有時候，你難免多心。

心眼一多，對許多小事就容易過敏。

於是，別人多看你一眼，你便覺得他對你有敵意；

別人少看你一眼，你又認定是他故意對你冷落。

多心的人注定活得辛苦，因為情緒太容易被別人的情緒所左右。

多心的人總東想西想胡思亂想，

結果很容易困在一團思緒的亂麻中，動彈不得。

有時候，與其多心，不如少根筋。

你是一塊磁鐵不相信？其實你是一塊磁鐵。

當你身心愉悅、喜歡自己、對這個世界充滿善意，

美好的東西就自然地被你所吸引。

相反的，當你悲觀、鬱悶、覺得什麼都不對勁，

負面的一切也就相繼來報到了。

因為你是一塊磁鐵，吸引的是與你相信的東西，

所以快樂的你就吸引讓你快樂的人事境，

煩憂的你則吸引讓你煩憂的人事境。

幸運與厄運，在於你如何使用內在的磁力。這是信念的奧秘。

你今天心情好嗎？

你不說話，但眼底的神色已回答了一切。

那麼，就別讓自己繼續躲在心事重重的甲殼裡吧。

「煩惱」這種煩人的東西是想出來的啊，

若是不想就不存在，你沒聽過這句話嗎？

去喝一杯咖啡，買一件衣服，剪一種新髮型。

去吃一筒冰淇淋，走一條街，看一場電影。

去看一個老朋友，聊一回往事，數一晚星星。

讓自已好過的方法很多，善待別人就是善待自己。

除非，你堅持躲在潮濕的甲殼裡更快樂。 

繫緣修心、藉事練心、隨處養心

心要定、心要定、不要因人亂了心

    阿嘻嘻是印度來的學生，去年學校畢業之後，很幸運地找到個長期的工作，因此開始了他日思夜想二十多年的鋼琴課。 

    這個阿嘻嘻有個性得很，想什麼就做什麼，還挑剔得不得了。  不幸的是， 奧斯卡衰人在下，就是他千挑萬選的鋼琴教師。  而他選擇來上我的課的原因竟然是 … 我的名字太難念，他非得挑戰不可。  至今我仍想不通，這是什麼怪理由？  名字再難念，練習個十次就會念了，不是嗎？  從此，阿嘻嘻這個希奇古怪的想法和個性就成了我每週二的「練功時段」。  

    這個學生很有意思。  扣掉我回台灣一個月不算，他已經跟著我上了將近七個月的課了。  這七個月當中，我和他隨時上演著拔河記。  

     首先，拔河第一章：阿嘻嘻很會計較，為了省學費，他會跟我要功課練，然後到處亂請假。 他不上課，自己亂亂練，指法也不對，手形也變形，認音符也是自己說了算。 我忍受了他自編自導自演一個多月，終於嚴肅地告訴他，學費就是學費，你請假照算學費，奧斯卡寧死不退費。 之後他才乖乖地準時上課，再也沒有缺課。  這個只要好聲溝通，一次就成，其實並沒有讓我多操心。 但是這一折騰，加上要改掉他自己亂練練出來的壞習慣，已經浪費了兩個月的寶貴青春了。 (阿嘻嘻，你那麼愛算，難道沒有想到這樣有多麼不划算嗎？) 

    拔河第二章：真正的大挑戰在他習慣性唱反調的學習風格。 剛開始幾次我確實有點頭痛，心想這個人是怎麼回事。 後來發現這是他的思考模式。  像是他會拒絕用某個指法，問我為什麼要用第二指彈那個音。  親愛的阿嘻嘻同學，因為在你彈完前一個音，準備彈下一個音的當下，第二指剛剛好、不偏不倚，就在那個音上頭！ 你不用它彈，難道要用腳彈嗎？  他偏偏要用其他手指彈，要證明他的指法是獨一無二的阿嘻嘻指法。 好，你就給我用力的彈，照著節拍速度與表情記號，彈下去！ 結果他的手指扭曲，差點折到痠痛，這才肯罷休。 這麼一來一往，至少浪費兩個星期的光陰。 而且幾乎每學一首曲子，他就要來這一招。 好！ 你喜歡拔河，本姑娘也拔上癮了；你喜歡把寶貴的上課時間拿來辯論那完全不合理的指法和彈法，本姑娘也辯上癮了；你高興一首曲子彈上個一個月，讓你試驗你的獨門、且一定失敗的阿嘻嘻指法，你敢彈多久，本姑娘就敢聽多久，放馬過來！  

    最有意思的是，他並不是不在乎自己的進度進行緩慢，他可在乎得很，但是若是依照他的思考邏輯，我將他引向東兩步，他非要朝向西一步，三不五時還不練琴，這樣能有個正常的進度才有鬼！ 算你有志氣，凡事都要親身試驗到個手痠腳痛，音符都不會認，這才肯罷休。  好歹做老師的也要佩服你一番。  

   拔河第三章： 接下來是壓軸，我從來沒想過，教一個初學者要把宇宙大爆炸加上宇宙人生大道理給搬出來。 阿嘻嘻鬧彆扭，怎麼也不肯轉調，他說全部彈在C大調就好了，為什麼要轉調，聽起來不都一樣嗎？ 同學啊，就是聽起來不一樣才要轉調呀！ 你聽不出來是你的耳朵不對勁，你來上課就是來學這個的嘛！  反正事情不順你意，你就不高興。

    為了這個轉調，為了手指移動，我花了極大的力氣說服他。 用音樂說服他沒有效果，因為他已經認定轉不轉調聽起來都一樣。 我只好動用印度的宇宙觀與大自然的規律，從太陽系講到銀河系，從婆羅門教的哲學觀講到佛陀的宇宙人生真相，從吠陀經 (天知道我根本沒讀過此經書) 講到華嚴經的天體運行 ... 。 總之，就是要告訴他一個重點，整個大宇宙是有規律的，這個神秘的規律就是根，從根生長出的各個分枝也都是仰賴著根的養份成長。  不把根養好，就長不出枝葉，連根都不要，就什麼也長不出來。 轉調就像是天體運行，你不肯動，就永遠不知道宇宙核心的另一頭長得什麼樣子，你非得脫離軌道，用不合人體工學的指法彈到手扭到，就會傷害你自己 ... ，(嗡嗡嗡) ，(嗡嗡嗡)...　我分段講了三堂課，有嘴說到無沫。 他聽得一愣一愣的，終於願意嘗試一下轉調，願意打開耳朵聽一下轉調的聲音，願意把手指頭從 C 大調移到 G 大調。

   教個鋼琴學生教成這樣，我也認了。 這個週末還要交待他去聽交響樂團，他沒人陪不想去，我還找另一位印度學生陪他一起去。 這個阿嘻嘻簡直是個傳奇！  

    阿嘻嘻乖一點，至少再等個兩個月再來鬧彆扭，我快要沒招了！    

   這幾個月沒有認真寫格子，實在很糟糕。 雖然寫格子不是為了給人家看，但是平日孤僻成性，與朋友們並不常聯繫，寫格子總是能夠讓朋友們知道我到底是死是活。 

   去年五月中旬，托小昭的福，ㄠ到了免費的兩天一夜優勝美地國家公園 (Yosemite National Park) 之旅。 那真是個難得的機會，兩位好友一起旅行，整整兩天遊山玩水！ (小昭去攝影、錄影、工作，我是跟去玩的)  

   旅行過後一星期，我就到南方大城找房子、收拾行李、準備遷移。 十多天之後，越過層層高山與高原沙漠，我在南方大平原安頓下來。 轉眼間我已經在南方待一年了。 趕緊把一年前的旅行照片貼上來吧。

   到了優勝美地國家公園，當然不可免俗的要來一張招牌Half Dome的照片！ 上次造訪是深秋時分 (請看這裡)，這次是初夏，同樣的Half Dome，景致風情大不相同。  此番來訪，彷彿是來告別，將來能否再親近靈山勝景，只能靠緣份了。      

   初夏雪水融化，水量豐沛，優勝美地每一個瀑布都歡喜地稀哩嘩啦。

    再來一張瀑布照，一年之後看著照片，彷若舊地重遊，美極了。

   爬上瀑布山頂上，陽光和水氣繾綣，生成了美麗的彩虹。  

   這裡有個小插曲，當小昭忙上忙下錄影拍照的時候，落單的奧斯卡不小心被一名陌生男子盯上，一路跟著偷拍，最後還想跟我要 email，說要寄照片給我。 不必啦！ 我天天照鏡子，自己長什麼德性自己清楚得很。 難道… 這就註定了我後來的桃花… ？  

  又見兩座美得令人不想說話的瀑布。

   壯麗委婉的山谷。

   那一天在這座山谷裡走著，整整一天，我終於明白我來到山多水多的加州的原因，我生命中所缺乏的靈性，在那六年當中，依靠著純美的大山豪水，一點一滴地修補起來。此時此景，能量充滿，是奧斯卡濟世助人的時候了。 承受著大自然的厚愛與恩德，也該慷慨回饋給虛空一切眾生了。

