On October 9, 1975, John Lennon received what he would later call the birthday gift of a lifetime: the birth of his son, Sean Ono Lennon, on his own 35th birthday. Decades later, as Sean turns 50 and John would have celebrated his 85th, their intertwined legacies continue to captivate and inspire, even as the world changes around them. For Sean, the challenge is not just honoring his famous parents, but ensuring their music and message endure for generations that may not remember The Beatles as vividly as their parents or grandparents once did.
Before Sean’s arrival, John Lennon and Yoko Ono endured years of heartbreak, facing a series of miscarriages and fertility struggles, as reported by PEOPLE Magazine. The birth of Sean marked not just a personal triumph but a turning point in Lennon’s life. Photographer Bob Gruen, who captured intimate family moments in their New York City apartment shortly after Sean’s birth, recalled, “John called me when Sean was a month old and asked me to take some photos for his family. I took a lot of shots of him, Sean, and Yoko. John seemed happier than I had ever seen him and was looking forward to spending all his time raising his new son.” Gruen noted that John felt he had missed out on truly knowing his older son, Julian, and was determined not to repeat that mistake with Sean.
Family life became John’s focus throughout the late 1970s. Birthday celebrations for John and Sean were typically quiet affairs at home. But in 1979, Yoko Ono organized a joint birthday party at New York’s iconic Tavern on the Green, marking John’s 39th and Sean’s fourth birthdays. The event, attended by close friends and family, stood out as a rare public celebration for the Lennons, according to Salon.
The following year, John Lennon reemerged from a self-imposed musical exile with the album Double Fantasy and the hit single “(Just Like) Starting Over.” The release was not only a creative renaissance but a celebration of his life with Yoko and Sean. On his 40th birthday in 1980, John was showered with gifts from Yoko, including a ruby and diamond American flag pin, a Patek Philippe 2499 watch, a hand-knitted tie, and a skywriting message that read, “Happy Birthday John and Sean, Love Yoko,” as detailed by PEOPLE Magazine. The joy was short-lived, however; just weeks later, “(Just Like) Starting Over” soared to number one on the charts following John’s tragic murder on December 8, 1980. Two more singles from Double Fantasy, “Woman” and “Watching the Wheels,” would climb the Billboard charts in 1981, cementing his lasting influence.
Today, Sean Ono Lennon and Yoko Ono, now 92 and retired from public life, typically mark their birthdays privately, occasionally sharing reflections on social media. For Sean, the passage of time has brought both perspective and responsibility. “A lot of older people think, ‘Oh, everyone knows The Beatles; everyone knows John Lennon.’ And that’s simply not the case,” Sean told The Independent. “I meet my niece and nephew’s friends, I talk to Gen Z kids, and some of them don’t know the difference between The Beatles and The Monkees, I swear.”
This generational gap is precisely what motivated Sean to curate and release a new boxset titled Power to the People, debuting October 10, 2025. The collection features 123 remastered recordings from John and Yoko’s politically charged early 1970s period, including extensive material from their 1972 benefit concert for children at New York’s Willowbrook school. The project brings together legendary collaborators like George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder, and Keith Moon. “If people think we need to stop putting out new versions of this music, I think they’re very wrong,” Sean insisted. “Because I don’t want to live in a world where people don’t know that music. So I have a duty to keep putting it out and making it sound as good as possible, and finding ways to get young people interested.”
Sean’s connection to his father is not just musical, but deeply personal. He admits, “I first was interested in music because of my dad. I always felt like music was a way of getting closer to him.” Like his half-brother Julian, Sean has forged his own path in music, performing with bands such as Cibo Matto, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, and the Claypool Lennon Delirium, as well as reviving the Plastic Ono Project in 2009. Reflecting on his artistic lineage, he observes, “Until the 20th century, most people did what their parents did. It’s quite natural. But I do think in the modern world it seems weird, because most people expect you to reject your parents in a way, especially if they were famous. But there are only really two options – go out of your way to avoid what your parents did, or embrace it.”
Sean is also vocal about the evolving public perception of his mother, Yoko Ono. Once vilified as the “woman who broke up The Beatles,” Yoko’s legacy as an avant-garde artist and activist is being reassessed. “It’s such a cliché to say ‘The world wasn’t ready,’ but I think in the case of Yoko Ono, it’s really applicable,” Sean noted. He points out that Yoko faced resistance not just from Beatles fans but from the modern art community as well. “She came from this conservative world, and she was too radical for Japan. She was too radical for swinging London, too.”
Recent projects have helped reshape Yoko’s image. The 2023 Disney+ series Get Back used AI technology to restore archival footage and offered a more nuanced view of Yoko’s role during the recording of Let It Be. Sean clarified, “I think people really misunderstood what we were doing when we said ‘AI’... it was a better way of filtering noise out of a track. It wasn’t about creating anything – it was sophisticated noise filtering.” The same technology was used to isolate John’s vocals for the 2023 release of “Now and Then,” billed as the “final” Beatles song.
Sean also reflects on the changing nature of activism. While John and Yoko’s campaigns in the 1970s—against the Vietnam War and for causes like the release of poet-musician John Sinclair—had palpable cultural impact, Sean is less certain about the power of protest today. “I always remember after 9/11, there was the biggest peace march in history, against the potential invasion in Iraq. And about a week later, they invaded Iraq. It didn’t move the needle at all. Whereas during the civil rights movement, those protests really had an impact on the culture, on the government. People listened.”
Despite these doubts, Sean remains committed to his parents’ message of peace, love, and humor. “My dad always said that what [the establishment] can’t deal with is love and humour. And I think that the young activists trying to change the world would achieve more if they were loving and humorous, not violent.”
As the world marks what would have been John Lennon’s 85th birthday and Sean’s 50th, the Lennon legacy—musical, political, and deeply human—continues to find new resonance. Through projects like Power to the People, Sean ensures that the music and ideals of John and Yoko are not just preserved, but reimagined for a new generation, keeping the spirit of the Beatles alive in ways both familiar and unexpected.
