Cynthia Lennon ‘Barely Recognized’ John Lennon During His Relationship With Yoko Ono
John Lennon had a profound impact on the music world. Yet he still had his faults. He and the rest of The Beatles treated Stuart Sutcliffe awfully during his tenure in the band and were cowards for how they fired Pete Best. He also wasn’t an especially good husband to Cynthia Lennon, who once said she barely recognized John after he started his relationship with Yoko Ono.
John Lennon married Cynthia Lennon in 1962 but left her for Yoko Ono
John quietly married Cynthia Powell in 1962, just before The Beatles landed on the British charts for the first time. Yet the marriage didn’t last.
John, amid depression that he said was like going through murder, found himself in a creative funk in the mid-1960s. His first meeting with Yoko Ono in November 1966 helped lift him out of his depression. Though still married at the time, John didn’t hesitate to start a relationship with Yoko.
John and Cynthia divorced in 1968, and the songwriter married Yoko in 1969. Before either of those events, Cynthia said she barely recognized John when his relationship with Yoko was relatively new.
Cynthia said she ‘barely recognized’ John when his relationship with Yoko was young
John didn’t go out of his way to hide his relationship with Yoko. She was at the Lennon house with him when Cynthia returned from a European vacation, for example.
John was rarely apart from Yoko throughout their relationship. She revealed new forms of artistic expression to him, such as the experimental music on their first collaboration, Two Virgins. He barely pretended to still be faithful to Cynthia, who said she barely recognized John when he was with Yoko in mid-1968 (per You Never Give Me Your Money author Peter Doggett):
“I barely recognized John. It had only been a few weeks since we last met, but he was thinner, almost gaunt. He was quite simply not the John I knew. It was as if he’d taken on a different persona.”
Cynthia Lennon
John had, in a sense, taken on a new persona as his relationship with Yoko blossomed. He no longer felt confined to being just a songwriter. John and Yoko made experimental music and films together, and he began drawing and writing more. She first knew him as a clean-cut, suit-wearing pop songsmith; Cynthia hardly recognized — both physically and emotionally — the multifaceted artist John became as his relationship with Yoko Ono progressed.
The artists were muses for each other, and they frequently collaborated
As most Beatles fans know, John’s relationship with Yoko wasn’t just for show. She reinvigorated him creatively, and the couple frequently worked together over the years.
John and Yoko recorded two albums in 1969 — Life With Two Lions and Wedding Album. They made Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band in 1970, and Some Time in New York City followed in 1972, per All Music.
Their relationship endured some tough times during John’s lost weekend period, but they regrouped for 1980’s Double Fantasy and 1984’s Milk and Honey, a posthumous release after John’s 1980 murder.
Cynthia Lennon didn’t recognize John Lennon during his relationship with Yoko Ono. Cynthia said her husband had a new look and a new persona, but that new persona became the norm as he and Yoko continued creating art together.
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