   我走了，但是我從來沒有離開過。

   我的生活仍然恬淡，不是在書房裡，就是在大自然與人群中流浪。 然而，我就在這裡，現在，此時此刻，與大家同在，回饋著大自然與一切眾生的恩澤。  

寒山曾問：「世人謗我、欺我、辱我、笑我、輕我、賤我、厭我、騙我，如何處治乎？」拾得云：「只是忍他、讓他、由他、避他、耐他、敬他、不要理他。且待幾年，你且看他。」絕妙問答，蘊含做人處世之道。

    十七年前，我大二，在恩師老錢的研究室桌上看到這一段話，隨手將它抄在筆記簿裡。 整整花了十來年的功夫，我才從皮到肉、自骨至髓接受了這個道理。  

    現代人很可憐，拼命把知識和資訊往腦袋裏裝，填滿自己的空虛，自以為自己什麼都懂，其實大家正過著虛假不自然的生活。 表面上似乎什麼都有，滿嘴空洞無益、似是而非的大爆炸知識，事實上大家什麼都沒有。  這個社會就是這麼不真、不自然，但多數人都是為這些不真的東西拼命，用盡一生最寶貴的心力，無止盡地追求。 

    人很執著，執著身體與藏在身體裡的「自我」，執著和身體相關的事物，乃至經驗、名譽、地位、觀念、權益 ... 等等，以為這些都是自己的。  這個世界大部分的紛爭與問題都是從此滋生的。 「吾有大患，唯吾有身」，老子在四千年前已經明確指出人的盲點了。 看淡這個「身」，即無所患；面對、檢視這個「身」所滋生的貪執，就不難放下它。

   這個社會像個壓力鍋，每個人的壓力無限擴張著。 我自己也高明不到哪裡去， 做出無數自以為聰明的蠢事，再痛苦地花了十年的功夫來修正。 人的一生，花費了大部分的時間與力氣來解決生命上的種種問題，但是我們真的解決了問題嗎？ 還是在解決不了問題的時候，退而求其次的找尋讓自己好過一點的說法？ 或是花了好大的功夫來接受問題不是問題，而是當下發生的狀況？  人為什麼要折磨自己，活得這麼用力？  “... stressful thoughts reflect a conflict with reality.  Stress happens when the mind resists what is.”註1「深夜加油站遇見蘇格拉底」中如是說。“When you resist what happens, your mind begins to race; the thoughts that assail you are actually created by you.”註2  我們去問問花草樹木，它們如何解決生命問題？ 它們不解決問題，只是讓問題自己離開。       

    我上個月從一場小病中復原過來，所以我寫這些不代表自己完全沒病，只是希望這個社會和眾生能減少一些情緒問題與生活問題，少一些折磨，多一點喜悅與滿足，感受「多一事不如少一事，少一事不如無事」的自然狀態。  不需要吃就不要拼了命的吃，不需要知道就不要知道； 不必要的話不要隨便說，不必要的事不要打聽，不小心聽到了就忘掉它。  碰到任何狀況，多付出，少期待，多一些平常心，少一些患得患失，如此就不會與這個社會發生有形與無形的衝突。 我不是命理師，也不是什麼修行者，我只不過是個教音樂的兼職遊民，沒開悟、沒權勢、沒名利、也不需要這些垃圾。

    人做事情不要想著目的和預期結果，想多了這些，事情是做不下去的，即使做下去也不再是自然的初衷。 藝術家是為感覺而做事，而不是為了作品能否賣得出去而做。 所謂作品賣不賣得出去，要怎麼賣，市場機制如何，都不是創作當下的目的。 在創作的當下，多付出，少期待，事情想多想久了，人會發狂的。 發狂本身就是不自然的狀態。

    尼金斯基和梵谷沒有瘋，瘋的是這個說他們瘋了的社會。

註1 & 註2：Millman, Dan, "Way of The Peaceful Warrior," HJ Kramer, page 72  

   上個星期四，4月2日，是奧斯卡自三月初回到休士頓以來最快樂的一天。 

   那天傍晚，我在米大電台做完一些電腦和錄音資料的事之後，突然不想回家寫曲子，更不想回家洗衣、做晚餐，於是我穿越馬路，走進米大對面的赫曼公園 (Hermann Park)，決定一償宿願，非得坐到我已經朝思暮想了九個月的公園火車。 

