IK!'s 
Blueprint
Review

BLUEPRINT Front Cover

BLUEPRINT FOR A SUNRISE- Toronto SUN October 11, 2001

By Jane  Stevenson, Toronto SUN

Yoko Ono says it's a coincidence that her latest album, Blueprint For A Sunrise, was released this past Tuesday on what would have also been husband John Lennon's 61st birthday.

"I just got a notice from the record company that they were going to be putting it out Oct. 9 -- so I just accepted it," said Ono, 68, yesterday down the line from her New York City apartment in the legendary Dakota building.

Timing appears to be everything for the Toyko-born Ono whose new album, featuring son Sean Lennon on acoustic and electric guitars and keyboards, addresses feminism and survival -- with World War II references in the liner notes.

"People are going to think I'm crazy talking about St. Petersburg and Japan during the Second World War," said Ono. "And I said, 'Well, I'd better write it anyway, 'cause that's how I was inspired to write.' So I just did it, thinking there's a chance that people will think I'm an old paranoid. And then this thing happened."

She refers, of course, to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the subsequent U.S. military strikes on Afghanistan. Ono placed a full-page ad in The New York Times last month quoting Lennon's lyrics: "Imagine all the people living life in peace." She said there is also a billboard in Times Square with the same phrase and another one with "Give peace a chance," on Seventh Avenue.

"I'm just trying my best, that's all," said Ono, who was diplomatic when was asked about the United States' non-peaceful reponse. "That's all right. I mean we can still dream about peace. And I'm sure that maybe even the politicians and the military are dreaming about peace. They might be going about it the way that I wouldn't have done, but we're all wanting the same thing."

Because of the attacks, the Ono-organized all-star celebration, Come Together: A Night For John Lennon orginally slated for Sept. 20 at New York's Radio City Music Hall, had to be rescheduled for Oct. 2. In the end, it turned into a benefit for attack relief organizations and Ono was glad it went ahead.

"It was good to show the world that we're still kicking," said Ono. "All of us were kind of nervous, not nervous about the situation, it's just a nerve-wracking thing to go on a live TV show. I think in the end when we were all just doing Give Peace A Chance and Power To The People, we were all just elated and delighted and relaxed by then. I was relaxed to the point that I just went all around the audience.

"I jumped off the stage and walked the aisle. There were several security guards consulting, 'Are we going to follow her around? What's happening?' I wasn't aware of that. It was just, 'Wow! It's beautiful!' It was a very love and peace kind of concert."

So what would Lennon himself think of the current state of the world were he still with us today?

"I think that he would have been very angry and very shocked, just like all of us," says Ono. "I think New York City people, including myself, are still in shock. I'm sure that the whole world is in shock too, but particularly in New York City, there's a kind of shock factor that we can't get out of yet."

Ono was in her apartment, on the city's Upper West Side, when the two planes slammed into the World Trade Center. She said she hasn't been downtown to visit the devastation.

"It's interference," said Ono. "I'm not one of those people that's curious about it. Curiosity is not the kind of emotion that we should have. I mean it's so disrespectful. People died there and families and friends are really suffering."