10 Songs for Yoko, One to One: John & Yoko (dir. Kevin Macdonald)

Kevin Macdonald divides his time between dramatic features and documentaries. Sometimes, as in the case of Touching the Void, he does both at the same time. I have admired films he has done in both mediums, but his Oscar-winning One Day in September will forever keep be hankering for more great non-fiction. I was disappointed by his 2018 Whitney Houston doc, Whitney, as I have been with every movie made about her, but in One to One: John & Yoko, John Lennon and Yoko One prove to be appropriate subjects for his particular lens.

The film is focused on the 18 months that the pair lived in the Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, before they would of course move uptown to The Dakota on Central Park West. Macdonald and editor Sam Rice-Edwards ostensibly fashion the narrative around their apparent obsession with watching television from their small apartment. Clips of John and Yoko are frequently interspersed with those from the news of its era, at times like the viewer is flicking across channels. I kind of wished it had really committed to the bit (if it even was a bit at all), because as it is it's kind of a half-arsed attempt. But, most importantly, it didn't really both me much at all.

There have been a lot of documentaries about John Lennon, and by necessity then Yoko Ono although some make her more central than others. They rarely have the sort of POV for the latter that this one has, sympathetic and this curious about her. Beyond modest made-for-TV docs (like Barbara Graustark's Yoko Ono: Then and Now), it's typically All John All The Time. And when coupled with the rare footage of John performing his One-to-One fundraiser concert (splendidly restored, shot with some amazing colours) and a greater desire to contextualise the notoriety and fame of John and Yoko, I found myself greatly impressed by Macdonald's film.

I wanted to feature ten tracks by Yoko Ono should anybody also be watching One to One: John & Yoko and come away with an interest in her body of musical work. I don't claim to be be an expert or having even heard everything—large swathes of her work are unavailable to stream and are hard to find digitally—but I am a fan and hope others eventually give her (like peace!) a chance if they never really have.

1. "Walking on Thin Ice"

It wasn't the number one that Lennon had assumed (he can heard suggesting as such in the Onobox version of the song from 1992), but it was damn well the biggest and most culturally relevant of her solo musical works. Sonically adventurous and wildly ahead of its time, "Walking on Thin Ice" is backed by a hooky horn section and propulsive guitar track by John and remains a sublime fusion of Ono's experimentalism and John's pop sensibilities that was and is truly like nothing else that's ever been made for pop radio.

Shout out to its many impressive remixes (Ono, for whatever the opinion of mainstream rock music critics, has been a staple of dance music with several number ones on the Billboard club chart) by the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Peter Rauhofer, Felix Da Housecat, Dave Aude, Danny Tinagila and that wonderful Tim Deal version from Lennon Bermuda. In that regard, the song did hit the top of the charts, albeit the dance club songs chart in 2003. Better late than never!

Lastly, I do always get a kick out of the music video (directed by Ono herself) that features Ono walking past a Times Square movie theatre showing Nine to Five, Raging Bull, The Jazz Singer, Maniac (!) and the Lesley-Anne Down/Frank Langella Egyptology thriller Sphinx of all things.

2. "Toyboat"

The original version from 1981's Season of Glass album is divine, heavenly, majestic. But over the years (due to my having the album on physical disc and because the original is not on streaming), I have veered towards the duet/cover with Anohni and Hahn Rowe from Yes, I'm a Witch in 2007. Certainly more so than the Sharon Van Etten version, which I don't think hits the mark of elegiac, dreamlike quality that I find in the original and this cover. The haunting coos from Anohni towards the song's end pair so wonderfully with the childlike melodies of Ono.

3. "Looking Over From My Hotel Window"

Track 22 from 1973's Approximately Infinite Universe, the final across two LPs, soundtracks one of the most touching scenes from Macdonald's film. I wish we had have seen Ono perform it at the One-to-One concert (if I have one major complaint with the film, it's that John does still get the majority of live attention). Directly referencing the abduction of her first daughter by the child's father, paired with that feeling of directionlessness that one can experience at age 39 (hello me, "that's saying a lot for a neurotic like me"), this is a beautiful and moving piano ballad.

4. "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Look, I'm not oblivious to the, shall we say, tone of Yoko Ono's vocals. I understand to a degree how people can find her grating. And, especially on the more experimental works of the Plastic Ono Band and the like, it can be a bit of a stretch to say even I "enjoy" them. But on this John Lennon track, her screeching (it is the best term for it sometimes!) is extremely appropriate. A visceral scream into the universe about what's happening in the world. If we don't listen then how can we change?

5. "Midsummer New York"

Yoko goes to Memphis.

6. "No No No"

Season of Glass is such a phenomenal album (and her only to reach the Billboard top 50), and "No No No" is one of the angriest. This is a song that opens with the sounds of gunshots and a scream, from an album featuring the blood-splattered glasses of her husband overlooking Central Park. Ono's vocals sounding as if they're constantly trying to play catch up to that beat, only really getting there with that refrain of "you promised me..." is yet another work of symbolism on an album that plays at both direct and obscure.

7. "I Have a Woman Inside My Soul"

The Moby remix of "Hell in Paradise" is probably my favourite track from Yes, I'm a Witch, Too, but Ono herself isn't so prominent on that one beyond a single audio sample (I yearn to hear it on a dancefloor one of these nights). I also wanted to flag the Dave Aude version of "Wouldnit", which highlights the attitude that much of Ono's music has while putting it firmly in the realm of the club.

But instead I chose "I Have a Woman Inside By Soul" by Ono and John Palumbo. For its throbbing bassline and the inorganic digital contorting of Ono's vocals (which is saying saying something, I guess). Such a radical re-interpretation from the original, which is also fab. It's like liquid.

8. "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him"

My favourite of Ono's contribitions to Double Fantasy, an album it's worth pointing out only really works as a collaboration. That slight reggae/funk tone suits Ono way more than you might think. Its themes of longing and searching in the face of something that needn't to be so difficult rings true through the years.

9. "Mrs. Lennon"

One of the more delightful of recurring bits in One to One: John & Yoko are the back-and-forth audio recordings of Yoko's team attempting to track down flies for an art exhibit (harder than you'd think!). Her album, Fly, is great and "Mrs Lennon" is one of its exquisite high-points. Also on Fly is "Airmale", the soundtrack to Ono and Lennon's timelapse short Erection (not to be confused with Self-Portrait). Again, if you think Yoko Ono as the woman who "broke up the beatles" who's all just screaming and weird avant-garde sounds, listen to "Mrs. Lennon". John plays on piano, too.

10. "Warzone"

There are other songs I prefer from the 1995 Rising album ("New York Woman", "Ask the Dragon", "Turned the Corner", "Kurushi"), but I kind of love that she chose to kick off her 'comeback' (of sorts) album with this thrash metal piece that proves Yoko Ono is more punk rock than so many others who will claim they are rock and roll gods. Spews two minutes of sturm und drang to remind us who she is and what she does. That she always went her own way is what made Yoko Ono so special and this is no different.