概要

"Imagine" is a song by English rock musician John Lennon from his 1971 album of the same name.
「イマジン」は、イギリスのロックミュージシャン、ジョン・レノンが1971年に発表した同名のアルバムに収録されている曲である。

The best-selling single of his solo career, the lyrics encourage listeners to imagine a world of peace, without materialism, without borders separating nations and without religion.
彼のソロ活動で最も売れたシングル曲で、歌詞は聴く人に、物質主義のない、国境を隔てた宗教のない、平和な世界を想像するよう促すものである。

Shortly before his death, Lennon said that much of the song's lyrics and content came from his wife, Yoko Ono, and in 2017 the process to give Yoko co-writing credit (while not yet confirmed), was already under way.
レノンは死の直前、この曲の歌詞と内容の多くは妻のオノ・ヨーコからもたらされたと語り、2017年にはヨーコに共同執筆のクレジットを与える作業が（まだ確定していないものの）すでに進められていた。

Lennon and Ono co-produced the song with Phil Spector.
レノンとオノは、フィル・スペクターと共同でこの曲をプロデュースした。

Recording began at Lennon's home studio at Tittenhurst Park, England, in May 1971, with final overdubs taking place at the Record Plant, in New York City, during July.
レコーディングは1971年5月にイギリスのティッテンハースト・パークにあるレノンの自宅スタジオで始まり、7月中にニューヨークのレコード・プラントで最終的なオーバーダビングが行われた。

In October, Lennon released "Imagine" as a single in the United States, where it peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
10月、レノンは「イマジン」をシングルとしてアメリカで発売し、ビルボード・ホット100で3位を記録した。

The song was first issued as a single in Britain in 1975, to promote the compilation Shaved Fish, and reached number six on the UK Singles Chart that year.
この曲は1975年にイギリスでコンピレーション『Shaved Fish』のプロモーションのために初めてシングルとして発売され、その年のイギリスのシングル・チャートで6位を記録した。

It later topped the chart following Lennon's murder in 1980.
その後、1980年にレノンが殺害された後、同チャートで首位に立った。

BMI named "Imagine" one of the 100 most performed songs of the 20th century.
BMIは「イマジン」を20世紀で最も演奏された100曲のうちの1つに選んでいる。

In 1999, it was ranked number 30 on the RIAA's list of the 365 "Songs of the Century", earned a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll".
1999年には、RIAAが選ぶ365曲の「ソングス・オブ・ザ・センチュリー」で30位にランクされ、グラミー賞の殿堂入りを果たし、ロックの殿堂の「ロックンロールを形作った500曲」にも選出された。

A 2002 UK survey conducted by the Guinness World Records British Hit Singles Book named it the second best single of all time, while Rolling Stone ranked it number three in the 2004 list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
2002年にイギリスで行われたギネス・ワールド・レコーズのブリティッシュ・ヒット・シングル・ブックによる調査では、歴代2位のシングルに選ばれ、ローリング・ストーン誌は2004年の「史上最高の曲500」の中で3位にランク付けしている。

Since 2005, event organisers have played the song just before the New Year's Times Square Ball drops in New York City.
2005年以来、イベント主催者はニューヨークのタイムズスクエアで新年のボールが落ちる直前にこの曲を流している。

"Imagine" has sold more than 1.7 million copies in the UK.
「イマジン」は英国で170万枚以上売れた。

More than 200 artists have performed or covered the song, including Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Joan Baez, Lady Gaga, Elton John and Diana Ross.
マドンナ、スティービー・ワンダー、ジョーン・バエズ、レディー・ガガ、エルトン・ジョン、ダイアナ・ロスなど、200人以上のアーティストがこの曲を演奏したりカバーしたりしている。

After "Imagine" was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics, the song re-entered the UK Top 40, reaching number 18, and was presented as a theme song in the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
2012年夏季オリンピックで「イマジン」が取り上げられた後、この曲はUKトップ40に再登場し18位となり、2022年冬季オリンピックの開会式でテーマソングとして発表された。

