“I got to nick them and mess around with them”: Sean Lennon says Yoko Ono was “careful” about him using John Lennon’s guitars, but that didn’t apply to his old pedals
Sean Lennon says his mother Yoko Ono was rather careful about which of his father’s guitars he could play when growing up.
When John Lennon was fatally shot in 1980, Sean was just five years old. Looking back on the time he had with his father, he remembers the Beatle living among “creative mess” and always playing guitar. After John’s death, Sean recalls his mother becoming quite the archivist, and keeping a watchful eye over his music gear, all aside from his pedal collection, that is.
READ MORE: “I’m like, ‘Holy s**t, I have no lefty guitars’”: Andrew Watt’s panic upon learning Paul McCartney was coming to his house for tea
Speaking to MOJO about John, Sean says he often remembers “just seeing him with the guitar and some kind of four-track or a two-track”. He adds, “He was always playing guitar and piano and stuff… He lived with a creative mess around.
“My mom is incredibly organised. She’s an archivist. Thank God, because she really did a good job of keeping everything in its right place,” he adds. “She was pretty careful with the guitars, even though she did let me play a few. What she wasn’t as worried about was the pedals, so I got to kind of rummage through that stuff. I got to nick them and mess around with them.”
Despite Yoko’s leniency with the pedals, she pretty much forbade Sean from ever touching any tapes: “The tapes were definitely protected. She wasn’t gonna let me, y’know, accidentally record over a demo or something,” he shares.
Last year, during his Got Back tour, Paul McCartney admitted that he would get emotional performing the “final” Beatles song, Now And Then, during the shows. Released in November 2023, the song features contributions from all four Beatles, and was originally written and recorded by John in 1977. AI tech was used to restore the audio and give it more clarity.
Speaking to The Mirror, McCartney said, “The reaction is really strong, and for us it’s great to play because it’s a nice song to play, and for me, it’s particularly great because it’s a John song. And so it’s very emotional for me. I love it. I love doing it, and the audience seem to love it too.”
The post “I got to nick them and mess around with them”: Sean Lennon says Yoko Ono was “careful” about him using John Lennon’s guitars, but that didn’t apply to his old pedals appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
