Power to the peo-POLL: The John Lennon Hits Poll

pretty cool instant karma "naked" version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IPi2DKMCgM

About time.

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.

damn right. i still love the bit in the 1988 Imagine film where he's playing it on piano for the first time, to those 2 geezers who's names escape me i'm sorry to say. it's really fallen off the radar that film, i think it got crushed under the weight of 'Anthology'.

About the credits, if Lennon thought she deserved to get some, why didn't he change them at the time ?
I would have been easy since he's the only one credited... and he had 10y to do it...

Probably because she's been collecting the royalties as heir to them, so it makes no direct financial difference.

hmm. these changes (like the mccartney-lennon inversion) so long after one of the main person concerned has passed seem a bit uncalled for imo.
especially since they won't change anything financially.

They extend the copyright, reportedly.

ah ok, THAT is a good reason !
same for the mccartney/lennon, then, I suppose.

copyright extended 70 years after death of last heir

oh then that doesn't change anything, then...

That's not how creative copyright works, is it? It's not the heir, it's 70 years after the death of its author. From the Washington Post:

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.

So adding Yoko extends the copyright by at least 37 years.

also on the subject of her influence; the original design of the 1964 Grapefruit isn't.. a million miles away from a certain album

https://www.manhattanrarebooks.com/pictures/1079.jpg

That's not how creative copyright works, is it? It's not the heir, it's 70 years after the death of its author. From the Washington Post:

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.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 15 June 2017 14:14 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah ha HA!

Which also explains why "Happy Birthday to you" wasn't supposed to come out of copyright until 2030, despite its original authors writing it in 1893. Because it got 'reassigned' to some other people in 1933 or something. (They packed all that in, you can sing it for free now)