The song remains controversial, as it has been since its release, over its request to imagine "no religion too"…
この曲は、「宗教もない」ことを想像してほしいという要請をめぐって、発売当初から変わらず物議を醸している。

Composition and writing（作曲と作詞）

Several poems from Yoko Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit inspired Lennon to write the lyrics for "Imagine" – in particular, one which Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original Imagine LP titled "Cloud Piece", reads: "Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in."
オノ・ヨーコの1964年の著書『グレープフルーツ』からいくつかの詩が、レノンに「イマジン」の歌詞を書くインスピレーションを与えた。特に、キャピトル・レコードがオリジナルの「イマジン」LPの裏ジャケットに再現した「雲のかけら」と題する詩は、次のように書かれている。『雲が滴るのを想像してごらん、庭に穴を掘って雲を入れよう』。

Lennon later said the composition "should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song. A lot of it – the lyric and the concept – came from Yoko, but in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit."
レノンは後に、この曲について「レノン／オノの曲としてクレジットされるべきだ。歌詞もコンセプトもヨーコから来たものだが、当時の僕はもう少しわがままでマッチョだったから、彼女の貢献は省略したようなものだが、『グレープフルーツ』からそのまま出てきたものだ」と語っている。

When asked about the song's meaning during a December 1980 interview with David Sheff for Playboy magazine, Lennon told Sheff that Dick Gregory had given Ono and him a Christian prayer book, which inspired him the concept behind "Imagine".
1980年12月、プレイボーイ誌のデヴィッド・シェフとのインタビューでこの曲の意味について尋ねられたレノンは、ディック・グレゴリーがオノと自分にキリスト教の祈りの本をくれたこと、それが「イマジン」の背後にあるコンセプトを触発したとシェフに語っている。

The concept of positive prayer ... If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion – not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing – then it can be true ...
積極的な祈りの概念 ... もしあなたが、宗教の宗派がない、平和な世界を想像することができれば、つまり宗教がないのではなく、私の神はあなたの神よりも大きいということがなければ、それは真実となり得るのです・・・

the World Church called me once and asked, "Can we use the lyrics to 'Imagine' and just change it to 'Imagine one religion'?"
世界教会は一度私に電話をかけ、「『イマジン』の歌詞を使って、『一つの宗教を想像しよう』と変えてもいいでしょうか」と尋ねました。

That showed [me] they didn't understand it at all.
それで、彼らがまったく理解していないことがわかったんです。

It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.
それでは、この曲の目的もアイデアも台無しです。

With the combined influence of "Cloud Piece" and the prayer book given to him by Gregory, Lennon wrote what author John Blaney described as "a humanistic paean for the people".
「雲のかけら」とグレゴリーからもらった祈祷書の影響を合わせて、レノンは作家のジョン・ブレイニーが「人民のための人間的賛歌」と評するものを書いた。

Blaney wrote, "Lennon contends that global harmony is within our reach, but only if we reject the mechanisms of social control that restrict human potential."
「レノンは、世界の調和は手の届くところにあると主張しているが、それは人間の可能性を制限する社会的支配のメカニズムを拒絶した場合に限られる」と、ブレイニーは書いている。

Rolling Stone's David Fricke commented: "[Lennon] calls for a unity and equality built upon the complete elimination of modern social order: geopolitical borders, organised religion, [and] economic class.".
ローリング・ストーンのデイヴィッド・フリック氏はこうコメントしている。「レノンは、地政学的な国境、組織化された宗教、経済的な階級といった現代の社会秩序を完全に排除した上で成り立つ統一と平等を呼びかけている」。

Lennon stated: "'Imagine', which says: 'Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,' is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement."
レノンはこう述べている。「宗教も国も政治もなくなったと想像してみろ 」という『イマジン』は、事実上、共産党宣言だ。私は特に共産主義者でもないし、どの運動にも属していないが」

