Yoko Ono Is Finally Getting Credit for the Song John Lennon Said He Wrote Alone
John Lennon might have been one of the greatest songwriters of all time, but it's no secret that he was also a total asshole. And yesterday, at the annual meeting of the National Music Publishers Association, CEO David Israelite announced that Yoko Ono will receive a co-writing credit on "Imagine," Lennon's 1971 hit that he originally claimed he wrote on his own.
At the meeting, Israelite played a clip of Lennon in which he admitted that the song, "should be credited as a Lennon-Ono song because a lot of it—the lyric and the concept—came from Yoko. But those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution. But it was right out of Grapefruit, her book. There's a whole pile of pieces about 'Imagine this' and 'Imagine that.'"
So, in other words, the idea for the song came from Ono, but Lennon was too much of a dick to give her credit. Well, it only took 46 years, but Ono finally got the credit she deserves.
Or, as Israelite put it:
"While things may have been different in 1971, today I am glad to say things have changed. So tonight it is my distinct honor to correct the record some 48 years later and recognize Yoko Ono as a co-writer of the NMPA centennial song 'Imagine,' and to present Yoko Ono with this well-deserved credit."
On Instagram, Ono's son Sean Lennon said that it was the proudest day of his life and that "Patience is a virtue."
This story originally appeared on Esquire.com.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