   在時空與精神錯亂一個月之間，我居然還記得貝多芬逝世一百八十二年紀念日 … 。  音樂畢竟是我生命中最深刻的慰藉。

   Zimmerman 與伯恩斯坦的詮釋是我最喜歡的，貝多芬最人性、最慈悲的那一部分，怎麼也藏不住。 

   深刻地愛著，卻那麼孤獨，Herr Beethoven，我怎麼能不懂你呢？  我那麼瞭解你，藏在你的音樂裡的痛苦與寬容，這是你要告訴我的嗎？ 我活在自己的想像空間中，但是卻如此真實。 我看到了娑婆世界的苦，非常非常的苦，人類享受著這不著邊際的痛苦，卻不願意離開。 情不重，不生娑婆啊！  人生好難，不存在的時間與空間一而再、再三地玩弄著人類愚蠢的辨識能力。  

   悲傷與痛苦是人生的必然，它也是人類想像出來的虛幻。  在喜悅與悲傷中找到平衡，大悲心才能在最純淨的愛中生起。  你不遠千里、突破時間與空間找到我，就是要告訴我這些嗎？ 幻化不實的想像密碼一旦破解，整個宇宙將如實地呈現在你的眼前，像第九號大合唱之後的回歸，那首對世人而言始終是個謎團的大賦格弦樂四重奏。  穿越時空兩百年，這是你要告訴我的嗎？  

   兩百年前的孤寂，就讓它停留在那裡。 兩百年前的無解，已是最圓滿的解脫。            

On Death and Rebirth

    In recent years, Yoko Ono has successfully developed new and communicative strategies in her works, many of which are a continuation of her more significant creations and themes from 1980 the present.  These strategies serve to increase the power of the work searching for the resolution toward death in order to attract the audience’s gaze and provoke the deepest reflection.  In this section I will examine two of her works, the installation Ex It that first appeared in 1997 and her earlier 1981 album Season of Glass.  In each of these creations, she has worked with the image of death and rebirth, which have the evocative power to release her sorrow from something one cannot avoid or change in one’s life.    

    Thinking about Ex It, the later of the two works, brings to mind Ono’s front cover for her 1981 album Season of Glass.  It is a ghastly image of despair in the aftermath of her husband John Lennon’s assassination that carries away as much as it can from the moralizing ethos of a seventeenth-century Dutch still life.30 Against a backdrop of Central Park, a view from the couple’s home in the Dakota, Lennon’s still bloodstained glasses sit next to a glass of water that is unmistakably half-empty.  Of course, it would be difficult to miss that this is Ono’s point-blank portrait of the couple.  Lennon is present through the grisly relic of his cold-blooded murder; she is now half-diminished and colorless.  But even in death, they remain inseparable, as Lennon becomes Ono’s creative ghost-limb.  On the back cover of the album, fresh flowers have replaced Lennon’s glasses, and the glass of water appears filled but still achromatic.  The literalism that makes death so vivid in the photograph is unmistakably reiterated in Ex It.  

    Season of Glass makes people think about the dark time in Ono’s life in 1980, and it also draws the daring, those willing to be taken inside, to hear what Ono has to say just slightly more than six months after Lennon was assassinated before her eyes.  Those who wish to erase incident from their minds, and who might consider Ono’s frankness offensive, which wish she wouldn’t rub it in, are best advised to stay away.31   But those who don’t ever want to forget, who are willing to open up and face this woman’s statement, and maybe find something with which to identify, will find many emotions on the album.  Ono doesn’t beat around the bush, doesn’t try to forgive and forget – she is a bitter woman.  But she is a very strong one.  She writes of the back of this album:

    Spring passes

    And one remembers one’s innocence

    Summer passes

    And one remembers one’s exuberance

    Autumn passes

    And one remembers one’s reverence

   Winter passes

   And one remembers one’s perseverance

   There is a season that never passes

   And that is the season of glass. 

   At the moment that she was recording this album, she might not be ready to forgive and forget because “the season that never passes is the season of glass.”  However, in Ex It Ono has forgiven and released.  In her interview to Michael Bracewell in 1996 (when she was preparing Ex It, En Trance, and Wish Tree), Ono says: “True freedom is freedom of the spirit, and you can’t overburden yourself with negative thinking, because negative thinking, whether it’s a grudge against somebody or the hurt that carry, only hurts you.  When John passed away, I was angry and I was sad … But then I realized that this was eating me up, … and I had to refuse the negative emotions … I think the rule of the game is: if you don’t forgive, you’re not forgiven either. … then the ideas of Wish Tree and Ex It came out.“32

    With first track of the Album Season of Glass, Ono makes her feelings known to the listener. “ ‘Goodbye Sadness’ is an emotional tune in which Ono sounds as if she’s started to come to terms with her fears and sadness because she ‘can’t take it anymore.’”

