Continuing in its series of Yoko Ono reissues, Secretly Canadian has announced a reissue of Ono’s seminal 1982 album 'It’s Alright (I See Rainbows)'.
Influenced equally by 1960s girl group vocals and 1980s synthesizer experimentation, 'It's Alright (I See Rainbows)' is an album of “adventurous… lush… committed and convincing avant-gardism” (Rolling Stone). As Ono said in her 1992 Onobox liner notes, “It was ’82 and it seemed as though I was finally in sync with the world.” Vacillating from a widow’s never-truly-over grief, to the necessary uplift for an artist and mother to continue her life’s missions, tracks like 'Loneliness' and 'Spec of Dust' make way for poptimism via 'Let the Tears Dry', and title track 'It’s Alright'.
As Ono said of the album in 1983, “It’s like my diary that I went through… and I’m just saying, hey, I’ve got the same kind of emotions that you’ve probably got too, and here I am saying hello… Around December 8th or whatever, I was feeling really heavy and feeling sort of down, you know… and then, side two, it’s all right… It was Sean [Lennon] who says, ‘Wake up, wake up, mommy.’ Like an angel that came and said, ‘Wake up!’… Wake up and dream love, and let the tears dry and I see rainbows. And sort of I’m saying all that. In result of Sean waking me up, see?”
Lennon, speaking of his mother in a more recent interview with NPR in 2025, “She would say that energy is just energy, so you can turn it into anything you like. And she always said that she would take that negative energy and turn it into something productive and creative… It never stopped her from creating and putting herself out there, and I really think that it paid off… You never know how long it'll take for people to appreciate you if you just kind of hang on and don't give up.”
Forty-plus years on, we couldn’t agree more.
Influenced equally by 1960s girl group vocals and 1980s synthesizer experimentation, 'It's Alright (I See Rainbows)' is an album of “adventurous… lush… committed and convincing avant-gardism” (Rolling Stone). As Ono said in her 1992 Onobox liner notes, “It was ’82 and it seemed as though I was finally in sync with the world.” Vacillating from a widow’s never-truly-over grief, to the necessary uplift for an artist and mother to continue her life’s missions, tracks like 'Loneliness' and 'Spec of Dust' make way for poptimism via 'Let the Tears Dry', and title track 'It’s Alright'.
As Ono said of the album in 1983, “It’s like my diary that I went through… and I’m just saying, hey, I’ve got the same kind of emotions that you’ve probably got too, and here I am saying hello… Around December 8th or whatever, I was feeling really heavy and feeling sort of down, you know… and then, side two, it’s all right… It was Sean [Lennon] who says, ‘Wake up, wake up, mommy.’ Like an angel that came and said, ‘Wake up!’… Wake up and dream love, and let the tears dry and I see rainbows. And sort of I’m saying all that. In result of Sean waking me up, see?”
Lennon, speaking of his mother in a more recent interview with NPR in 2025, “She would say that energy is just energy, so you can turn it into anything you like. And she always said that she would take that negative energy and turn it into something productive and creative… It never stopped her from creating and putting herself out there, and I really think that it paid off… You never know how long it'll take for people to appreciate you if you just kind of hang on and don't give up.”
Forty-plus years on, we couldn’t agree more.
TRACK LISTING
1. My Man
2. Never Say Goodbye
3. Spec of Dust
4. Loneliness
5. Tomorrow May Never Come
6. It's Alright
7. Wake Up
8. Let the Tears Dry
9. Dream Love
10. I See Rainbows
11. Forgive Me My Love - CD Only
12. Dream Love (Live in Budapest) - CD Only
