Sean Ono Lennon has shared that he is actively working to make sure younger audiences continue to connect with and remember The Beatles.
Read More: Giles Martin on giving new life to The Beatles’ ‘Anthology’: “It reveals how human they were”
The musician and producer was born in 1975 to the late John Lennon and avant garde artist Yoko Ono, two figures whose work continues to shape modern culture.
In recent years, Lennon has increasingly taken on responsibilities once handled by his mother, who is now 92, overseeing and safeguarding the creative legacy she shared with both John Lennon and The Beatles.
Earlier this year, he played a key role in the production of The Beatles Anthology, a newly remastered version of the 1995 documentary series that expanded the original eight episodes into a nine part collection.
He has also been closely involved in the creation of the ‘Mind Games’ reissue boxset, an album that was first released during what he described as a “really terrifying” time for his parents, as well as the documentary film One To One: John & Yoko.
Speaking about that responsibility in a new interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Lennon said: “Obviously the world is also the custodian of his legacy, I would say.” He then added: “I’m just doing my best to help make sure that the younger generation doesn’t forget about The Beatles and John and Yoko. That’s how I look at it.”
When asked if he worries that his father’s work could one day fade from public memory, Lennon admitted: “To forget about it? I do, actually. And I never did before.”
He went on to explain his motivation for staying involved in these projects, saying: “My parents gave me so much that I think it’s the least I can do to try and support their legacy in my lifetime. I feel like I just owe it to them. It’s a personal thing.”
Lennon also described the core of their legacy as being rooted in “peace and love”, before adding: “But it’s not just peace and love. It’s an attitude towards activism that is done with humour and love.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Lennon shared an update on his mother, who has stepped back from public life in recent years.
“She’s good. I mean, you know, she’s 92, so she’s slowed down a lot, and she’s retired. That’s why I’m kind of trying to do the work that she used to do,” he said.
He also spoke about wanting to continue the example set by Ono in protecting the work, explaining: “That’s why I feel a lot of pressure, actually, to do my best, because she set a high standard for the way that she dealt with my dad’s music, and the Beatles stuff.”
Lennon has previously reflected on the lasting effect his father had on his mother, saying she “never has moved on from that relationship”, and has spoken openly about the “legendary love” between his parents.
Last year, he asked fans not to compare him with his brother Julian, while making it clear that there is only love between them.
He has also discussed why he believes his father eventually came to resent being part of The Beatles, saying: “I don’t feel that he’d fallen out of love with music. I think he’d fallen out of love with a certain kind of fame. I think he’d fallen out of love with having to be a part of a machinery, of a pop machine, you know.”
NME awarded the rerelease of The Beatles Anthology four stars, describing it as “a familiar but fab nine episode deep dive” and adding: “Anthology has a somewhat stitched together quality, given that the archive clips are interspersed by contemporary footage of Paul, Ringo and George seemingly filmed wherever they happened to be at the time.
“This entire rerelease, though, is more than justified by the genuinely eye opening final episode, which sees the lads work up ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, the Lennon demos put out as Beatles tracks alongside the original documentary. There is, Macca hints, a third that they may complete someday.”
Ahead of its release, NME also spoke with Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin, who handled the remastering of the three double albums included in the collection.
“What’s great about this whole process, the album, the TV series, the music, is that it reveals how human it all was,” he said. “It was four mates. More so now, you realise that in a world driven by marketing, TikTok, re imagination and teams of songwriters, The Beatles simply came up with ideas, sang them, recorded them and released them. There was huge scale around it, but at its core, that’s all it was.
“The material I worked on and mixed really drove that home for me. It’s just four people in a room. That’s what the ‘Anthology’ is all about,” he added.
In other news, social media influencer Ed Matthews recently livestreamed a chance encounter with Ringo Starr, whom he did not recognise at the time.
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