Yoko Ono
Lennon was in a fragile state of mind after returning from the band's sojourn in India in early 1968. He was disillusioned and resentful that the Maharishi did not fulfill his expectations. Coupled with renewed drug use and deterioration in his marriage and family life, his personal identity and his artistic role within the Beatles was a source of discontent. Although McCartney may have been the first to be exposed to the other forms of artistic developments and trends, Lennon began to develop a more intense interest in one artist in particular, Yoko Ono. A Japanese-American conceptual artist, Ono met Lennon at one of her exhibitions in 1966. The pair maintained a platonic relationship until the spring of 1968. In May 1968 they spent time together in his home studio while his wife, Cynthia, was away on holiday. They recorded an avant-garde tape that would eventually be released as Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, before consummating their new relationship. From that point on, the two were almost always together, even as Lennon was working with the rest of the band in the studio. This violated a previous tacit agreement between the members not to let wives or girlfriends into the studio. However, as Lennon's artistic infatuation with Ono grew, he desired that she would be allotted artistic input into the band's recordings. Frequently, Ono would comment or make suggestions in the recording studio, which only served to increase the discontent between Ono and Lennon's bandmates.
Read more about this topic: The Beatles' Break-up
Famous quotes containing the word ono:
“Everybody’s an artist. Everybody’s God. It’s just that they’re inhibited. I believe in people so much that if the whole of civilization is burned so we don’t have any memory of it, even then people will start to build their own art. It is a necessity—a function. We don’t need history.”
—Yoko Ono (b. 1933)