Goodbye sadness

Goodbye goodbye

I don’t need you anymore

I wet my pillow every night

But now I saw the light

Goodbye goodbye sadness

I don’t need you anymore

Goodbye goodbye sadness

I can’t take it anymore

Goodbye sadness

Goodbye goodbye

I don’t need you anymore

I lived in fear everyday

But now I’m going my way

…

Hello happiness

Wherever you are

I hope you hear my song

I never want to cry again

Or hold my breath in fear again

(Repeat)

    Sometimes it hurts to listen to her pained voice, but it is necessary to hear her go through with this album.  It almost serves as an exercise in dealing with life’s many brutalities and serves as a healing process allowing her to stand up and carry on.  “Hearing Ono’s singing brings [people] back memories, but at the same time it also feels good to know that she’s done this.”33   “Goodbye Sadness” is not like any other songs that Ono has been involved with, not like any of her experimental, avant-garde art songs.  “This is a melodic pop song.  There is very little that’s abrasive about the actual music, which is mostly traditional soft rock with backing by many of the musicians who worked with Ono and Lennon on their 1980 collaboration, Double Fantasy.”34    

    “Goodbye Sadness” is a simple song, simple melody and repeated text, but with Ono’s sincere voice and emotion.  There is none of the screaming of the typical Ono style, but in its own way, her voice is just as close to the edge as it ever was.  In Jeff Tamarkin’s critic in 1983, he wrote:  “ In the liner notes she admits that she was ‘all choked up and my voice was cracking’ during the recording … but then she adds that it’s ok for her voice to sound like that because ‘that’s what the critics have been saying about me all those years anyway.’”   The music is pushed into the background, allowing Ono’s singing to hold its own and create the mood by itself.  The music is sentimental in its thinness, and under the circumstances, more poignant.  The melody of saxophone and guitar sticks out as islands of sanity to hold firmly in the center of all of Ono’s purposeful tension.  It works extremely well and leaves a mark:  she has always known how to get her message across.  

      [Ex It, New York, 1997]

     Ex It, the installation in Deitch Projects, in SoHo, New York, 1997-98, Ono neatly arranged 100 rough and inelegant wood coffins implying with the little window that permits one last look of a life giving way to death before shoveled dirt falls down from above.  The 100 unpainted wooden coffins, with three different sizes, sixty for men, thirty for women, and ten for children, are punctuated by young, blossoming fruit trees, which grow up and through the petite window, and tape loops of chirping birds wafting through the starkly spotlighted room.  From time to time one of the bantam leaves drifted down to the dank floor.   

    The instructions of Ex It call for coarse, common coffins, such as those lined up on a field devastated by a catastrophe, a battle, or a massacre.  A tree grows out of an opening from each normally one could see the face of the deceased.  This extraordinary field of coffins moves and disturbs the audience, across ideologies and religions.  As a former student and a friend of John Cage, Ono’s Ex It is also full of silent sound and chance.  It is an inner forest sprouting in silence from silence itself in an atmosphere of sadness and isolation.  It is a gripping meditation on the indivisibility of death and life and the natural order of coming and going.  On one’s unchecked capacity for cruelty to one’s own kind, the continued blessing of rebirth, and each generation’s potential and responsibility for change.  “Ex It is life as a continuation,” Ono wrote in the artist’s statement.35  The entire installation resonated with the spirit of her work prior to Lennon’s death.  With Ex It Ono has made “resurrection” categorical:  Death begets new life brimming with the promise of Renewal, or as she prefers, continuation.

    Moving and directing, Ono reflects on the human condition and the fragility of existence, on the uncertainly of regaining hope after death, and on the reclamation of anonymity.  The title, Ex It, seems to imply to the exit from life or to the abandonment of one’s being, to losing one’s proper name.  Her “word” signifies someone or something that has ceased to be whom or what it was.  Words usually display the scenes of their own catastrophe, of a sacrifice from that the new meanings will emerge.  Sometimes words are broken, interrupted, restricted by themselves like human’s lives.