He told NME: "There is no real Communist state in the world; you must realize that. The Socialism I speak about ... [is] not the way some daft Russian might do it, or the Chinese might do it. That might suit them. Us, we should have a nice ... British Socialism."
彼はNMEにこう語っている。「世界には本当の共産主義国家は存在しない、それを理解しなければならない。私が語る社会主義とは...。[私が語る社会主義とは...どこかのバカなロシア人や中国人がやるようなものではないんだ。それは彼らにとっては都合のいいことかもしれません。私たちは、素敵な......イギリスの社会主義を持つべきです。イギリスの社会主義がいいんだ。」

Ono described the lyrical statement of "Imagine" as "just what John believed: that we are all one country, one world, one people."
オノは、「イマジン」の歌詞の内容を、「まさにジョンが信じていた通り、我々は皆、一つの国、一つの世界、一つの人間なんだ」と表現した。

Rolling Stone described its lyrics as "22 lines of graceful, plain-spoken faith in the power of a world, united in purpose, to repair and change itself".
ローリングストーン誌は、その歌詞を「目的に向かって団結した世界が、自らを修復し変えていく力に対する、優美で平明な言葉による22行の信仰」と評している。

An original piano musical motif, later called "John's Piano Piece", close to the final one was created in January 1969 during the Let It Be sessions.
後に「ジョンのピアノ曲」と呼ばれる、最終的なものに近いオリジナルのピアノ曲のモチーフは、1969年1月、レット・イット・ビーのセッションで作られたものである。

Lennon finished composing "Imagine" one morning in early 1971, on a Steinway piano, in a bedroom at his Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, Berkshire, England.
レノンは1971年初頭のある朝、英国バークシャー州アスコットにあるティッテンハースト・パーク邸の寝室で、スタインウェイ・ピアノを使って「イマジン」を作曲し終えた。

Ono watched as he composed the melody, chord structure and almost all the lyrics, nearly completing the song in one brief writing session.
オノは、彼がメロディとコード構成、そしてほとんどすべての歌詞を作曲するのを見守り、1回の短い作曲セッションでほぼこの曲を完成させた。

Described as a piano ballad performed in the soft rock genre, the song is in the key of C major.
ソフトロックのジャンルで演奏されるピアノバラードで、ハ長調である。

Its 4-bar piano introduction begins with a C chord then moves to Cmaj7 before changing to F; the 12-bar verses also follow this chord progression, with their last 4 bars moving from Am/E to Dm and Dm/C, finishing with G, G11 then G7, before resolving back to C.
4小節のピアノのイントロはCコードで始まり、Cmaj7からFに変わる。12小節の詩もこのコード進行で、最後の4小節はAm/EからDm、Dm/Cと進み、G、G11、G7で終わり、Cに戻って解決される。

The 8-bar choruses progress from F to G to C, then Cmaj7 and E before ending on E7, a C chord substituted for E7 in the final bar.
8小節のコーラスはF→G→C→Cmaj7→Eと進み、最後はE7で終わりますが、最後の小節はE7に代えてCのコードを使います。

The 4-bar outro begins with F, then G, before resolving on C.
4小節のアウトロはFから始まり、Gを経てCに解決される。

With a duration of 3 minutes and 3 seconds and a time signature of 4/4, the song's tempo falls around 75 beats per minute.
曲の長さは3分3秒、拍子は4/4で、テンポは1分間に75拍前後。

Recording and commercial reception（ビューが一定数を超えたら日本語訳公開）

A black and white photo of Lennon sitting at a white parlour grand piano.

He is wearing headphones and a dark shirt.

A 1971 Billboard advertisement for "Imagine".

Lennon and Ono co-produced the song and album with Phil Spector, who commented on the track: "We knew what we were going to do ...

It was going to be John making a political statement, but a very commercial one as well ...

