Page four of the interview

JD: Well, the evolution of your work is from the most unconventional to perhaps the more conventional. Perhaps for the next record you might have to stretch the boundaries a little bit more once again.

YO: Well, that's another thing. They didn't have any ear to hear what I was doing in London Jam, right? Now they don't have any ear to hear what I'm doing on the other tracks, OK! It's true! They're saying "Oh, it's mushy" or this or that. Heavy is maybe the going thing now, going trend, and that's why they say "OK, London Jam, that's great." But they don't understand the kind of subtle stuff that I did in the "stuff" that they think is more accessible. Because I was trying to make it accessible, yes, because in Feeling The Space I wanted the message to go out there which is the woman's thing and all that. But at the same time musically there are a few tricks I'm playing, and even in No, No, No. They'll find out later... They've got no ears yet (giggles).

JD: Even in a song like She Get's Down On Her Knees. That's a good example to me of one that combined the conventional and unconventional approach...

YO: Yeah, yeah... I was not doing things that are experimental and new for the sake of being new. I was trying to express a certain emotion. For that, you needed this and that. So it wasn't like just trying to be new, it wasn't just style, it wasn't just form, but it was substance. For substance you needed a certain kind of quirkiness. And I think all the songs on the No, No, No CD, for instance, each note is appropriate for that emotion. And sometimes it's fine to use some accepted form of expression, because sometimes the emotion is that kind of emotion. I'm not afraid of being original but also I'm not afraid of going back to a cafe society kind of music.

JD: I guess it depends on the kind of emotion you want to express at the time...

YO: Yeah, yeah...

JD: It's been six or seven years since your last record. If you make new music at this point it's going to depend where your head's at as to the way it comes out I guess.

YO: Yeah. Men Men Men is burlesque, isn't it? (giggles)

JD: Like I'm Your Angel, there's a similarity in those.

YO: Yeah. I like Men Men Men and I'm Your Angel because it's good to have fun too.

JD: People say that you and John were collaborators, and you were in a sense. But you guys didn't really write that many songs together...

YO: It's true.

JD: ...and you didn't really sing together that often. When you did it was a nice harmony like on Every Man Has A Woman. At this point in time would you be interested in collaborating with people who might be considered your peers, say, Laurie Anderson or Brian Eno? Does that hold any appeal to you to do something like that?

YO: I don't really know where I would go artistically. I was not much of a collaborator, in a way. I was like a lone wolf who was doing it. Even with the song Every Man Has A Woman I did the whole thing and John said, OK, can I harmonize. He was nice about it but I wasn't going to ask him or anything. Also, he wanted to do a complete version for other reasons. (For the Yoko Ono tribute album by the same name). It was out of kindness that he did it, or maybe because he wanted to have fun. There was always that, it wasn't like "OK, why don't we build something together" kind of thing, it wasn't so much of that, except for some political songs which was sort of important for both of us to do. It didn't happen too often.

JD: Is there any comtemporary music that interests you?

YO: (sighs) I don't know... I'm still busy just listening to my music that's in my head and just trying to translate it to notes. I'm one of those people probably. But, just like when John used to play me music, Sean is saying "Mommy listen to this". So I get exposed to the new stuff.

JD: So many of your songs are dance-oriented: Kiss, Kiss, Kiss, Walking On Thin Ice, Hell In Paradise. What draws you to that rhythmic extreme?

YO: I love dancing. I think that this whole idea fascinates me the most about the pop-rock field: they write dance music so that you can move your body with it. Or they write in a regular beat so you can follow it, like a heartbeat. It's fantastic, it's great, you know. Because in classical comtemporary music they went into a head trip and so it was disconnected from our bodies. And in way I followed that too, I must say, when I was very young and writing songs that the rhythm or the beat changes every bar, thinking that's more complex or more ambitious thing to do. But with that direction you hit the wall then, because it becomes more and more removed from your real body, it gets more and more unreal in a way. And so, I just like that. It's a great thing to make people dance or to make people sing together like a sing-a-long song. Those are great things really.