#jy

Hmm. Okay. I’m just going to come right out and admit that I do not admire Yoko the way many people here do. That said, I think she’s a fascinating character and tbh I relate to her quite a bit. However, I’ve done a fuck ton of work on myself to move away from the very qualities she seems to lean into. As is true for all of us, our traumas shape the coping strategies we develop to survive, and those strategies often become deeply ingrained defense mechanisms. These defense mechanisms can be incredibly effective at protecting the self from fear, shame, and vulnerability in the short term, which is exactly why we hold onto them even when they become maladaptive. I’m not saying anything that you wouldn’t learn in an introductory psychology course, but I want to make it clear that my opinion comes from a place of empathy rather than contempt.

I’m first going to touch on Yoko’s approach to art bc I think it is both really interesting and really informative. I am of the opinion that art should make you think, and Yoko’s most certainly accomplishes this. Her work operates by setting up a situation and requiring the viewer to engage with it on her terms— you can’t just passively absorb it, you have to participate in the structure she’s created. In that sense, her art feels less like straightforward self-expression and more like the careful construction of a controlled environment in which other people are compelled to confront an idea. Of course, she can’t *actually* control how anyone responds to that idea, and I think that tension — between constructing a situation and the reality that she cannot control the outcome — is a very curious mirror of her relationship with John. Is this a coincidence, or is it The Whole Point of the performance art piece that is JohnandYoko?

That same impulse toward imposing structure on an unpredictable world appears more explicitly in Yoko’s writing. Yoko has been pretty up front about her belief that men and women possess fundamentally different qualities, a kind of spiritualized gender essentialism that was fairly common in certain corners of second-wave feminism (and it’s frankly a plague on us all). These ideals grow from a desire to make sense of one’s role in society, BUT they often slide into territory that’s reductive and harmful. And, of course, the beliefs we hold about the world inevitably shape how we relate to the people in it— Yoko’s most definitely inform how she shows up in her relationship with John (and vice versa).

In that context, the dynamic between them makes a lot of sense. I do not think either of them are Bad People (we as humans love to shove others into categories like “bad” and “good” to cope with a complex and contradictory reality, but such black and white thinking is both imprecise and harmful), but I DO think they were quite bad *for each other*. John and Yoko were attracted to the very qualities in one another that ultimately made their dynamic so unsustainable. John wanted a mommy and Yoko wanted a baby; the dynamic gave her a sense of control in an uncontrollable world and made him feel safe amidst profound insecurity. And, at least at first, it worked. Their respective vulnerabilities slotted neatly into the roles the other was unconsciously casting.

As I mentioned earlier, our defense mechanisms exist to protect the ego, and both of their egos were being actively reinforced within this relationship (certainly at the beginning of it). But the problem with ego defenses is that the very structures that protect us from fear are often the same ones that prevent real growth; we cling to what reassures us even when it limits us. So it comes as no great surprise to me that, under the influence of known ego-killer LSD and in the midst of personal crisis, John called Yoko and together they “rebuilt his ego,” which goes a long way toward explaining the intensity of their attachment. The relationship as we know it was born out of that moment of psychological reconstruction.

The thing is, I do believe they “loved” each other, the way it is easy to “love” what affirms us (and reject what makes us question ourselves). But the attachment between them formed very quickly and under unusual psychological circumstances. It seems to have been an ego-driven love built around affirmation rather than shared experience. And without a solid foundation, relationships struggle to withstand the ordinary pressures of time and change. In that sense, I think the whole thing was kind of doomed from the start. Not in spite of that intense mutual attachment, but bc of it.

I think this might explain some of the more abhorrent behavior that we see from both of them as the years go by. Just as John resented Julia for failing to embody the idealized mother he imagined, and just as he resented Mimi for her authority, he grew to resent Yoko. I do think he intentionally humiliated her as a means of expressing this resentment and disappointment, much the way a child lashes out at a parent who no longer matches the ideal they once relied on, while simultaneously asserting independence from that parent’s control. And Yoko seems to have resented John bc she *couldn’t* actually control him. If control was the mechanism through which the relationship made her world feel manageable, his resistance would have been deeply destabilizing, so she doubled down. The dynamic that once sustained them eventually became a source of frustration for both. Neither were able to live up to the roles they had cast each other in, and that kind of disillusionment is deeply painful and difficult to accept. There is a reason many people stay in unhealthy relationships for a long time— fear.

