In today’s cultural phenomenon gone so stale it’s Zwieback we present the final reason the Beatles are not on iTunes: Yoko Ono herself. In an interview promoting a new Lennon retrospective in New York, Yoko said:
“(Apple CEO) Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy,” Ono, the 77-year-old widow of John Lennon, told Reuters. “There’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people. We are holding out.
“Don’t hold your breath … for anything,” she said with a laugh.
As you recall, the Beatles didn’t cut a deal with Jobs because Apple Records sued Apple Computer and blah blah blah. Look: if you don’t have a ripped collection of Beatles tunes on your iPod by now, you probably don’t want to listen to them. It’s the Beatles’ own fault for being banging their silver hammer over this whole thing and reducing a potentially lucrative revenue stream. I mean day after day, alone at their computers, there are men who want to download Beatles albums but their mice are keeping perfectly still because of this tomfoolery.
What does the gnomish Ono mean? That Steve isn’t giving her money and is instead supplying funny paper? And in the middle of negotiations, did things break down? Did they get to the bottom of the deal and then go back to the top of the slide? Did he turn things around and go for a ride?
Ono, this needs to be addressed in public. You can’t hide the Beatles’ back catalog away. You can’t keep talking from your bed, even for a week.