Yoko Ono 1992 (in She's A Rebel by Gillian G. Gaar)
"The time was 1946, place: Tokyo. I was confronting my father who, as usual, sat in a deep comfortable chair with his pipe and suede jacket. I had told him that I wanted to be a composer. I would not have dreamt of making such a bold statement unless it just jumped out of my mouth, which it had. Initially, my father had called me to his study only to tell me that I should give up on being a pianist. "You're not good enough. Just give up practising. It's a waste of time." It was said in a kind and gentle tone.
My becoming a pianist, however, had been my father's wish, not mine. I felt relieved that I did not have to practise anymore. "Actually, I want to be a composer, father." I said. There was a silence. I sensed I had inadvertently dropped a bomb, and felt butterflies in my stomach. "Well," my father said after a considerable silence, "there are not many women composers in the world, Yoko. At least I haven't heard of one yet. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe it's a question of women's aptitude. I know you are a talented and intelligent child. But I wonder... I don't want you to struggle in vain."
How could he have known that it may not have been a question of gender aptitude? In those days, the fact that a father would discuss a daughter's career was already considered quite unusual. Daughters were brought up to go to finishing schools and hoped to get married before people started to raise their eyebrows. I am still thankful that my father cared at all about my career.
Eventually, he made me take voice lessons to sing German lieders, saying that that would be a vocation which would satisfy both my love for poetry and music. "Women may not be good creators of music, but they're good at interpreting music", was what he said. I rebelled, gave up my voice lessons, and went to a Japanese University to study Philosophy while being a closet song writer."
In the 1940s Yoko realised she had to break away from the privileged upbringing imposed on her by the accident of being born into an aristocratic family. It was quite a liberal one by Japanese standards and her parents appreciated the arts, but they were too narrow-minded for Yoko. "It was very claustrophobic. I would have died on a spiritual level if I had not got away. I can remember going to concerts and then walking out after a few minutes and I kept wondering, "Why am I doing this?" I knew I wanted something different." Yoko found her privileged upbringing stifling and lonely. She would ring for a maid to come to her room, simply to make contact with someone. The maid was not allowed to enter her room, even when summoned; she had to kneel outside in the hall and ask what little Yoko wanted. "When she brings the tea, she can come in but not before. The only reason I asked for tea was because I wanted some communication. And so I think that's where I started to dream. All sorts of things come into your mind", she says. Yoko dreamed of breaking out but also of forging new ways of thinking her way beyond her isolation.
Yoko Ono about her artistic collaboration with John Lennon in October 1993 (to Bordercrossings): "You have to understand he was an artist before he became a rock star. He was an art student. So we were both very rounded artists in a sense. (The moving into one another's spheres) got very exciting. But he was a very offbeat kind of artist to begin with. He had that sense. It wasn't because he met me that suddenly he learned something. He would have wandered into New York City because he had that kind of sensibility. He always used to say, "If I were born in New York City or in the Village, I would have been a great avant-garde artist." In an article by The Wire (1996) Yoko "insists that she was an outcast in the avant-garde community even before she took up with a pop star. She made a film called Bottoms/Film No.4 which Yoko called "an aimless petition signed by people with their anuses". After the film's release, she says, "All my avant-garde friends dropped me because I got a tremendous amount of attention and reviews. I was stuck in a strange place, up in the air. I was not in the avant-garde world but I was not as big as the [mainstream] world that John was in. 1967 was a very lonely passage, it was like I was in nowhereland. That's when John noticed my work. And he picked me up!"
Yoko continued about the subject to Michael Bracewell (The Guardian, 1996): "I think that the power of journalism is incredible, and that in those days I was an easy target and a scapegoat; they just wrote about me in a very unflattering way. They did it to John too, and to many people, but I think that the press carved the image. I'm sure all the DJs were saying, `Oh dear, that woman again', but you get used to that and people get to think, `She's just a punch bag'. I was the safest bet. And also it's very interesting to make a woman into a kind of evil person who has strong evil powers, or something. It's a dichotomy in a way in their minds - a strength even. It's a very interesting twist, and that's what they loved about it."
YOKO ONO
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