Imagine

The story

"Imagine" is a song by the English musician John Lennon, from his 1971 album of the same name. Several poems in Yoko Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit inspired the words, among them "Cloud Piece", which was reproduced on the back of the original LP. Lennon later said the song should have been credited to Lennon and Ono, since much of the lyric and the concept came from her, and that he had left out her contribution; in 2017 she received credit as co-writer, and the US National Music Publishers Association gave the song a Centennial Song Award that recognised his wish. Lennon also said that a Christian prayer book, given to the couple by Dick Gregory, inspired its idea of positive prayer. The historian Sarah Carter has argued that Lennon was probably also aware of a protest by Lillian Piché Shirt, an Indigenous Canadian woman in Edmonton, who later recounted that in 1969 she spoke with him on the radio and shared a saying of her grandmother's about a world without hate or war.

A piano motif close to the final one, later called "John's Piano Piece", dates from the Beatles' Let It Be sessions of January 1969. Lennon finished the song one morning in early 1971 on a Steinway piano in a bedroom of his Tittenhurst Park estate near Ascot, Berkshire, almost in one sitting, with Ono watching. It is a piano ballad in C major. Lennon and Ono produced it with Phil Spector. It was recorded on 27 May 1971 at Ascot Sound Studios, Lennon's new home studio, with Klaus Voormann on bass, Alan White on drums and Lennon on piano and vocal; the second of three takes was chosen, and strings arranged by Torrie Zito and played by the Flux Fiddlers were added at the Record Plant in New York City on 4 July.

Apple Records issued it as a single in the United States in October 1971. It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Canada, and became the best-selling single of Lennon's solo career. Its words upset some religious groups. Lennon called it "anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic", but accepted because it was "sugarcoated", and said it was close to The Communist Manifesto although he was not a Communist; Ono described it as what Lennon believed, that all are one country, one world, one people. Critics have praised it and argued over it: John Blaney found it full of contradictions, Chris Ingham pointed to a millionaire living in a mansion asking listeners to imagine no possessions, and others replied that it asks only that listeners imagine.

It was first issued as a single in Britain in 1975, reaching number six. After Lennon was murdered in December 1980 it went to number one in the UK for four weeks in January 1981. In 1999 BMI named it one of the 100 most performed songs of the 20th century and BBC listeners voted it Britain's favourite song lyric, and in 2023 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry. After the September 11 attacks Clear Channel Communications put it on a list of songs not to play.

The song has become a common response to public grief and a fixture of ceremonies. Queen played it at Wembley the day after Lennon's death; Stevie Wonder sang it at the 1996 Summer Olympics in memory of the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing; the morning after the Paris attacks of November 2015, Davide Martello played it on a piano outside the Bataclan. Since 2005 it has been played before the New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square, and it has been part of the Olympic ceremonies of 2012, 2018, 2021 and 2022. Jimmy Carter said that in many countries he heard it used almost as often as national anthems; Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang it at his state funeral in January 2025. In 2022 Julian Lennon recorded his father's song for the first time, in support of refugees from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

What it says

A song about hope for a world at peace and without division. Its tone is gentle and hymn-like rather than angry.

The words

The words of this song are still in copyright, so they are not printed here. “What it says” above gives their theme in our own words, and the performance below lets you hear them.