A week later, my Christmas edition on KAOS continued the sort of aural kindness that I strive for in my radio programming and find so missing from today's world. The show contained no less than 47 pieces of music yet my favorite moment was that bit of stillness as Gregory Porter's version of "The Christmas Song" faded away and Yoko Ono's new take on "Imagine" started filling the speakers. It's a haunting and weathered yet lovely version from her new album Warzone (Chimera Music), where the 85 year old Ono has recast songs from a catalog of writing that deserves some positive attention.
Indeed, I still have friends who don't want anything to do with Yoko's music. Or they might say that she doesn't deserve her new co-writer's credit on "Imagine." But there's a John Lennon quote circa 1980 from the new Imagine John Yoko (Grand Central Publishing) book--it's a collection of stories and interviews derived from the sessions that produced the 1971 Imagine album--where he speaks of his regret for not insuring that Yoko received co-credit on one of the most remarkable songs of all-time. John said something like he was too proud, too selfish and too macho to reveal that he took quite a few parts of the verses from Yoko's Grapefruit book. I'm happy Yoko had the guts to cut her own version, knowing that almost 50 years after the breakup of the Beatles, she's still getting hammered by the general public. I consider myself Beatles Expert Number Three Million and One (that's a fairly high ranking, don't you think?) and to my mind, the ridiculing should have ended decades ago. In fact, it never should have even started.