Beth: That's the thing I felt with your album from earlier this year, Yes, I'm a Witch - it was so amazing. It really is the most empowering title I can think of. Nathan, my bandmate, said: 'Have you seen what she's called her record? It's going to blow your mind!', because I had just recently come in to this part of me that was about being a witch. About not just how empowering that was as a woman but with my connection to the earth.
Yoko: In the old days they used to burn witches, and I think the way in which we are living now, we don't burn witches but we are scared of them still.
Beth:: We persecute still.
Yoko: And that is very strange. The male version - a wizard - is always respected and my feeling is that both witches and wizards are both magical people and the human race is a magical race and we just have to know that we're all witches and wizards and we can make it.
Beth: I absolutely agree with you. I'm not very well traveled - I've only been to Europe, that's it - but I read and try to educate myself as much as you can with the American media; but when you're talking about us being witches and wizards I completely understand and it seriously is like when George Bush was re-elected and no one knew what to do. And I remember people being mad at Gossip because we didn't speak out against the war so much. We were obviously against it and we'd talked about it - but we hadn't really done anything about it. I wasn't powerful enough.
Yoko: Yes, but you're the power. The way you were expressing yourself is all right; some people will always knock you because they are scared themselves so they want to somehow make you responsible. But you're doing everything that's possible and right by just being yourself, and so what Gossip are doing is right.
Beth: I feel it's hard to feel that way, that's why I feel like such a ... it's hard to say, I agree.
Yoko: If all of us in the world become artists and musicians and the judge and the lawyers judged each other by singing it would be a beautiful world.
Beth: That would be amazing!
Yoko: If you didn't say you have got a political training and just said you have to know how to sing, it would be great.
Beth: It's true!
Yoko: One day all of us artists and musicians are going to spread the art and the power of hearing in the world, and that's the only thing we can do.
Beth: Do you feel that you have to have a mission?
Yoko: Yes, and make everyone wake up to the fact that they are magicians, they are wizards and witches and they're artists.
Beth: I agree. Not only that, but connection is a spiritual thing - it just hangs over your head.
Yoko: I feel that we're almost in the same place, but you're in the position where people knock you, or what you're doing, but others admire you. You don't want to misdirect yourself and go that way and listen to the people who are knocking you, because they are angry about themselves.
Beth: Do you ever feel like you're alone?
Yoko: Well, you see, alone and loneliness are very different things. I have so much to do that I don't have time to think of another person all the time. I'm very happy to have this freedom to be allowed to do things.
Beth: When I think of being alone I think of being out on a limb for the struggle, whatever the struggle is, whether it's art or visibility or just to be quiet sometimes.
Yoko: The thing is, even the most supposedly beautiful women in the world are always saying 'Am I all right?' because they always have some excuse to not like themselves. It's very hard to find someone you respect. The thing is, you don't have to be afraid of what people are thinking because usually it's to do with themselves. They may say 'Hey, you're great' - but they don't mean it. This is so funny. One time someone came up to John [Lennon] and said: 'I loved your record.' So John said: 'Which one?' and they went, 'Errrrmmm.' They didn't know the title or anything. John was saying afterwards: 'You should never ask that question. They just want to say something so you'll love them.'
Beth: I see. I really appreciate honesty. People are like, 'I've never heard of you.' That's great! That's fine: you can't hear everything. One of the favorite things anyone ever said to me was, 'I didn't like your record.' Thanks, I really appreciate that.
Yoko: Did you ever hear the story about three pots of plants? Three pots of plants, each watered with certain thoughts: one watered with nothing, just water, the other watered with love and the other with hate. Which one do you think grew better?
Beth: Love.
Yoko: Well, you think that, don't you? Hate and love was equal, and the one you didn't do anything about died. You see, many people hated me supposedly, right? And people said: 'Well, how did you survive?' I just said: 'Well, I used that hatred as a power, as an energy, and it's a great power, my God. As long as you don't get distressed about it.' It was really amazing. I was told I look very young and people were asking, 'What do you do?' And it just dawned on me that ... you know, there is a Japanese saying - good medicine tastes bitter, it's true. The whole world was giving me bitter medicine for 40 years, and it was probably better than if they all kept giving me sugar.
Beth: One thing that Lou Reed said was, 'I wish someone had told me that the things I was doing at a certain point in my career sucked.' I feel like when you meet people who are famous and you're mean to them,
they are a lot more appreciative because people don't do that with them.
Yoko: Well, I really appreciate that.
Beth: Me too. But my growing up was my bitter medicine. I'm glad I had it, it was different, completely different, but I'm glad.
Yoko: Sorry to interrupt, but with John, I guess, what was great for him was that you challenged him.
Yoko: Well, we challenged each other.
Beth: That's the thing. I was afraid to approach the subject of John. You just don't know people and when you see this one-dimensional picture of a person and you don't really know where their boundaries are ...
Yoko: It's OK. It's funny - recently I went to an elementary school in Denver because my grandchild was in this class of six-year-olds, and the teacher said: 'Well, she's an artist so you should ask her artistic questions.' So I said: 'Well, if you want to ask about the Beatles then that's all right.'
Beth: I bet everyone was, like, sweet!
Yoko: And you know one question they asked me was, 'Have you ever met Ringo?' So I said yes and this girl just fell on the floor, just fainted. Just because I said I'd met Ringo!
Beth: As a feminist, I wanted to ask you about your music, and what you do, and about you. But of course all those things shaped you, you can't deny that. I guess I just wanted you to dictate the conversation and I just wanted to listen.
Yoko: I'm more interested in your life and what you've been through. Also, by the way, we both know a little bit more about my life ...
Beth: When they said we were going to do this thing I was like, 'How the hell!' We should probably play a game of Twister first to get acquainted, but I feel like my questions are more about what activism was like then compared to now. Beth: Did the Sixties feel different to how things feel now?
Yoko: Well, we tried our best, and I think the younger generation now are more powerful and better placed for that because they know what we did and they know where we failed too. There was the Sixties sexual liberation but there was the other thing, the drugs, and we were really conned into it. We had no awareness.