One to One: John & Yoko

Over the past 12 years of this blog, The Beatles have come by in one form or another. From these posts you may have gathered that I was too young for Beatlemania but without understanding any of that from 1966 onwards got to know enough of the songs to make me a fan, yet I was old enough to remember the final two years and the break up. All without understanding the true significance of the band, but then no one could predict how huge the band would become after the breakup. The band and its individual members are still of enough interest to produce whole films around them in a regular manner. In 2025 One to One: John & Yoko is another example.

In the early 1970s the couple left the U.K. and moved to a small apartment in Greenwich Village, leaving all the acquired riches behind. In their loft they apparently watched a lot of tv and that is what we did in the cinema as well. We watched (what is now the history of) 1972 unfold in front of our eyes, Vietnam, Watergate, Nixon, McGovern, riots, flower power with a vengeance, Attica State, demonstrations, commercials and snippets of sitcoms that I had all but forgotten about and what not.

In between the tv news the life of and around John and Yoko unfolds in a few ways. We hear telephone conversations, see or hear (radio) interviews and the couple's presence at rallies for one goal or another. Why were all these calls recorded?, I wondered. John explains it himself later in an interview. And in between that we see songs from the only full live show John Lennon played after The Beatles quit performing in 1966 or after The Beatles formally split. There was this show in Canada in 1969 afterall. Only one live show! What struck me in the very first live scene was the presence of the man. Here stood a great artist. Several songs came by, but what really struck me was the live rendition of 'Mother'. I could never listen to the song, but it immediately struck me here. Here was someone singing from the bottom of his heart and mind, from the very core of his existence. If the footage was mixed truthfully, the audience was totally quiet and in awe as well. Not in other songs, far, far from it.

In the movie we see the Lennon's getting sucked into all sorts of political activities. Being asked to do this, do come there, to perform for the x, y and z cause. We see how über hippie Jerry Rubin works his way into their life. Where was Abbie Hoffmann? He was mentioned but I do not think he was present. Lennon steps away at some point when violence becomes a topic. Over four years since 'Revolution' he stayed true to his lyrics from 'Hey Jude's' b-side. Besides he was threatened with deportation from the U.S.

As Sean Ono Lennon is executive producer of the movie, there is a strong focus on Yoko Ono, John Lennon's second wife, also. Remember me being too young and just old enough? I remember literally everybody hated Yoko at the time and years and years after. She was to blame for everything. What comes forward from the movie shows how deep this hate went and how it affected her person and life. What I certainly did not know at the time, was that she was a renowned artist already when meeting John for the first time. When visiting Frankfurt in 2013 on a business trip, when driving by tram to the hotel in one of the outskirts of the city, I passed a museum that had a Yoko Ono exhibition. (In the same year I travelled for business to Vienna, but did have time off there and visited a Linda McCartney photo exhibition in one of the Hundertwasser houses.) She was far more than just the disrupting wife of John. In hindsight we know that the four young men had to go their own way. The only what ifs that can be hinted at are, what if they had decided to come back together in 1972, 3 or 4 of if they would have gone back on the road just like The Rolling Stones did in 1969? We will never know.

We do know that the militant life of John Lennon in 1972 did not lead to his best music. Compare it to the renditions of 'Instant Karma' or 'Image' and yes, certainly 'Mother', in this movie and you know it was artistically and musically a near wasted year. This movie though puts it all in perspective, the stragglers, the profiteers, the convictions and the zeitgeist. All get their place. The only one coming close to telling John the truth is the often slighted manager Allen Klein. At least he tried, perhaps thinking about his purse while doing it, but still.

Finally, one of the highlights in my mind. The guy going through Bob Dylan's trash can, A.J. Weberman, is in full view and even becomes part of the Lennon coterie. Things sometimes get weirder in real life, than one can imagine. The live show was a benefit show for a children's care home by the way after the Lennon's were touched by a news reel on home.

This movie tells so many different stories. Having a more than average knowledge of the history of the time certainly helps. 

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