If Yoko Ono Hadn’t Broken Up The Beatles They’d Still Be Together And Alive And Asking You To Jam With Them Right Now, Dude

by Mallory Ortberg · August 19, 2014

300px-Bed-In_for_Peace,_Amsterdam_1969_-_John_Lennon_&_Yoko_Ono_17Man, it’s crazy to think that it’s been almost thirty-five years since John Lennon died. Thirty-five years! That’s a fucking lifetime, man. Thirty-five years ago was yesterday.

Man, you know what else is crazy, though? It’s been forty-four years since the Beatles split up! Forty-four years since they’ve played together. That’s crazy.

You know what’s really crazy? If that buzzkill bitch Yoko Ono hadn’t ruined the Beatles, all four of them would still be healthy and alive and almost supernaturally resistant to the aging process and also they’d still be together and making amazing, groundbreaking music and they’d be here in this garage right now asking you to jam with them, dude. George Harrison would never have died in 2001. He’d still have a lush, full head of hair and he’d be sitting cross-legged against that wall over there, passing you a beer and tuning his fucking sitar, man.

Too bad fucking Yoko had to go and screw all that up for you. Who does she think she is? The Beatles would have fucking loved you, bro. They’d have seen your YouTube channel, and caught your cover of “Hey Jude,” and shot you an email that was just like super informal, no publicists or agents or anything, just from one musician to another, because you guys would have connected on that level.

Paul and John would still be friends. Best friends, man. Best fuckin’ friends. They’d live together, and have threesomes with a different broad every night, and maybe they’d ask you to join them — not in a gay way or anything, but just as a sign of respect, you know, so that you guys could share in that moment together. And she wouldn’t try to fucking Yoko you guys, she’d just be grateful for the opportunity and she’d go home afterwards, you know? She wouldn’t try to make you go to her fucking art show.

Fuck, man, if it weren’t for Yoko Ono, John Lennon wouldn’t have been shot to death in 1980. He’d still be alive now. And he would never have done a shitty MTV Unplugged show in the mid-90s or released a standards album or anything like that. He’d just be doing John, you know, wearing those circle glasses and crossing his arms in Central Park, maybe wearing a white tank top, whatever. He’d probably be calling you right now to see if you wanted to hike the AT with him this summer, because you guys would have that sort of spontaneous, anything-goes friendship where you just pull up stakes and fucking experience life together.

You’d be like the fifth Beatle, man. You’d be Pete Best. People would know you. If only Yoko Ono had never been born and married John Lennon and forced him to quit the Beatles at knifepoint even though Paul McCartney offered to sacrifice himself if she let John stay, that bitch. They would probably have asked you to play keyboards in the studio just to see if they had the sound right for their first album in twenty years. You’d be in Candlestick Park right now, headlining their reunion tour, if it weren’t for Yoko Ono. She’s the only thing standing in the way of all four Beatles coming down from heaven right now, handing you a suit and tie and a tab of LSD and asking you to jam out in space with them forever.

Fuck, man. Fuck Yoko. You were almost in the Beatles.

Tags: , ,

Related Posts

Mallory Ortberg

Mallory Ortberg

More from Mallory Ortberg →

47 Comments

  2. msmessica +120

    The best John Lennon impression is done on occasion by Paul F. Tompkins.

    He puts on a Liverpool accent and says, “I’m the biggest creep in the world.” That’s it. End of impression.

  3. Eliza +17

    This was sortof bittersweet, disturbing, funny and awful all in one. Now I shall leave this comment section, because I don’t want my Sweet Beatles Vibe tarnished & spoiled by yes yes yes I know it’s all true stuff about how awfulmisogynisticawfulevilculturalappropriationracismevil bla bla bla etc.

  5. Sean_Sullivan +103

    I freely admit I have no clue whether “no Yoko” could have equaled “no breakup.”

    I’m fairly confident that if the Beatles hadn’t broken up, Lennon and McCartney would have died at each other’s hands by 1973.

    1. RoseCamelia +51

      You are correct. Without Yoko, Lennon would still have been insufferable. Don’t get me wrong. He was brilliant. Truly. But almost equally insufferable. The wonder is that The Beatles didn’t break up sooner.

      1. Gzortenplatz +8

        Many of the truly brilliant musicians I love were/are also truly despicable human beings.

    2. LeastBittern +50

      I think Paul would have managed to kill John and survive. Dude is crafty.