     Ono’s acoustic environment reinforces this sensation with a colorful background  “noise/music” of whispers of birds, human voices and the rustling of leaves.  That recalled to me that Cage’s pleads to his students to listen to all the sounds from nature and from the environment and completely absorb them into your ears and your mind, and then translate it as your own voice.  “We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments,” he advised.36   “The sound you play in your mind is different than the sound that comes out.  The sounds and music in your mind…exist without the physical limitations of the real world,” Ono said, relating that she asked people at her “silent concert/exhibition” to create the music in their own mind.37   Ono called attention to the “sounds you hear in silence…when you start to feel the environment and tension and people’s vibrations… the sound of fear and darkness, like a child’s fear that someone is behind him.”38   Nature wakes up and renews itself year by year.  These are the sounds of invisible conversation, of distant echoes resonating inside the empty chamber of memory as they move across it from the beginning of time.

    Another exhibition that Ono presented at the Andre Emmerich Gallery simultaneously, En Trance, was an assembly of works, much of it from the mid-1960s, including the 1966 Ceiling Painting (Yes), which requires the viewer to climb a ladder to see through a magnifying glass that the word “ Yes” has been written on the canvas.  Ex Trance, compared with Ex It, is nostalgic.  It showed the struggle, isolation and process that an artist has been making over many decades. 

    Ono’s art, her music and poetry, sit right on the surface. Indeed, her work has proved to be nothing if not uncomplicated. Where Ex It is concerned, Ono’s despair over Lennon’s death and her faith recuperated out of tragedy appear recklessly self-conscious. While touching as autobiography, this kind of issue is perhaps less valuable when we measure its reach into contemporary culture.  Where there is sympathy for this work, I found that it has been allowed to pass as an expression of “insight” magnified by the lure associated with fashion figures like John Lennon. Taken side by side, Ex It and En Trance are from the life story of a woman who was more than married to a culture icon.  To be sure, the indelible link between Ono and Lennon advances her artistic works considerably.  But her work is naïve, and her work has the pure insight of human.  And it is as guileless as it is sentimental about an earlier and simpler time in her life.  “The idealism of the Sixties still exists, the spirit is still with us.” Ono said. 39              

Yoko Ono and the Rise of Feminism

    After Ono met John Lennon in London in 1966, she began exploring pop music and rock & roll, and they shared a mutual interest in exploring sound and avant-garde artistic images.  Playing with Ono freed Lennon, who had tired of the Beatles’ pop image and was searching for a new direction in his music.  Just as the post World War II freedom in Japan influenced Ono, Lennon was maturing in the Vietnam era, and no longer satisfied writing songs he viewed as meaningless, with nothing to say.  In Ono he found inspiration, someone who was able to break out the conventional and create something new.  “If somebody with a rock oriented mind can possibly listen to her stuff, you’ll see what she’s doing,” he told Rolling Stone.  “It’s fantastic.  She makes music like you’ve never heard on the earth.  It’s like 20 years ahead of its time.”20   

    Ono also heard the harsh word of the critics at this time.  “I think they called my work ‘too dramatic,’ because in those days, in the New York art scene, you weren’t supposed to be too animated.  Basically, when John and I found each other … because of this rebellious nature in both of us.  And even in the avant-garde I was rebellious about it all.  It’s not just being a woman.  If you’re a good girl, so to speak, and kind of following the tradition of the avant-garde and using their vocabulary, then I think they’ll allow you to exist.  So that’s why I don’t really know if it was the woman in me that offended them or the fact that I was rebelling …”21   The world was changing, and Ono was changing with it.  No longer was she satisfied with the intellectualism of the Beat Generation, but she was finding a new voice in the midst of the turbulent protest generation of the 1960’s.  Given the respect accorded to the Beatles, it was understandable that Ono’s association with Lennon placed her directly in the firing line for near-universal condemnation and contempt, especially when Ono was brave enough to speak her mind and refused to stay in the passive position such as the other Beatle wives had done.  Linda Eastman, who also attended Sarah Lawrence College albeit later than Ono, and married Paul McCartney eight years before Ono married Lennon, experienced the same problems with getting songwriting credits on songs that they later wrote with their husbands.  The recording company just didn’t believe Ono and Eastman were able to compose with Lennon and McCartney.22 

   Ono began to write songs about her plight of Woman in a male dominated society.  Her feminism had long been a central aspect of her ego but she now was becoming a more outspoken critic of the treatment of woman, and many of her songs addressed the issue of women’s equality, themes that resonated with the woman of the time just as they do today.  This was never truer than during the period of the Plastic Ono Band.  “I had become so lonely doing mind music that I was ready to begin screaming again,” Ono said.23   She was forced by herself to scream louder than ever against amplified instruments to expressing her true feelings.

