Fact #165957

Yoko Ono : John called me one day and said, you know, would I like to come for lunch at Kenwood? Like an artist-artist thing. So I said, Okay. He was talking about how he considered himself like Magritte, you know. He has this normal life with the bowler hat kind of thing, but doing something really crazy, you know. So it was like an artist-artist talk. And he said, "Oh, by the way, The Lighthouse (Build a house/with walls that come into existence/only with the particular prism effect/created by the sunset/If necessary, some walls or parts of/the walls can be made of material/other than light), would you make it for me? I'd like to commission." And I was saying, "Well, that's conceptual, I'm sure that one day someone will figure out how to make it, But I Don't know how to do it." And he said, "Oh, I thought maybe Americans had found something that we don't know." So, he didn't take it as a conceptual thing, he though it would be groovy to have it in his garden or something. That's probably the reason I was invited. It's so funny isn't it? And that was the first time I was invited, early '67 or something.


They make it like I was standing in front of the gate until finally he had to pull me in. First of all, I didn't know where he lived - when I was taken there by his chauffeur for lunch, I don't remember where it is. And also, I didn't think he would have liked it if I was that overt because there are so many overt girls around. Now, ten minutes later they say, "It was good of you to be standing there, demanding to go in, you saved John from suburbia!" And maybe some girls are really thinking you have to be totally aggressive, but I wasn't like that. I was much more aggressive in my work. Because I was a shy person, I tried to put all my aggression in my work. Thank God that I had this outlet.

John Lennon : I called her over. Cyn was away and I thought, "Well, now's the time if I'm going to get to know her any more." She came to my house and I didn't know what to do.

Yoko Ono : He was talking about how he considered himself like Magritte, you know. He has this normal life with the bowler hat kind of thing, but doing something really crazy, you know. So it was like an artist-artist talk. And he said, "Oh, by the way, *The Lighthouse* [*Build a house/with walls that come into existence/only with the particular prism effect/created by the sunset/If necessary, some walls or parts of/the walls can be made of material/other than light*], would you make it for me? I'd like to commission." And I was saying, "Well, that's conceptual, I'm sure that one day someone will figure out how to make it, But I Don't know how to do it." And he said, "Oh, I thought maybe Americans had found something that we don't know." So, he didn't take it as a conceptual thing, he thought it would be groovy to have it in his garden or something. That's probably the reason I was invited. It's so funny isn't it? And that was the first time I was invited.

He was extremely sexy! [laughs] He was a very handsome guy; it doesn't show so much in the photos but in reality he was exuding sex, let's put it that way. Not in an overt way, you know, there's a certain kind of refinement. Instead of coming on like, right away, there's a working-from-the-corner-of-the-room kind of vibe. It was beautiful. I really thought that he was an extremely sensitive, beautiful animal [giggles]. Yeah.

Even when I went to Kenwood and he had this conservative life, he was defending himself. Like, "I know what you think about this Kenwood," you know, like suburbia, "But I'm telling you..." Slightly nervous sweat and I'm just watching him sort of squirming. [laughs] And I'm going, "Mmm, that's interesting." There was an incredible sexual tension, let's put it that way, between us.

So we met in Kenwood that night. John was saying, "So what are we gonna do? We can do two things. We can just sit here and chat or we can go upstairs and make music."

John Lennon : We went upstairs to my studio and I played her all the tapes that I'd made, some comedy stuff and some electronic music. She was suitably impressed and said, "Let's make one ourselves." So we made Two Virgins.

Yoko Ono : Now, I know when you say, "go upstairs and make music" that's a double entendre, we never thought that way. So I said, "Okay, well, let's make music," because I didn't want to be just having a boring chat, I'm not that kind of person.

John Lennon : It was midnight when we started…

Yoko Ono : By then I'm thinking, "Making music? Hmm..." and then he's doing this, he's doing that and I'm saying, "Well, how am I going to salvage this?" And so I wanted to put my voice in where there's a hole, whatever, that's what I was thinking.

I didn't think there was anything sexual in *Two Virgins*, in other words, we were artists enough that we were not going to project sex, at least in my mind. I was really wearing my artistic hat, so to speak, rather than feeling his kind of sexual thing.

I was such a snob at the time and I thought his contribution tended towards being, er, not abstract enough, the sounds that he made, it was more vaudeville, I thought. I wanted to add more abstract sounds to it. It was a process of finding out each other in a way. In hindsight, of course, it's an incredible situation that he would do this, but at the time I thought it was natural for anybody to want to do it, make music with me like that. So I was thinking, "He could be throwing in more abstract sounds, but Okay, well, we'll deal with it."

I think we came from such an incredibly different world and I was a snob. I didn't realise it so much [because] at that point I was rebelling against the avant-garde world as well, when I made the Bottoms film. Many of the avant-garde friends said I had sold out. So, I was feeling I was a rebel in that sense, but I was still a snob. I just couldn't accept the fact that he would bring a vaudeville sound in there, because I was used to the New York avant-garde 'ting...tong...boom' [laughs]. From his point of view, he was thinking, "What is this?" you know. He's a very public figure and his mind is always thinking about communicating with his fans, probably. So, he's already saying, "Spit it out," and trying to make fun of it so the audience can accept it, trying to translate me to them. I'm trying to salvage the whole vaudeville thing [laughs] to 'my' audience. Both of us are very complex people, doing the artistic, but also we're used to our audience.

John Lennon : It was dawn when we finished, and then we made love at dawn. It was very beautiful.
(Source : not known)