Page two of the interview

Jody Denberg: Yoko, I want to set the scene for the interview. Of course, we're in Studio One, clouds painted on the ceiling. You're not wearing your trademark aviator glasses any longer...

Yoko Ono: Well, I decided that I'm gonna go clear like this.

JD: So you have your wire frames on. It's March of 1992, just a few weeks after your 59th birthday. It's been about seven years since your last album, Starpeace, about six years since your world tour, and I'm wondering, why is now the time for Onobox?

YO: Well, it just happened that way. Ryko came in 1990 and then 1991 we met, and in this room we decided to go with it. So 1991, most of the year was spent in preparation for this box.

JD: Why did you decide to do a boxed set instead of reissuing the original albums as they were?

YO: Because that's what they wanted. It's a CD box that Ryko produces. They've put out a few CD boxes and I thought that was a very good idea... Oh excuse me, I think I misunderstood your question: you meant why I didn't put all albums in as CDs in the box as they were.

JD: Right, maybe have Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, and then Fly and then Feeling The Space...

YO: Because I wanted to include a span of 25 years and if I did it album by album it would be too many CDs, and also the CD length is different from album to album, so then each CD would be sort of short. I wanted to make sure that each CD is filled up in a way. Because there's so much material I have, and so that even by sort of squeezing everything in, I could have made it into nine CDs easily. But Ryko wanted six CDs, so for that I had to try to squeeze in certain situations like No, No, No. I think I put three albums in there by just selecting some songs, you know. So that's how I did it.

JD: Well, what was the process that you went through in trying to narrow the material down and sequencing it?

YO: One, I was thinking in terms of the best of (smiles), and also some songs that were too long. For instance, the one that I did with Ornette Coleman: it's a very good piece, but it's very long. There were some other long pieces like Don't Count The Waves but it was repetitious so you could sort of cut it anywhere, it was easy to edit. But in case of the track with Ornette Coleman, there was kind of build up, and so I didn't want to sort of chop it off, or I didn't want to do an edit that was too contrived. It was a good track but I kind of skipped it. There were all kinds of musical decisions, and also I wanted to keep it chronological but with a theme, because I usually have a theme with each album. One CD had to have a theme within it, and that's how I did the whole thing.

JD: You did break the chronology at one point - you put Have You Seen The Horizon Lately ahead a bit in the Onobox.

YO: OK, you're right. Just very few songs I did that. I'll tell you each one of them actually. The New York Rock - I keep saying Approximately Infinite Universe, because that's where it comes from - New York Rock, because the original album Approximately Infinite Universe was a double album. Even with a CD length I couldn't put everything in, so I had to drop a few songs. I didn't want to drop too many songs - for instance, Is Winter Here To Stay, I wanted to definitely keep it - so then what am I gonna do? I put it in London Jam, because it fits in with that period. And then, Have You Seen The Horizon Lately: I thought it mood-wise fits in with Kiss Kiss Kiss, so I put it in there. Three more songs, We're All Water, Josejoi Banzai and Sisters O Sisters: all three of them I added on A Story, which is the sixth CD. This is because A Story is the shortest CD and I felt there was a space, and I always wanted to put Sometime In New York City stuff somewhere. I thought that ending with that is good. So that's how I did it.

JD: Well you know you're going to hear from some of your fans who are going to say, "But where's Mrs. Lennon?" or "Where's Who Has Seen The Wind?"...

YO: I know, I know. They all said that.

JD: I know you didn't include any material from The Wedding Album or Live Peace In Toronto or Two Virgins, but I guess everyone will have something that they want that...

YO: The way I felt was, I thought am I gonna get flak again like the first time I put out all these albums? It wasn't like I was really that enthusiastic. There was a part of me that was really scared to do this whole project. First of all, there was another CD box company that came to me in the late 80s and said "how about it? A collection of all your songs." And I was saying "oh great", you know. But part of me was saying, "oh not really, I don't know". Then as we started to talk it was sort of obvious they were interested in John&Yoko. And I don't mind John&Yoko because, look, that's me too. And also, we always wanted to be together. But you know, there's a fine line where I'd be exploiting John again. I don't want to do that. And also, it's also sort of unfair to my music too. So I definitely said no to that one. When Ryko came, I was a bit scared that they might want that, too. But that was not the case, which was really good. So I did it. But one of the most important considerations that I had to have was that I was not like the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan fans would take any outtakes of Blowing In The Wind - it doesn't matter whether musically they're bad quality or not. But with me, most of the people are going to hear these songs for the first time. So I wanted to make sure that every song was like a single, and that was tight. That was my direction. And to the old fans what I'd like to say is, "OK, you send me letters saying your "Approximately Infinite Universe is getting worn out, and where am I going to find a new one?" And now you are going to say, "OK, but we don't have all the songs on Approximately Infinite Universe"... But, you know, it's good studio quality stuff, and also there are some songs that that you didn't know (giggles) which are in it too. And so, you get some good stuff in it too in that sense.

JD: How did you decide which songs you wanted to remix, and how did you change them for the box?

YO: I wanted to keep it exactly like the originals most of the times. Some of the songs originally were like this: John and I would go into the studio and I'd be singing my guts out or something, and John would be saying "that's a single!" and I would be thinking that way too, "wow, I sound well." In the early days, we didn't really take over the remix and mastering. So they'd sort of finish off the remix and mastering and bring it back to us and he would say "what was that? I thought you were singing well but what's going on here. This is no single." So this time it was like a detective story. I'm opening up the multitrack, and of course, I'm right on top of the remix. I find that that probably it wasn't meant badly, but in those days engineers thought differently of me, so my voice would be buried or squashed in some way. And when you just take all that off and just let my vocal track be there, I'm singing fine. It's like, "oh, where was that?" It's like in certain cases it was really trying to clean up in that sense - as it was.