    Early presentations like Cut Piece (1964), performed by the artist herself, pointed to a woman’s vulnerability – public, personal, physical, psychological – in a male-dominated society.  In her music, Ono evokes a woman’s concerns in the titles and emotions of experimental musical composition.  Her first overtly feminist song was ‘Sisters O Sisters,” first performed in 1971.  “Sisters O Sisters” appeared on Lennon and Ono’s Sometime in New York City album in 1972.  Later in 1973 Ono’s Approximately Infinite Universe explored a range of woman-centric emotions and issues in a variety of styles.  “‘What a Bastard the World Is’ focused on the inequality of female/male relationships, ‘I Want My Man to Rest Tonight’ addressed the problems men have in coming to terms with their own sexism, and ‘I Have a Woman Inside of My Soul’ and ‘Death of Samantha’ were moving portrayals of women who have repressed all feelings for the sake of outward appearance.”24

    In 1973, she released Feeling the Space, an album even more fearlessly feminist in message and stylistically diverse.  She wrote on the back cover of this album: “This album is dedicated to the sisters who died in pain and sorrow and those who are now in prisons and in mental hospitals for being unable to survive in the male society.” 

    On Feeling the Space, Ono took complete control of the production for the first time.  The most fitting description of the music here is “angry.”  Ono finds no love or sweetness where the male population is concerned, and it shows.  Her anger comes through loud and clear.  This album uses rich, pop-influenced melodies interwoven with lyrics of great emotional depth.  Ono said of this album in 1997: “I wouldn’t say that these songs directly affected or influenced a society because there were not songs that were played that much, … But I think, … in terms of prayer, …, that these songs may have been helping.”  In 1973 Ono and Lennon attended The First International Feminist Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the conference attendees stood up to join them in singing the chorus of “Woman Power” from Feeling the Space.     

    From the Ono-as-Sphinx cover art to the plainspoken, angry songs within, Feeling the Space is Ono’s most overtly feminist album.  The lyrics are surprisingly subtle and yet emotionally complex, from the painful openers, “Growing Pain” and “Yellow Girl (Stand By For Life),” through more strident tunes such as “Woman of Salem,” about the infamous witch trials in colonial America, and “Angry Young Woman,” based on the life story of a woman Ono had met at the International Feminist Conference, and honoring self-emancipation.  The music is powerful rock with touches of free-jazz courtesy.

    “Woman of Salem” starts with rhythmic bongos, then Ono’s clean voice emerges telling the story of Sally Kegley with piano accompaniment:

1692, six in the morning of June,

Sally Kegley, age thirty-four,

Closed her diary she’d kept for two scores.

Salem, salem, witches must be hung.

Let my daughter burn my book,

Let her learn to saw and cook.

Teach her not to read but weave,

Ask her not to speak but weep.

Salem, salem, witches must be hung.

Sally Kegley knows how to cure the ill,

Sally kegley sees through us at will.

Salem, salem, witches must be hung.

All the town’s people rushing to the hill,

Their eyes shining, ready for the kill.

Sally’s flesh bound to the cross,

Her eyes searching for the ones who are close.

Oh, why? …(Repeat)

Help! …(Repeat)

Must kill, must hang, … (Repeat)

…

  After the brief peaceful opening passage, the music begins getting faster and Ono’s voice takes on a stronger and angrier tone when she sings “All the town’s people rushing to the hill. Their eyes shining, ready for the kill. …”

   “Woman Power” is a proud anthem and Ono claims what Women wish.  After a short dialogue: “You’ve heard of woman nation, well, that’s coming, baby.  What we need is the power of trust, that it’s coming.  You’ve heard of the law of selection, well, that’s how we’re gonna do it, baby.  We allow men who wanna join us.  The rest can just stay by themselves.”  Then the guitar and drum starts as an introduction with Ono’s primal voice and chorus, “Woman Power!”  It is always interesting to hear how Ono changes her voice and mood between the words and reprises.  The idea of women’s liberation appears clearly in this song and somehow in her voice.

Two thousand years of male society,

Laying fear and tyranny.

Seeking grades and money,

Clinging to values vain and phone.

Woman Power! … (Repeat)

Do you know that one day you lost your way, man?

Do you know that some day you have to pay, man?

“Make no mistake about it, I’m the president, you hear?

I wanna make one thing clear, I’m the president, you hear?”

Woman Power! … (Repeat)

You don’t hear them singing songs,

You don’t see them living life,

‘Cause they’ve got nothing to say, but

“Make no mistake about it, I’m the president, you hear?

I wanna make one thing clear, I’m the president, you hear?”

Woman Power! … (Repeat)

You may be the president now,

You may still be a man.

