John Lennon's son Sean was "completely floored" hearing his dad's voice in new clips

19 March 2025, 10:06

One To One: John & Yoko features some previously unheard audio of John Lennon.

Sean Ono Lennon was just five years old when his father John Lennon was murdered.

He has now opened up about how it felt to hear previously unheard recordings of his late dad during the production of new Kevin Macdonald documentary One To One: John & Yoko.

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"I was completely floored," Sean told Mojo of listening to the box of tapes of conversations between John and drummer Jim Keltner, Allen Klein and MC5 manager John Sinclair that was only recently discovered.

"I think maybe not everyone realises how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him.

"I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone's familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad."

One To One - John & Yoko Teaser trailer

One To One: John & Yoko. explores John Lennon and Yoko Ono's tumultuous time in New York City in the early 1970s, which saw the duo rub shoulders with countercultural figures and attract the attention of the US authorities.

"My early childhood was very chaotic," Sean said. "It was a very strange time. It felt like it was on the heels of this chaos that they had been going through in the early '70s.

"There were characters hanging around and things that happened that were sort of the echoes of that time when they were being harassed and monitored."

Sean added that one particular FBI agent tasked with "protecting" him and Yoko after John's assassination actually had been stealing John's property and was secretly working with Richard Nixon to try to deport his parents.

One To One: John & Yoko is directed by Kevin MacDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards and covers the 18-month period the couple spent in Greenwich Village from 1971 to 1973.

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last summer and is released in UK cinemas on April 11.