If there is a couple in the world of rock music known worldwide, it is John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The artists went down in history, not only for having outstanding separate projects but also for their high-profile and passionate relationship that survived until the tragic death of the former Beatle.
Lennon met Ono in November 1966 at the Indica Gallery in London, where the Japanese artist was preparing an installation. The two were smitten with each other, and the rest is history.
A month before this meeting, The Beatles began recording what would become one of the most important albums of the contemporary music scene: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
One of the most iconic songs from this album is ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ which according to Lennon, was inspired by a dream he had about a woman, who would later become Yoko Ono.
“The images were from Alice in Wonderland,” Lennon told David Sheff in a 1980 interview. “It was Alice on the boat. She’s buying an egg, and she turns into Humpty-Dumpty. The woman who’s serving in the store turns into a sheep, and the next minute they’re rowing in a rowboat somewhere, and I was visualizing that. There was also the image of the woman who would one day come to save me: a ‘girl with kaleidoscope eyes’ who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, although I didn’t know her yet. So maybe it should be ‘Yoko In The Sky With Diamonds,’” he added.
The British musician said that Yoko was that magical woman he always dreamed of, so the dream and the song were a kind of vision.
“It was this secret love that was going to come one day. However, it turned out to be Yoko, and I didn’t know her then. But she was my imaginary child that we all have.”
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva.