The book of Genesis. Eve is tempted in the Garden of Eden. Together with Adam, she eats from the Tree of Knowledge and they both get exiled from the Garden, with harsh consequences.
September 20th, 1969. John Lennon officially leaves The Beatles a week before Abbey Road hits the shelves. A year later, The Beatles have ceased to exist, with papers accusing Yoko Ono of being the driving force.
April 5th, 1994. Kurt Cobain is found dead from a gunshot wound inside his home. A media frenzy ensues, with murder conspiracies circulating within days of the death. The press’ target was not only Cobain but Courtney Love.
So; Adam, John Lennon, and Kurt Cobain walk into a bar. What do they all have in common?
and I love her
Everyone has heard at least once that Yoko Ono broke up The Beatles. It’s one of those sentences that boomers cannot resist saying.
The narrative goes that Ono stormed into Lennons’ life, overtaking his marriage, his career, feeding him drugs and spiritual haikus. The papers called her “the woman who broke up The Beatles,” as well as a witch and a charlatan.
But…doesn’t that seem exaggerated?
Courtney Love rose to popularity in 1991 with her band Hole’s freshman album. She was a bleach-blonde addict with feminine rage, a message, and the vocals to scream it. When ultimately linked to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in 1992, it seemed to fit. They married and had a daughter, and they both tried sobering up.
Emphasis on tried. They both slipped back into their addiction, parasocially relying on each other for drugs and support, while simultaneously hating the other for enabling these bad habits. If this were the entire narrative, it would be easy to look at the timeline of events leading up to Kurt’s death and see why people, to this day, hate Courtney Love.
Wait. Doesn’t this story sound familiar?
These two women are virtually only known for the destruction of the careers of two of the most influential rockstars. They were not only bullied, they were threatened, harassed, and their legacies were forever stained.
Hey Jude
It goes that Adam was tempted by Eve to sin and eat the forbidden fruit. After this, God lays upon them mortal suffering and pain. Yet, there is crucial information missing.
To playfully summarize, this “fruit” comes from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This serpent is surrounding the tree, and he is being super cynical. Eve takes the time to approach this serpent and to hear him out. Eve states that God forbids them to indulge in this tree, for they will become mortal as soon as they indulge.
The serpent lets out a big “ah, phooey!” The serpent states that God doesn’t mean it, and wouldn’t it be so cool to have knowledge? Wouldn’t it be nice to know what God knows?
Eve is fooled, and she and Adam sin. Their worldview is changed, and they realize they are naked. They run to cover this up as God approaches them. Of course, God knows something is up. He asks Adam if they have sinned, and Adam immediately points the finger at Eve. “Nuh-uh! It was her fault!” God asks Eve what happened, and she leads him to the serpent.
Here are the consequences given:
For the serpent, you will be an animal on its belly, cursed to eat the dust. For Eve, you will have pain during childbirth, and your husband will rule over you.
For Adam, you will have to dig for food, weaving through bushes and thorns. Together, humankind and animals alike, you are now mortal.
God decides that they need to get out, so Adam and Eve leave.
Simplified, it is easy to blame Eve. However, when you drag in the serpent, the Knowledge, and Adam’s immediate blame of Eve, and put it in the context of naive children, it reveals that Eve was only trying to be closer to God, and therefore Adam.
For centuries, society has found it not only easy but preferred to transfer the blame to a woman. We curse Eve for our suffering, Courtney for Kurt’s death, and Yoko for disbanding the Beatles. It’s easy to think that our heroes could never do wrong, it must be an evil force in their lives driving them to ruin. It furthers the idea of the white savior complex, and when these bands’ fanbase is filled with impressionable teenagers, the infantilization of the narrative almost forms itself. It’s a story, literally as old as time. Yet, despite this, every single one of these stories is mistold.
Come as you are
It will likely be a surprise that you have already heard Yoko Ono sing. No, not that video of her banshee-singing on the Chuck Berry show. She’s featured in one of the biggest Lennon songs, singing with a festive choir.
Here she is singing Happy Xmas (War Is Over):
Better yet, she co-wrote Imagine with Lennon. This woman, known as a witch, as the downfall of Lennon and his band, ended up helping his two most popular songs reach their height.
Courtney Love contributed differently. Despite their relationship being rocky, toxic, and fueled by drugs, she did try to provide stability. She brought a daughter into the world with him, and because of this, they both got sober for a while. After this honeymoon period, she found Cobain overdosed and rushed him to the hospital. After his release, she helped stage an intervention with his friends. Both Courtney and Kurt checked themselves into rehab in 1994… and the rest is history.
Looking back on interviews with these women, it is so clear their love for their spouses. Ono has kept Lennon’s legacy alive, and Love laments that she could have saved Cobain if only she hadn’t staged an intervention.
The guilt is off the charts with these poor ladies, and it is painfully clear the amount of endurance they have had to deal with.
Neither of these stories seems to line up with the narrative that the media has given these women. There are no good guys, no witches, and no fruit. These were, at best, troubled humans with terrible addictions and 6 billion eyes on them. These people clearly loved each other and were trying their best. They built one another up and wanted to help the other improve. The media persists in twisting the knife into these tragedies and demands these women to be demure and polite in the face of mockery. Despite this, these stories will never be picture-perfect, these women never wavering; these are fucking rock stars.