Sean Ono Lennon has recently opened up about John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship, and how it continues to impact his mother today.
Lennon sat down for an interview with BBC Radio 6 Music recently to discuss the release of Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection. Lennon produced the special edition box set release of his late father's album Mind Games. The collection also includes a wealth of additional material, from footage to a book to reproductions of advertisements for the album from the 1970s.
During the interview, the subject of his parents' relationship was brought up, as it naturally would. Chris Hawkins asked Lennon if he learned any new information about his parents while putting together this very intimate project.
"Well one thing I noticed was that my mum was on some of the tapes, you could tell she was in the control room," said Lennon. "So a lot of people said like, 'Yoko wasn't around for this record, why are they featuring her in the booklet' or something. And I think there's a lot of history. There's a lot of assumptions made about that time period because they were sort of on their way towards that famous separation."
The period Lennon spoke about occurred from 1973 to 1974. Yoko Ono and John Lennon separated for a number of months during this time. The period is often referred to as "The Lost Weekend". Ono and Lennon rekindled their relationship in 1974. Sean Lennon was born the following year.
Lennon went on to say that "even when they were apart they were always talking." He was also told that all of his father's belongings were still at his mother's apartment during the separation. And one can't deny that it was very obvious that John Lennon was thinking about Ono while working on Mind Games.
"You look at the album cover, it's a collage of my mum literally the size of a mountain, and he's this little tiny thing sort of fading into the background," said Lennon. "And I think it's clear what his view of my mum was in his life. She was monumental, obviously. And the whole album is about her."
Lennon said that noticing his mother's presence throughout the surviving evidence of John Lennon's work for the album "sort of affirmed how deeply in love he was with my mum."
Lennon also went on to say that he believed Ono, now 91 years old, never really "moved on from that relationship." His work on the special edition of Mind Games was a "love letter" to his two famous parents and his attempt to be "a good son."
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