Oh Yoko!

 

Arguably the greatest album in music history -- "Revolver" by The Beatles -- is getting a deluxe re-release tomorrow.

CDs, digital, and vinyl will be available in various "deluxe" editions. For the record (ha! I kill me!) I haven't purchased any of them.

To be sure, "Revolver" -- the first of the Fab discs I bought when the albums were released on CD -- is a significant work to me. Coming off the brilliance of "Rubber Soul," I feel like "Revolver" upped the game even more, preparing them for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band."

And I could write about it all night, from the opening count-in of "Taxman" to the master studio work of "Tomorrow Never Knows."

Yet, I found myself thinking about Yoko Ono.

Ah yes. Yoko. The often-loathed better half of John Lennon. Loathed, essentially, because John fell head over heels for her, had her in the studio constantly, and left his first wife Cynthia (and son Julian) to be with her.

Along the way, she became responsible in the minds of many for breaking The Beatles up and spawning myriad memes and jokes.

I am absolutely guilty of calling a theoretically overbearing partner "Yoko Ono."

The funny thing was while talking about this, I heard words that aren't often uttered: "Poor Yoko."

But, with the recent "Get Back" documentary, we saw that Yoko was there but wasn't the annoying presence that she had been made out to be during the making of the titular album (later renamed "Let It Be").

So I think Yoko is being seen at least slightly through a different lens. No question Beatles fans have been long-been conflicted over Yoko. Did she break up The Beatles? No. Did she help things? Nah, probably not.

But it was John who adored Yoko. It was also John who wanted out of the band.

Oh yeah, Paul was accused of being the first to leave when he released his "McCartney" album in 1970.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is Linda McCartney, who was 60s chic, a fine photographer, and, well, less dangerous. By comparison to Yoko, Linda received little fan grief though one could have also suspected she helped break the lads up.

In the end, it really came down to the four Beatles, who had been on a rocket ship "to the toppermost of the poppermost!" They were the only ones who truly knew what the mania was like. 

Yoko was omnipresent, mostly due to her husband. 

And she became the running gag well past when she was 64.

Given that she's 89 now.