In spite of this likely wildly unfulfilling dynamic, the egos that drew them together kept them together. The public presentation of JohnandYoko was so insistent, and so central to how they positioned themselves in the world, that abandoning it would have meant admitting a kind of personal and artistic failure. Their relationship had become more than a private bond— it was a myth that they constructed together and performed for the world. To dismantle it would have been humiliating, an enormous blow to both of their egos. And yet, ironically, that moment of ego collapse might have created the conditions for real personal growth.

Hi anon, thanks for the ask. It’s not a hill I’m willing to die on, but I definitely think it’s a possibility! Let me try to explain where I’m coming from.

To begin with: when I read an anecdote of a man lying “catatonic” in bed for hours while his wife gets high and complains about her life to a relative stranger in the other room, I am not struck by an image of love and contentment. (See also: “I don’t want her” and “I wish I was back with Paul.”) Of course, such reports should be taken with at least one grain of salt, BUT! when documented accounts contradict the prevailing narrative so sharply….my personal instinct is to question that narrative.

To me, this sounds like a man who is over it. But the idea that Yoko knew John *so well* that she could intuit his needs/control the situation in the way you describe fits reeaalllyy neatly with both her public image and the Ballad, so it’s not surprising that this is the version of the story that stuck.

I don’t necessarily feel confident attributing John’s restlessness and lack of fulfillment exclusively to a mood disorder, either. John and Yoko had unrealistic expectations of each other and of their relationship from the start; no one person can meet all of another’s needs. This is a well-known problem with highly fused and insular partnerships, and tbh I think the established dynamic had run its course.

While I agree that John probably struggled with codependency, the thing is, it’s not like he left Yoko to be by himself. He went to LA with May and surrounded himself with friends, he began collaborating with other musicians again— he immediately sought out the companionship and community he lost when he moved to New York. This, to me, reads like a person who knew what he was missing and was trying to get it (or something like it) back.

Regarding the calls between John and Yoko…idk. I’m not aware of any contemporaneous third-party accounts of what was actually said in those calls, nor do I feel confident citing John/Yoko/May, as they all have some motivation for stretching the truth. But even if John WAS genuinely pursuing Yoko, that doesn’t mean he didn’t leave her to begin with…every fuck-head ex who’s ever dumped me tried to get me back at one point or another. People are just fickle sometimes.

Anyway, I do not want to imply that I believe the so-called lost weekend was all rainbows and butterflies. Unfortunately, John DID likely need support that friends alone couldn’t provide— but Yoko couldn’t provide it, either. And that becomes clear when we look at what comes next.

After John and Yoko reunite, we see John gradually withdraw into isolation. He is still unstable, bc unsurprisingly, Yoko’s intuition and management couldn’t actually save him from anything. He’s hardly making music, and the recordings we do have from the late 70s are generally pretty devastating— the only exceptions seem to be those little improvisations calling upon memories of the past. Third party accounts of John’s wellness at this time range from bad to worse; I am reminded of the earlier reports of near catatonia. Even if these accounts are exaggerated (and I hope they are!), this doesn’t sound like a person who is healthy and happy with his lot in life.

Just like the Lost Weekend was branded to sell a story of a wayward boy and the woman who found him (implicitly -> saved him), the House Husband Years were branded to sell the sequel: A Born-Again Family Man. But the evidence (salt!) we actually have from that period paints a much more complicated picture, so we must consider who is telling the story and what they have to gain from it.

It’s only in 1980, when John seems to begin asserting a bit more agency and re-engaging with life, that we see a real shift. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Starting Over calls upon themes of renewal, of honoring his younger self— a self who conquered the world alongside his friends, in collaboration rather than isolation.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one, anon.

To begin with, I do think John was kind of over the JohnandYoko of it all, but I struggle to believe that he wanted to be rescued. Bc the thing about the Lost Weekend is that John just doesn’t actually seem like he’s unhappy. He’s reconnecting with friends, collaborating with other musicians, writing and recording Walls and Bridges (arguably his most joyful and outward-looking post-Beatles work). If anything, this seems like one of the few periods where John is showing agency in his own life.

