Hold On World: The Lasting Impact of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, Fifty Years On

Hold On World revisits Lennon and Ono’s love affair and startling collaborations. John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band was arguably the most emotionally honest album ever made. It wasn’t merely another record but more like a sonic exorcism, a spiritual, public bloodletting. Lennon’s album drove a stake through the heart of the Beatles’ myth while confronting everything else in John’s life, from Dylan to God to his glorified status as a Working Class Hero.

Determined to rid himself of childhood traumas-abandoned by his father, John, at age nine, watched helplessly as his mother was killed by a car-Lennon wrote the most powerful song cycle of his career, confronting fear, disappointment, and illusion, all the while espousing his love for Yoko Ono. Released simultaneously, Ono’s album Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band is emotionally raw and challenging. It inspired bands like the B-52s and Yo La Tengo to employ pure sound, whether shrieking vocals or guitar feedback, to express their deepest feelings.