Yoko Ono Will Receive Songwriting Credit On John Lennon’s “Imagine”

R. Brigden/Daily Express/Getty Images

Yoko Ono Will Receive Songwriting Credit On John Lennon’s “Imagine”

R. Brigden/Daily Express/Getty Images

John Lennon’s “Imagine” is one of the most popular, most covered, most licensed songs in popular music history, and now Lennon’s widow and collaborator Yoko Ono will officially share credit for it. Variety reports that Ono and her son Sean Lennon received the new Centennial Song award at the National Music Publishers Association’s annual meeting Wednesday in New York. During the ceremony, the association’s CEO David Israelite announced that Ono would soon be given a writing credit on the song in accordance with Lennon’s stated wishes in a video from 1980, shortly before he was killed. Israelite noted that the move will be controversial because a song enters the public domain 70 years after the death of its last living creator, so adding Ono as a co-writer will significantly extend how long the song will generate income for its writers. Good news for Sean Lennon! Not so good for all those people covering and licensing “Imagine.”

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