Yoko Ono
Photo by: Michael Lavine/EDGE
By Alex Teitz
Yoko Ono is one of the most revered and vilified women in music. An outspoken advocate of women’s rights, Ono has influenced countless musicians in many generations. Blueprint for a Sunrise is her first new album in five years. Blueprint for a Sunrise is one woman’s journey and life. It features strong, experimental tracks including “It’s Time for Action!” and “I’m Not Getting Enough.” It comes at a time when Ono is producing concerts for the people of New York and taking out full page ads in the paper promoting peace. Yoko Ono on Wikipedia
FEMMUSIC had the recent honor to speak with Ono and here’s what she had to say:
FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?
YO: Yeah. It’s very simple. I get inspired usually with a block of words with music attached or something. It just comes to me you know.
FEMMUSIC: Where did the idea of Blueprint for a Sunrise come from?
YO: I don’t know. I just get these ideas. It’s just being an artist, songwriter, composer, whatever…
FEMMUSIC: With this album you had a theme…
YO: Yes I have a theme then. Well it’s the kind of thing that’s predictable of Yoko Ono isn’t it? (laugh) Nothing new.
FEMMUSIC: Where do you see the feminist movement today?
YO: Well I think it’s kind of dead. But you see, this is not just for feminists or anything like that. I’m a woman and I’m speaking out of being a woman through my experiences, etc… or what I’ve witnessed being a woman, etc…It’s a woman’s world that I’m talking about I suppose from a woman’s point of view.
Like the first song, “I Want You to Remember Me” could be an adult guy being always victimized or something or a third world country, or small country that’s being colonized all the time or something. It’s to do with victimized situation. Abused situation.
FEMMUSIC: What was the best experience making Blueprint for a Sunrise?
YO: I was very pleased with this CD because I was just myself, you know. And of course I was always like that but at the same time there is always the concern, “Should I make it three minutes. It’s easier on the radio or the first song has to be the “hot” one, you know. I just dispensed that kind of concern totally because it’s an age where Backstreet Boys is “big” right? So I’m not competing right? So it’s like “This is me” as usual. So I just did it that way. I didn’t care about how long, how short the first song is or anything. Just went with the theme. The theme, the story.
FEMMUSIC: You have become very vocal about the September 11 tragedy. What role would you like to play in the healing in NY?
YO: I don’t want to play any role. I’m just a human being. I’m a woman in this city and I just want… I felt that’s necessary for one person to do.
FEMMUSIC: And what you’re doing is terrific.
YO: Thank you. While I’m trying my best. That’s all I can do. That’s all we can do is try our best.
FEMMUSIC: What one thing would you like to change about the music industry?
YO: I think the music industry is like any other industry that they have this in-built basis which is to make money. That’s very important. And I think that in a kind of business money oriented society that if you don’t have that then you don’t have the clout or whatever. You don’t have the power to exist as an industry so that’s good. But I think and I hope that there’s a little idealism on top of it which is kind of a respect for the arts kind of thing. Respect for the music. Hopefully the industry is interested in dishing out good music. And it is.
FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry have you been discriminated against?
YO: Of course I was totally discriminated against from beginning to end. I’m just amazed that I survived but I had my way of doing things. With this one, because of the coming of ProTools…it’s great to use ProTools. I did the whole album, a music collage album by myself in a way. It’s great! Taking this track that I made in this concert and so and so and then some studio takes or whatever but it was a demo and I sort of perked it up adding some tracks. It was a sampling but not of two bars, or two beats it was a sampling of my life. Let’s put it that way. It was a sampling of different tracts and putting it together. It was good. I made it into the story I wanted to tell. The story came first not the concern that the first track has to be three minutes.