I always thought that 'Imagine' was like the national anthem." Lennon described his working arrangement with Ono and Spector: "Phil doesn't arrange or anything like that—[Ono] and Phil will just sit in the other room and shout comments like, 'Why don't you try this sound' or 'You're not playing the piano too well' ...

I'll get the initial idea and ...

we'll just find a sound from [there].".

Recording took place on 27 May 1971 at Ascot Sound Studios, Lennon's newly built home studio at Tittenhurst Park, with string overdubs taking place on 4 July 1971 at the Record Plant, in New York City.

The sessions began during the late morning, running to just before dinner in the early evening.

Lennon taught the musicians the chord progression and a working arrangement for "Imagine", rehearsing the song until he deemed the musicians ready to record.

In his attempt to recreate Lennon's desired sound, Spector had some early tapings feature Lennon and Nicky Hopkins playing in different octaves on one piano.

He also initially attempted to record the piano part with Lennon playing the white baby grand in the couple's all-white room.

However, after having deemed the room's acoustics unsuitable, Spector abandoned the idea in favour of the superior environment of Lennon's home studio.

They completed the session in minutes, recording three takes and choosing the second one for release.

The finished recording featured Lennon on piano and vocal, Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, Alan White on drums and the Flux Fiddlers on strings.

The string arrangement was written by Torrie Zito.

Issued by Apple Records in the United States in October 1971, "Imagine" became the best-selling single of Lennon's solo career.

It peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number one in Canada on the RPM national singles chart, remaining there for two weeks.

Upon its release the song's lyrics upset some religious groups, particularly the line: "Imagine there's no heaven".

When asked about the song during one of his final interviews, Lennon said he considered it to be as strong a composition as any he had written with the Beatles.

He described the song's meaning and explicated its commercial appeal: "Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugarcoated it is accepted ...

Now I understand what you have to do.

Put your political message across with a little honey." In an open letter to Paul McCartney published in Melody Maker, Lennon said that "Imagine" was "'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself".

On 30 November 1971, the Imagine LP reached number one on the UK chart.

It became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album of Lennon's solo career.

Film and re-releases（ビューが一定数を超えたら日本語訳公開）

In 1972, Lennon and Ono released an 81-minute film to accompany the Imagine album which featured footage of the couple in their home, garden and the recording studio of their Berkshire property at Tittenhurst Park as well as in New York City.

A full-length documentary rock video, the film's first scene features a shot of Lennon and Ono walking through a thick fog, arriving at their house as the song "Imagine" begins.

Above the front door to their house is a sign that reads: "This Is Not Here", the title of Ono's then New York art show.

The next scene shows Lennon sitting at a white grand piano in a dimly lit, all-white room.

Ono gradually walks around opening shutters that allow in light, making the room brighter with the song's progression.

At the song's conclusion, Ono sits beside Lennon at the piano; they gaze at one another, and then kiss briefly.

Several celebrities appeared in the film, including Andy Warhol, Fred Astaire, Jack Palance, Dick Cavett and George Harrison.

Derided by critics as "the most expensive home movie of all time", it premiered to an American audience in 1972.

In 1986, Zbigniew Rybczyński made a music video for the song, and in 1987, it won both the "Silver Lion" award for Best Clip at Cannes and the Festival Award at the Rio International Film Festival.

Released as a single in the United Kingdom in 1975 in conjunction with the album Shaved Fish, "Imagine" peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart.

The photograph on the sleeve was taken by May Pang in 1974.

Following Lennon's murder in 1980, the single re-entered the UK chart, reaching number one, where it remained for four weeks in January 1981.

"Imagine" was re-released as a single in the UK in 1988, peaking at number 45, and again in 1999, reaching number three.

As of June 2013, it had sold over 1.64 million copies in the UK, making it Lennon's best-selling single there.

In 1999, on National Poetry Day in the United Kingdom, the BBC announced that listeners had voted "Imagine" Britain's favourite song lyric.

