John Winston Ono Lennon was an English singer, songwriter, musician, and peace activist who rose to international prominence as the Beatles’ founder, co-composer, co-lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist.
Son of John Lennon In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Julian Lennon has just recorded Imagine for the first time. However, his father later admitted that he did not write his renowned anthem alone, and the song’s official credits were only updated five decades after it was released.
Julian shared a moving video of himself performing Imagine the other day, which you can watch here. He claimed that he had promised himself that he would only record the song if it was “the end of the world.” The 1971 peace anthem became John’s biggest solo hit and is still as popular and well-regarded today as it was back then, firmly establishing him as a musician and songwriter in his own right outside of the Beatles. The American National Music Publishers Association changed the song’s credits 46 years later to recognize that it was co-written.
He said at time: “There’s a lot of pieces in [Grapefruit] saying like ‘imagine this’ or ‘imagine that’. Imagine could never have been written without her. And I know she helped on a lot of the lyrics but I wasn’t man enough to let her have credit for it.”
“So that song was actually written by John and Yoko, but I was still selfish enough and unaware enough to take her contribution without acknowledging it. The song itself expresses what I’d learned through being with Yoko and my own feelings on it.”
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