Grief, Music & Preserving My Father's Legacy

THE BEATLE'S SON REVEALS HOW HE RECONNECTED WITH HIS LATE FATHER THROUGH HIS MUSIC AND NEWLY UNEARTHED TAPES

- JORDAN RUNTAGH

The Beatles may be part of our cultural DNA, but for Sean Ono Lennon, their songs are the key to understanding his actual DNA. Learning to play guitar through those tracks was an act of communion, every strum bringing him closer to his father, John Lennon, who was killed in December 1980. John was 40; Sean was 5. "I never played music because I was good at it," he says. "I lost my father, and I didn't know how to fill that void. Learning how to play his songs on guitar was a way to process the loss with an activity that made me feel connected to him. Making music always made me feel like I was getting to know him better."

Now 49, Sean has spent the past three decades building a rich career as an accomplished artist in his own right through a string of acclaimed solo records and inventive musical projects. In recent years, after his mother, Yoko Ono, 91, stepped back from public life and retired to the rural estate she purchased with John in 1978, Sean has assumed the role of managing his family's singular musical legacy. Far more than just an administrative figure, he channels his formidable creative energy into crafting innovative ways to present his parents' timeless art to new generations.

Under his leadership a proposed new music video for the yuletide peace anthem "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" morphed into the deeply moving 11-minute animated short War Is Over!, which earned an Academy Award in March. (Sean took the opportunity to wish Ono a happy U.K. Mother's Day at the podium.) "A lot of people thought I was being overly ambitious," Sean, who codeveloped the story, sheepishly admits. "And I thought I might be as well! But then we won the Oscar."