      Also I think John was one of those guys who is very clever and thinks that means they’re clever enough to not occasionally shut the fuck up and pay attention to other people.

    3. theBitterFig +7

      If they’d survived 1973 unharmed, they’d still have broken up. John and Harry Nilson still would have gone on drunken rampages through LA, heckling the Smothers Brothers, and getting Pam Grier thrown out in the process (because whenever white men rampage, invariably some black woman will be punished along with them for no good reason).

  6. theharpoon +116

    it warms my heart to know that all the dudebros who will inevitably say shit like this in the future have now already been made fun of

  7. turanga_leela +38

    My sister joined a small, local band at the age of 45. When our mom laughed at her about it she said, “But you know I have wanted to be in a band since I was 4!” Our mom responded, “You did not want to be in a band, you wanted to be in the Beatles!”

    2. ThatOtherWench +43

      Clearly they’ve heard our pleas for article-length deleted comment round-ups, but they’re just looking to seed the back inventory in advance.

  10. cosmia +69

    I feel that this is the appropriate venue to say that since “John Lennon Writes Imagine” debuted on the Toast, text messages between my boyfriend and I are often the following:

    i kind of like bees
    beads?
    bees
    for peace

  11. Frumiosa +127

    From Paul’s wiki:

    “Though McCartney had a strained relationship with Lennon, they briefly became close again in early 1974, and played music together on one occasion.[344] In later years, the two grew apart.[345] While McCartney would often phone Lennon, he was apprehensive about the reception he would receive. During one call, Lennon told him, “You’re all pizza and fairytales!”[346] In an effort to avoid talking only about business, they often spoke of cats, babies or baking bread.[347]”

    YOU’RE ALL PIZZA AND FAIRYTALES

    2. ramina +38

      That is right up there with “she can’t pay her bills or attention” from the WSW Craigslist Haiku post a few days ago for “current favorite insults”

    4. chickpeas +27

      There are three hundred and forty fucking seven (at minimum) citations in the wikipedia article on Paul McCartney, is what I’m taking away from this big pile of wtf.

  14. mabissam +14

    Though she was so chill that one time when she let May Pang take her husband over for a while.

    1. ramina +28

      You see, if I was John and you were Yoko, I would GLADLY give up musical genius just to have you as my very own personal Venus!

      <3 BNL!

    1. abbeyroadmedley +18

      At 12:50 AM, they go on-air before the studio audience. Halfway through “Let It Be,” their second song, George Harrison yells to Michaels offstage that “after the third, we’ll just keep going if that’s all right.” Michaels quickly negotiates additional airtime with NBC (which gleefully capitulates) and the result is a spontaneous, three-hour live televised concert, famous not only for obvious reasons but for a host of its own idiosyncrasies: Lennon getting the hiccups during “Help,” McCartney playfully changing two lines of “Lady Madonna” to “where’s our three thousand, or our thirty-two/got to realize that now the cheque is due,” and Starr inviting the horn section of the Saturday Night Live band onstage “so we can do With A Little Help [From My Friends] properly.”

      I want this to be real so very badly.

    3. Gzortenplatz +2

      This is sublime, thank you so much. I cannot believe we didn’t have the Battle of the Bands on the Muppet Show in this universe.

  17. BellaG +8

    *gasp* I KNEW IT!

    (Though seriously, I’ll take Yoko Ono over any of the Beatles any day.)

  19. abbeyroadmedley +32

    And he would never have done a shitty MTV Unplugged show in the mid-90s or released a standards album or anything like that.

    Of course not! The God of All Hipsters is above such petty, mainstream-pleasing, actual-effort-requiring endeavors.

  20. Lily_Rowan +3

    Ooh, did you listen to this week’s How Was Your Week? Julie and some man were talking about partnerships and whatnot and it was fascinating. I assume Mallory did, because the man was listing those numbers of years from the beginning of this piece. But not in a terrible douchebag way.

    2. dianarbol +2

      I have listened to the dream journal segment well over a dozen times since it came out. One of my favorite bits he’s ever done.

  24. kellycatchpole +9

    and then the hypothetical narrator in this post put down his laptop and wanked it to his copy of Ham on Rye for the eighth time today.

  25. Girl Named Jack +6

    The thing that is the best about this is, this is essentially what happened to Harry Nilsson, the whole “the Beatles decided you are their friend, now” thing. Which means it could have happened to you, too, or it would never happened because that only happens to one person. Debate still rages.