But you must also be a human,

Woman Power! … (Repeat)

…

    In an era of prominent female singer-songwriters, “Woman Power” was unique for the honest examination of feelings and behavior rotted in personal pain or fear from male society.  Like Edward Gomez said, “Expressing anger and rage as mush as love and whimsy, Ono’s work in pop-rock modes was a precursor of the soul-scraping pop vernacular …”25  

   In “Men, Men, Men,” Ono examines something that women want men to be and to do, for a change, as sex objects.  The music is jazz-like soft rock with improvising-atmosphere saxophone and piano, and stable drum beats.  Unlike the previous songs that accuse the inequality of male society, Ono’s voice and singing turn sweet and sexy, like a coquettish ditty. 

J.O.H.N.N.Y.,

God’s little gift, cream and pie.

Men,men,men,umm,umm (Repeat)

God’s little gift for woman.

I want you clever but not too clever,

I want you bad but not too bad.

I want you string but not too strong,

I want you to try your rightful position.

Men, men, snails and puppies,

Your muscles are not for fighting in war.

Your lips are not for voicing opinions,

Your eyes are there for us to look into.

I want you to take your rightful position.

Men, men, grapes and nuts,

Your pants are never tight enough,

Your boots are never long enough.

Your skin is never young enough,

I want you to hold your rightful position.

Men, men, apples and figs,

I like you to be faithful but not very fussy,

I like you to be behind me but not just beside me.

I like you to shut up but know when to say yes,

I want you to learn your frightful position.

Now you know what you have to do,

Now you know what’s expected of your

So come up and see me sometime.  

    Ono said in the interview with David Sheff, “It’s a basic women feeling, but I’m sure men feel that way, too, once in a while – that basic frustration of not being able to really communicate.  … in the age when the communication media is expanding more and more and there’s big communication, the individual communication is getting more and more difficult.  There’s an alienation between individuals.  I think women feel the frustration more than men – again, it’s the woman, or at least the feminine side of men and women, that is ignored by society – the male society.”26

    Ono started writing at a young age.  In 1966 for The Stone, she wrote Biography and Statement, life experience made into simple poetic metaphors, and Statement is especially poignant.  They were feminist statement, but they are also complex.  Ono continued to explore the ideas of a radical, of someone “who refused to conform to the dictates of the norm, be it class, nation, gender, religion, artistic form, or literary convention: a focused determination to do it her way.”27   For instance, in Biography, sky becomes a metaphor for freedom, seaweeds have sexual connotations, and so on.  Ono had also written an article about feminism for The New York Times, entitled “The Feminization of Society,” on 23 February 1972.  In this article, she claimed in the introduction, “The aim of the feminist movement should not just end with getting more jobs in the existing society, though we should definitely work on that as well.  We have to keep on going until the whole of the female race is freed.”(See example 3).  In this article, she talks about lesbianism, female liberation, and generation issue, the existing social set-up.  As a woman, she has suffered the abuse of men – as an Asian woman artist working in an unfamiliar terrain, she has been the victim of extreme prejudice and intentional misunderstanding.  “The Feminization of Society” is a manifesto for liberation.

     Ono and Lennon’s collaboration, Double Fantasy, was released in 1980.  Double Fantasy had Ono and Lennon trading off songs such as they had on 1972’s Some Time in New York City, but with far more effective results.    This time the main subject was their personal relationship, and for the first time critical praise for Ono’s work outweighed that reserved for Lennon’s.  The songs on Double Fantasy represented a change in Ono message.  Compared with earlier works, it lacked much of the anger associated with the fight for woman’s rights in a male dominated society, and instead reflected on the one on one relationship between a man and a woman.    “Critics and fans praised Ono’s edgy contributions to this album, hearing in her vocals antecedents and affinities to the era’s punk and new-wave styles,” Gomez noted.28  “All the most interesting material on Double Fantasy is Yoko’s,” said Charles Shaar Murray in an NME review, adding, “In the ‘80s … her music sounds vastly modern and considerably more interesting than Lennon’s.”29       

     Then Walking on Thin Ice was released in 1981.  The song emerged from the couple’s flurry of composing and recording activity that lead up to their release Double Fantasy.  “Walking on Thin Ice”, with Lennon on guitar, was the couple’s definitive response to the punk rock they both had influenced.  Later, Ono used home-movie clips to create a visual montage to accompany the song.  With images of the Lennon’s relaxing by a lake, playing with their son, Ono’s video showed the emotional intensity of their partnership, and it also showed the condor that had always characterized her music.