For a long time she was publicly reviled, but now more than 25 years after John's murder, and with |
| 0:51.5 | Yoko herself, aged aged 73 the public perception of her is at last shifting. |
| 0:58.1 | Yoko O'Ona Paul McCartney said of you that he had initially thought that you seemed to be this cold woman and then he added |
| 1:04.6 | I think that was wrong she's just more determined than most people to be herself do you |
| 1:10.5 | think that's true well I think he was very kind to say that. But it's true. |
| 1:15.2 | You know, your life is not to appease people, but to be yourself. My mother was always telling me that. |
| 1:20.7 | And that's what I was. I was just being myself. I was always like that. |
| 1:25.8 | It's how I was brought up, I think, yeah. I mean most of us do care, don't we? What people think of of us as much as we might all pretend that |
| 1:34.3 | we don't in those initial days of your explosive fame did you find people's |
| 1:39.7 | attitude hurtful well it was hurtful in a way but I had John beside me which was it |
| 1:46.8 | did help and also it seemed almost as if those things were happening in a distance. So what was said out there |
| 1:56.0 | didn't seem to hurt that much. I've been watching a lot of film in preparation for |
| 2:00.7 | talking to you today and I watched a little fascinating |
| 2:03.2 | excerpt of you in your kitchen and John looks at Cameron he says look there's the |
| 2:08.6 | wife of a beetle making tea for one of the fab four and of course he's he's sending the whole thing up but in a |
| 2:14.1 | sense he hit on a truth that so many good smart jokes do that actually you could |
| 2:20.2 | never be anything other than yoko Ono, the wife of an ex-beetel. |
| 2:25.0 | Exactly. |
... |
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