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On This Day – October 11, 1971: John Lennon’s Imagine turns 53. Copyright and Legacy: What Role for Yoko Ono?

An indelible song, a hymn to peace and hope that is more current than ever: Imagine turns 53 today. Published in 1971 under the name of John Lennon alone, it also became a song written by Yoko Ono in 2018. What are the consequences for royalties and Lennon's legacy?

On This Day – October 11, 1971: John Lennon’s Imagine turns 53. Copyright and Legacy: What Role for Yoko Ono?

An indelible song in the hearts of the people: Imagine turns 53 todayIt is in May of 1971 that in the residence of John Lennon The album was recorded in Tittenhurst Park, an area of ​​Berkshire just outside London Imagine: is co-produced by former Beatles, the wife Yoko Ono and the record producer Phil Spector. But it is the11 October of the same year that the track is published Imagine, as an extract from the album. Since its release, the song has achieved extraordinary success. This is the best-selling single in John Lennon's solo career: well 1,6 million copies UK only.

In 2004, Imagine was ranked third on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time Rolling Stone. The music video, featuring Lennon sitting at the white piano in Tittenhurst Park, has become iconic: that piano was Sold at auction for over $2 million. Furthermore, the creative process of the album was documented in the film Gimme Some Truth: The Making of John Lennon's Imagine Album (2000) and in the book Imagine John Yoko (2018), both curated by Yoko Ono.

Imagine and Positive Religion

Despite its fame, the meaning of Imagine has often been misunderstood. The song invites us to imagine an alternative world, free from divisions and conflicts. In 2019, Unicef ​​recognized it as hymn to world peace. However, Lennon considered it more of a political manifesto. A way to ask for unity and equality, to eliminate modern social barriers, such as geopolitical borders or social classes.

The song, however, has also been accused of blasphemy by various religious groups, especially for the first sentence of the lyrics: "Imagine there is no heaven". In reality, the idea of ​​the authors was not to deny religions, but to overcome the divisive concept that "my God is greater than your God". To write the lyrics Lennon and Ono were inspired by the concept of positive prayer: if we can all imagine something, that vision can come true.

Yoko Ono's Collaboration in Imagine

In 1971 the song was released only under the name of John Lennon. It was the artist himself, in 1980, who admitted the debt to Yoko Ono, in an interview given to BBC December 6, 1980. Lennon stated that the inspiration for the song came from the poems in the book Grapefruit, released by Yoko Ono in 1964. She stated: “Actually, it should be credited as a Lennon-Ono song, because a lot of the lyrics and the concept came from Yoko. But at the time I was a little more egotistical, a little more macho, and I left it out. If it had been David Bowie, I would have put Lennon-Bowie. When we wrote Imagine I only put Lennon because, you know, she was just the wife. And you don’t put the wife’s name, right?”

In 2017, Yoko Ono began the process of receiving the co-author role di Imagine, a role officially recognized to her in 2018 by the National Music Publisher's Association, 46 years after her husband's death.

Imagine is an Ono-Lennon song: what does it mean?

Give Yoko Ono the title of co-author of Imagine has some economic consequences. This recognition extends the life of the proceeds deriving from Copyright of the song. These rights are enjoyed by the heirs up to 70 years after the death of the last co-author, in the main industrialized countries. Once this term has expired, the song becomes public domain. It Imagine had remained credited to John Lennon alone, his heirs would have been able to earn royalties only until 2050. With Yoko Ono as co-writer, the rights would not enter the public domain until 2088.

Recognition of Ono's collaboration It also changes the distribution of John Lennon's estate. One reduces Julian Lennon's share, son of John and his first wife, Cynthia Powell, while the portion destined to Yoko Ono and her daughter Kyoko, had with her ex-husband Anthony Cox, increases. It is true that Imagine remains, even today, the most beautiful song of peace and hope ever written. More relevant than ever.

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