LOVE.
The story behind the song in the words of John Lennon & Yoko Ono.
John: I’d always had a fantasy about a woman who would be a beautiful, intelligent, dark-haired, high-cheekboned, free-spirited artist (à la Juliette Gréco).
My soul mate. Someone that I had already known but somehow had lost. A woman who would give me what I got from a man intellectually. I wanted someone I could be myself with.
With Yoko I really knew love for the first time. The only woman I’d ever met who was my equal in every way imaginable. My better, actually. The dream became a reality.
Yoko: He had a very intelligent side that appealed to me and also a kind of sensitivity. He was awake but he was a bit unfocused, like a lost soul.
John: I was lonely. I didn’t have full communication with anybody and it took a bit of adjusting.
Yoko: and then when we met, he suddenly had a clear vision like he used to have when he was a boy.
John: She rediscovered the thing that existed in me before I left Liverpool and re-cultivated the natural John Lennon that had been lost in the Beatles.
She encouraged me to be myself because it was me that she fell in love with, not the Beatles or whatever I was.
Yoko: he was incredibly shy. I know you’re not going to believe this, but he was. And that made me feel like we were two of a kind.
John: She came and reminded me that there was light. And when you remember there’s light, you don’t want to get back in the dark again.
Yoko: I was a very lonely person before I met John. When I met him I stared to open up a little through love and that’s the greatest thing that happened to me yet.
I had never met anybody else who could understand me. That’s rare. Most men really don’t. We understand each other so well. I’m not lonely any more, which is a shocking experience, really.
John: Love is a great gift, like a precious flower. You have to feed it and look after it. It has to be nurtured like a very sensitive animal because that’s what it is.
You have to work at love. You don’t just sit round with it and it doesn’t just do it for you. You’ve got to be very careful with it. It’s the most delicate thing you can be given.
Yoko: When you send love to your loved one, you are not just sending love to the special person in your life, you are sending your love to yourself, our planet and the universe.
Remember:
A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality.
Happy Valentine’s Day ❤️