The blessing and curse of Yoko Ono

John Lennon liked to say his life shifted the moment he climbed a small stepladder in a London gallery and peered through a magnifying glass at the word yes. It sounded like a joke he might tell to deflect emotion, yet that moment in 1966 marked the start of the legendary, messy, transformative orbit he entered with Yoko Ono. People still argue about whether this meeting did him good or bad. Fans still take sides. The truth rarely behaves, and in their case it had a habit of laughing at those who tried to pin it down.

London’s cultural scene in the mid-sixties kept feeding Lennon’s hunger for the new. He had a weakness for anything that refused to make sense at first glance. Ono arrived with a lifetime of conceptual art and avant-garde daring already behind her. She didn’t care who he was in the way everyone else around him did. Lennon adored that. She brought mind games, riddles, ladders, and instructions you weren’t sure you wanted to follow. He brought fame, sarcasm, and a craving for someone who might understand that inside his skin lived both a clever showman and a confused Liverpudlian boy.

Friends noticed his fascination growing at full speed. Lennon dove into her world with the enthusiasm of someone tired of performing a version of himself. The Beatles demanded discipline, cooperation, and a polished image. Ono’s work didn’t. She built pieces from whispers and silence. She hung questions in the air like laundry. He admired that rebellion. Many claim she pulled him away from the band. He would’ve said she pulled him towards himself.

Being a Beatle looked glamorous from the outside. From the inside it often felt like a cage. Lennon wanted an escape route. Meeting Ono delivered one. She pushed him to explore ideas the band didn’t have space for. Her influence led him into sound experiments, tape loops, abrupt emotional honesty, and raw minimalism. Without her, Plastic Ono Band wouldn’t sound like that stark confession of a man peeling himself open with a microphone. Critics adored it. Listeners either clung to its sincerity or backed away nervously.

The dynamic between them confused people. Fans expected rock stars to fall in love with models, actresses, or glamorous troublemakers. Lennon fell for a conceptual artist whose work didn’t aim to flatter anyone. She offered no softness for the tabloids. They punished her for it. So did parts of the public. Lennon didn’t care. Their bond grew into a creative partnership that ignored expectations. She fed him ideas. He fed her audiences. Their collaborations weren’t always comfortable to listen to, but comfort rarely fuels art anyway.

Arguments about the Beatles’ breakup tend to orbit around Ono the way children orbit around sweets in a shop window. Tempting, colourful, and not always wise. The group already teetered on the edge long before she appeared in the studio. Business disagreements, diverging musical ambitions, personal frustrations, and a general fatigue made the band a fragile ecosystem. Ono didn’t break it. She merely arrived while it was crumbling. Lennon brought her everywhere, which irritated the others, but the cracks were already there.

Paul McCartney later admitted the myth had been lazy. Still, back then he and the rest of the band struggled to navigate Lennon’s sudden need to share every thought and decision with her. Band culture had followed unspoken rules: no partners in the studio, no interruptions, no outside commentary. Lennon tossed those rules aside without apology. It felt like betrayal to the others. It felt like liberation to him.

Their relationship carried a strange, intoxicating energy. They turned their private life into conceptual performance art. Bed-Ins. Bagism. Posters urging people to imagine peace. Many dismissed these gestures as naive publicity stunts. Lennon insisted sincerity lived behind their oddity. His political awakening rooted itself in their partnership. Ono pushed him to take the anti-war message beyond lyrics and into ritual. He embraced it with the zeal of someone rediscovering purpose.

His activism had mixed results. The message reached millions. It also attracted government attention. The FBI kept files. The Nixon administration didn’t appreciate a Beatle telling America to give peace a chance. Ono faced suspicion simply for standing beside him. They turned the scrutiny into fuel. It energised their work even as it isolated them socially.

Ono’s influence didn’t stop at politics. She nudged him into therapy. Primal scream sessions fed his emotional volcano. The sounds made their way into music. On Plastic Ono Band he roared his childhood wounds in a way that startled even loyal fans. Ono encouraged the excavation. She saw healing where others saw chaos. Lennon trusted her enough to let his defences collapse. He liked to say she helped him meet himself without flinching.

Not all chapters of their story shimmer with harmony. Their separation in the early seventies created a messy intermission known as the Lost Weekend. Despite the cheerful nickname, the period burned with destructive energy. Lennon spiralled through heavy drinking, unpredictable behaviour, and musical inconsistency. He moved to Los Angeles for a while. Chaos followed him like a stray dog. Friends worried. Rumour mills churned. Ono watched from a distance, insisting the break would help him reset. The results looked questionable for quite some time.

The Lost Weekend didn’t stay lost forever. Lennon eventually returned, emotionally exhausted but clearer about the shape of his life. Their reunion brought a strange calm. Domesticity entered the scene. Baking bread became a symbol of his renewed focus. The public rarely imagines rock legends kneading dough in their kitchens, but Lennon enjoyed the quiet. Ono remained a constant presence. They worked together. They parented. They built a life that looked nothing like the madness outside their front door.

People still argue about whether she controlled him. Some biographers describe her as the force steering his choices. Others say Lennon made his own decisions with stubborn insistence and simply enjoyed letting her handle logistics. The truth probably sits somewhere in the middle sipping tea. Their bond looked more like a fusion than a hierarchy. He didn’t like half-measures. She didn’t either. They collided and merged and created a relationship that baffled observers.

Ono kept pushing him creatively even after the years mellowed him. She brought him ideas from the art world. He brought her melodies. They shared credits. They annoyed critics. They delighted experimental art circles. The partnership resisted tidy labels. Some called it obsessive. Others saw devotion. Lennon treated her as his equal, his muse, his mirror, and his teammate. He liked complications. She provided plenty.

His final interviews in 1980 showed no hesitation. Lennon said meeting her had been the best thing that ever happened to him. He credited her with sharpening his mind and softening his ego. He admitted she offered him a sort of intellectual companionship he had never found elsewhere. He didn’t need her to complete him. He needed her to recognise him. They shared a language that sometimes sounded ridiculous to outsiders but made perfect sense between them.

The world never forgave her for taking a Beatle away from the myth. Fans needed someone to blame. Blame works faster than understanding. Ono became a symbol of disruption, art that refused to behave, and love that ignored rules. She rarely defended herself. She didn’t need widespread approval. Lennon admired that iron spine. It matched his own rebellious streak.

Was meeting her good or bad for him? The question pretends to be simple. Lived experience tends to laugh at such simplification. Lennon without Ono might have remained a Beatle longer. He might have maintained harmony with McCartney. He might have produced more predictable pop. He also might have drowned quietly in the expectations surrounding him. With her, he broke barriers, created raw masterpieces, wandered into political theatre, confronted his wounds, blew up friendships, rebuilt himself, collapsed, returned, and lived with a sense of purpose he hadn’t had since his youth.

Lennon didn’t want to live in a museum labelled Beatle. Ono offered a door into another world strewn with conceptual puzzles and difficult truths. He walked through gladly. They created a partnership that mixed tenderness with friction. It shaped his music, altered his worldview, shifted his identity, and expanded his art far beyond the boundaries of rock tradition.

Good or bad doesn’t apply neatly. Their meeting acted like a chemical reaction. Something volatile bubbled up. Something beautiful emerged. Something messy spilled onto the floor. Lennon embraced every unpredictable shade of it. Their bond left marks on the cultural landscape that still glow. People argue because they care. The very intensity of the debate proves how powerful their union became.

Lennon liked to say he was two halves of a whole with her. Perhaps that sounds overly poetic. Perhaps it fits perfectly. Their paths collided and refused to separate. The world watched, puzzled, intrigued, judgemental, fascinated. Lennon and Ono didn’t ask for permission. They asked for truth. They chased it together until the last moment he lived. Whether anyone approves no longer matters. For him, meeting Yoko Ono didn’t just change the story. It became the story.