That said, I don’t want to romanticize it too much. I think most everyone is in agreement that John had loads of unprocessed trauma, likely exacerbated by co-existing mood and/or substance use disorders. So although his behavior during the Lost Weekend was messy, I’m not really convinced it was uniquely disastrous so much as unusually visible…John just happened to be in public more often than he was in the years immediately before or after (and I often find myself wondering why that is).

And Paul…. he was certainly successful in the 70s, but I suspect the decade was incredibly heavy for him. The breakup of the Beatles was one of the great losses of his life. SO many of the songs he wrote during that period are totally shot through with longing. I mean, there must be a reason it’s taken him 50 (!!) years to reflect upon on Wings. And when we do finally get a glimpse of it……..well.

Man on the Run *is* full of moments of joy, but the overarching story is of a man who is doing his best to perform under the weight of expectations, and the sense that he never quite meets his own. His reliance on Linda, especially, points toward a man who is Going Through It. And this dynamic seems to have come at an enormous cost to her, which is not at all indicative of a partnership that was easy or balanced. So, while I believe Paul loved his family tremendously, I just don’t get the impression that he was all that happy conquering the world while John spiraled.

I think you’re circling something pretty significant, Anon. The mirroring between the narratives of John replacing Paul with Yoko/Paul replacing John with Linda is too structurally neat to ignore, and I find it hard to believe that this symmetry is coincidental. It is, I think, indicative of one of the most nuanced and ambitious artistic projects of both John and Paul’s careers.

This is maybe one of my tin-hattiest theories, but I do not want to understate it bc I think it’s really, really important. It is first essential to acknowledge that both John and Paul are very intentional artists. I’ve suggested before that nearly all songs John ostensibly wrote for Yoko seem to gesture toward Paul, just as Paul’s songs for Linda feel like they address John, and I believe there is a degree of strategic awareness at play.

John and Paul had already spent a decade embedding self-reference and myth-making into their work— from the Lovable Mop Tops as a conceptual brand to the layered persona experiment that was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to the recursive commentary of later Beatles material, even Lennon-McCartney as a single entity. They defined themselves in relation to one another while constructing this shared mythology. They understood that narrative can function as medium and they understood the symbolic weight of public gesture. So the idea that either would suddenly become naïve about/unconcerned with narrative after the breakup is improbable, to say the least.

On the other hand, in the context of their shared history of meta-performance, it seems entirely plausible that the public presentation of their romantic relationships was not merely lived, but consciously staged. Just as Paul and Linda presented a performance of overnight-fairy tale-monogamy when the reality was likely far more complex (see @bodhbdearg’s thoughts on this), John and Yoko performed their relationship as well.

We see this in Bagism and Bed-ins (two pieces of conceptual art both *explicitly* about perception and identity and intimacy) and in the literal branding of their relationship as JohnandYoko. Then they branded their breakup as The Lost Weekend. Then they branded John’s breakdown as The House Husband Years. And while Paul and Linda were perhaps more subtle about marketing their relationship, they most certainly had their own Brand. This is the conversion of personal life into symbolic capital. Once a relationship is deliberately staged (named, aestheticized) it becomes authored, and authorship implies intention. None of this is to suggest that there was no love between them, but that love operates alongside strategy.

J/P used meta-performance and myth-making to construct the concept of the Beatles, and then J/Y and P/L used meta-performance and myth-making to construct the concept of their relationships. And it strains credulity to imagine that neither John nor Paul recognized — and played with — the structural symmetry of their post-Beatles love stories. This is the staging of their marriages in counterpoint to the most consequential collaborator of their careers and of their lives: each other.

If life imitates art, so does art imitate life. If the performance of a relationship functions as both art and mirror, then that symmetry operates not only at the level of publicity but within the architecture of their music. Their relationships mirror each other, their love songs reflect that mirroring again, on and on. It is my opinion that this recursion is not incidental ornamentation, but the scale of the work. This is incredible artistry that is fundamentally diminished if we fail to acknowledge the full scope and depth of the Lennon-McCartney partnership.