The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
YOKO TO RECEIVE WRITING CREDIT FOR ‘IMAGINE’
John Lennon’s 1971 song “Imagine” is considered one of his masterpieces. Rolling Stone once called it his “greatest musical gift to the world.”
It was also undeniably inspired by Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono. Indeed, Lennon drew portions of the lyrics in “Imagine” from Ono’s 1964 poetry book, “Grapefruit.”
And in a 1980 video interview, Lennon said the song “should be credited as a Lennon-Ono song because a lot of it — the lyric and the concept — came from Yoko.”
Soon, more than four decades after the song’s release, 84-year-old Ono is likely to receive the songwriting credit Lennon said was always due her.
On Wednesday, the chief executive of the National Music Publishers Association announced that the process is underway to add Ono to the song as a co-writer, Variety reported. David Israelite, the CEO, shared the news at the organization’s annual meeting in New York, where “Imagine” received the “Centennial Song” award.
Ono and her son, Sean Lennon, accepted the award onstage, where Ono proclaimed “this is the best time of my life,” Variety said. Ono — who is currently fighting a flulike sickness and had to be pushed onstage in a wheelchair — said her current illness has made her appreciate the song even more. Patti Smith then performed what many described as a poignant rendition of the song.
Sean Lennon later wrote about the award ceremony on his Instagram, calling it the “proudest day of my life.” “Cut to: my mother welling up in tears,” Sean Lennon wrote. “Patience is a virtue!”
And on Thursday morning, Ono tweeted a portion of an interview recording in which Lennon said “‘Imagine’ was inspired by Yoko’s ‘Grapefruit.’”
“There’s a lot of pieces in it saying imagine this or imagine that,” Lennon said. “I know she helped on a lot of the lyrics but I wasn’t man enough to let her have credit for it. I was still selfish enough and unaware enough to take that contribution without acknowledging it.”
“I was still full of wanting my own space after being in the room with four guys and always having to share everything,” he continued.
The song, he said, “expresses what I learned through being with Yoko and my own feelings on it.”
Downtown Music Publishing, which manages Ono’s and Lennon’s solo work, tweeted that the award — bestowed to both its songwriters — was “an incredible honor for us.”
Adding Ono to the credits of “Imagine” is significant in part because it would extend the amount of time the song would be able to reap income for its creators, as Variety pointed out. A song enters the public domain 70 years after the death of its last songwriter. Lennon died after being gunned down in New York on Dec. 8, 1980, by Mark David Chapman.