1.mus.05 Yoko and Paul

YOKO ONO AND PAUL McCARTNEY MAKE PEACE
Closure … Yoko Ono is relieved that Paul McCartney admitted she didn’t cause the Beatles split. Photograph: Carl Court/PA   Finally, 43 years after they broke up, undisputed peace has broken out in the Beatles‘ camp. Last year, Paul McCartney admitted the band’s split had not been the fault of Yoko Ono, who married John Lennon in 1969. Now Ono has said she is “thankful” for McCartney’s words.   In an interview with the Times, Ono said of McCartney’s admission: “I was very, very thankful. I mean I was shocked. I thought, ‘Now you are saying it? Now, after 40 years? But it was very good. In the atmosphere that the world created for us, it was not easy for him to say something like that.” Nevertheless, she said the hatred directed at her in the wake of the Beatles’ break-up had been a crucial factor in her development as an artist in the subsequent years. “I’m starting to understand something interesting,” she said. “If all those people hadn’t bashed me, what would I be doing now? What I am now was made by all those terrible incidents. I thought it was terrible all those years, but when I think about it now, I realise it was a blessing.”   It seems impossible to keep the Beatles out of the news. McCartney has just released his latest solo album, New, and the Beatles themselves are likely to chalk up yet another No 1 album when the second volume of their BBC sessions is released on 11 November. For those who prefer something quieter, Ringo Starr has put together a picture book for small children based on the lyrics of Octopus’s Garden.