The Song That Gave Yoko Ono Comfort After Losing John Lennon: “I Didn’t Want People To Take It From Me”

Yoko Ono has been reduced, in the eyes of many Beatles fans, to a punchline. She’s the “reason for the band’s breakup”—a wedge between the once iron-clad John Lennon-Paul McCartney partnership. That’s, of course, obscuring the group’s numerous other issues among themselves. She’s an easy scapegoat for one of the most disappointing band breakups of all time. Anyone who came between a pair of friends from the late ’60s on has been branded a “Yoko”.

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Ono’s unpopularity with fans was likely always a source of struggle for the artist, but it only got worse after Lennon’s death in 1980. Ono reportedly faced unthinkable bullying from grieving Beatles fans, who seemingly forgot she felt all they were feeling, albeit with a personal angle.

There was one Lennon song that managed to comfort Ono in the wake of her husband’s death and public backlash, “Grow Old With Me.”

[RELATED: Sean Ono Lennon Reflects on the Legacy of John and Yoko and Making Sure the Younger Generation Doesn’t Forget About Them]

“Grow Old With Me”

We can’t think of a more heartbreaking choice of song for Ono to listen to in the aftermath of Lennon’s murder than “Grow Old With Me.” Grow old along with me / The best is yet to be / When our time has come / We will be as one, the lyrics read, twisting the knife a little further.

Nevertheless, Ono clung tightly to an at-home cassette recording of this track to help her get through the dark times.

And times were dark. Not only was she grieving her husband, but a group of nasty fans was hell-bent on making the whole situation even harder. According to Ono, fans would call her apartment at The Dakota, claiming bomb threats and even Lennon’s reincarnation.

With all the fuss, Ono worried that her last connection to Lennon, the cassette tape, would be taken by some unruly fan.

“After his passing, all I had was a cassette of it,” Ono once said. “I had it in my handbag…When I went to sleep, I had some bells on my door, so if anyone came in, I’d hear it. I didn’t want people to take it from me.”

While most fans weren’t so unhinged as to play jokes on a widow, the pervasive unkindness towards Ono was likely a similar jab to the gut. The world at large grieved Lennon, but it was nothing compared to what those in his inner circle, like Ono, were feeling.

(Photo by Dennis Stone/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)