This post is not about Yoko Ono’s effect on The Beatles, nor
is it an attempt to “justify” her work with John Lennon by pointing out its
artistic merit. Those topics have been covered elsewhere. Rather, this post
concerns what it meant the day Lennon showed up unannounced, as Ono’s sideman, to
perform at Lady Mitchell Hall at Cambridge University.
That day in March 1969, Ono was
the headliner. Scheduled to play before an audience of academics, and other
members of the artistic “elite,” she and Lennon improvised for close to 27
minutes, Lennon adding feedback guitar
to Ono’s vocal experimentation to create the piece we now know as “Cambridge
1969,” the first track on the duo’s second album, Unfinished Music No.2:
Life With The Lions.
By the time of their appearance
at Cambridge, Lennon & Ono’s artistic relationship was well established.
They had performed together at the Rolling Stones’ Rock ‘N Roll Circus the
previous December, and had released their first joint album, Unfinished
Music No. 1: Two Virgins, in November 1968. Still, according to Barry Miles
(2016) in his excellent book The Zapple Diaries, his appearance at
Cambridge came as a surprise to those in attendance.
Why surprising? The most obvious
answer is that Lennon, the leader of the world’s preeminent rock group, had not
performed live since August 1966, save his appearance on the Stones’ television
special the preceding December. Therefore, seeing Lennon on stage in any
context was unusual.
A more telling explanation is
that his appearance as a backing musician for an artistically obscure
(except for her work with Lennon) female artist was completely unexpected
because, although the individual Beatles had begun to pursue projects outside
the band by the time of Cambridge performance, none had done so with a permanent partner
outside the group, much less a female partner.
Notwithstanding second wave feminism
and the concurrent “women’s lib” movement, western society in the late 1960s,
including Britain, was a bulwark of patriarchy. Male dominance was also evident
in the arts, including rock ‘n roll. So when John took up his guitar, and
turned his back to the audience, facing his amplifier to generate his
accompaniment to Ono on that winter day, he was making at least two statements which challenged social norms.
First, he was publicly embracing the validity of non-traditional
music. To those familiar with the history of so-called “serious” 20th
century music, not much about the Lennon/Ono performance of that day was
groundbreaking, at least not sonically. From Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone
system, to John Cage’s “chance music,” by 1969 much work had been done which challenged
the very notion of what music "was." That said, for a rock star to
perform work in this genre in public was to risk much, and to face at best
bewilderment from their traditional audience. Still, Lennon persevered.
More
significant, perhaps, was that he undertook this artistic experimentation in
partnership with a woman. In fact, Ono took center stage that day. While some
will certainly argue that she served as a buffer against the potential backlash
he might face for his musical adventure, Lennon’s tacit recognition of her as
an equal artistic partner challenged prevailing societal beliefs about gender, including those of
the macho world of Rock ‘n Roll.
Did it make a difference?
Establishing historical cause and effect is a difficult task, and that is not
the point of this post anyway. What is important is recognizing that, in taking
his first steps outside the protective artistic cocoon of The Beatles, Lennon
confronted society on two cultural fronts. Musically, he asked his audience to
look beyond pop music and consider other sounds as musically valid. Further, he said, through his actions, that he had a new partner, and that the fact that
she was female had no impact on his choice to work with her artistically.
So why did John Lennon show up at
Cambridge in 1969? Was he there to make a bold statement about gender equality?
Was he there to establish his credentials as an experimental musician? We will
never know all his motivations. What we are fairly certain of, however, is that
he did not speak to the audience that day, and that he did not direct the
musical proceedings. He just made music.
Wasn’t that enough?