In 2003, it reached number 33 as the B-side to a re-release of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"…

Recognition and criticism（ビューが一定数を超えたら日本語訳公開）

Rolling Stone described "Imagine" as Lennon's "greatest musical gift to the world", praising "the serene melody; the pillowy chord progression; [and] that beckoning, four-note [piano] figure".

Robert Christgau called it "both a hymn for the Movement and a love song for his wife, celebrating a Yokoism and a Marcusianism simultaneously".

Included in several song polls, in 1999, BMI named it one of the top 100 most-performed songs of the 20th century.

Also that year, it received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

"Imagine" ranked number 23 in the list of best-selling singles of all time in the UK, in 2000.

In 2002, a UK survey conducted by the Guinness World Records British Hit Singles Book ranked it the second best single of all time behind Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Gold Radio ranked the song number three on its "Gold's greatest 1000 hits" list.

Rolling Stone ranked "Imagine" number three on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", describing it as "an enduring hymn of solace and promise that has carried us through extreme grief, from the shock of Lennon's own death in 1980 to the unspeakable horror of September 11th.

It is now impossible to imagine a world without 'Imagine', and we need it more than he ever dreamed." Despite that sentiment, Clear Channel Communications (now known today as iHeartMedia) included the song on its post-9/11 "do not play" list.

On 1 January 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation named "Imagine" the greatest song in the past 100 years as voted by listeners on the show 50 Tracks.

The song ranked number 30 on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of the 365 Songs of the Century bearing the most historical significance.

Virgin Radio conducted a UK favourite song survey in December 2005, and listeners voted "Imagine" number one.

Australians selected it the greatest song of all time on the Nine Network's 20 to 1 countdown show on 12 September 2006.

They voted it eleventh in the youth radio network Triple J's Hottest 100 Of All Time on 11 July 2009.

A colour photograph of a large metal monument with a conical base supporting a globe that is wrapped in contorted musical instruments.

In the background is a blue sky.

Peace & Harmony, John Lennon Peace Monument in Liverpool.

Former US President Jimmy Carter said, "in many countries around the world – my wife and I have visited about 125 countries – you hear John Lennon's song 'Imagine' used almost equally with national anthems." On 9 October 2010, which would have been Lennon's 70th birthday, the Liverpool Singing Choir performed "Imagine" along with other Lennon songs at the unveiling of the John Lennon Peace Monument in Chavasse Park, Liverpool.

Beatles producer George Martin praised Lennon's solo work, singling out the composition: "My favourite song of all was 'Imagine'".

Music critic Paul Du Noyer described "Imagine" as Lennon's "most revered" post-Beatles song.

Authors Ben Urish and Ken Bielen called it "the most subversive pop song recorded to achieve classic status".

Fricke commented: "'Imagine' is a subtly contentious song, Lennon's greatest combined achievement as a balladeer and agitator.".

Urish and Bielen criticised the song's instrumental music as overly sentimental and melodramatic, comparing it to the music of the pre-rock era and describing the vocal melody as understated.

According to Blaney, Lennon's lyrics describe hypothetical possibilities that offer no practical solutions; lyrics that are at times nebulous and contradictory, asking the listener to abandon political systems while encouraging one similar to communism.

Author Chris Ingham indicated the hypocrisy in Lennon, the millionaire rock star living in a mansion, encouraging listeners to imagine living their lives without possessions, a sentiment that Elvis Costello echoed in his 1991 single "The Other Side of Summer".

Others argue that Lennon intended the song's lyrics to inspire listeners to imagine if the world could live without possessions, not as an explicit call to give them up.

Blaney commented: "Lennon knew he had nothing concrete to offer, so instead he offers a dream, a concept to be built upon.".

Blaney considered the song to be "riddled with contradictions.

Its hymn-like setting sits uncomfortably alongside its author's plea for us to envision a world without religion." Urish and Bielen described Lennon's "dream world" without a heaven or hell as a call to "make the best world we can here and now, since this is all this is or will be".

In their opinion, "because we are asked merely to imagine – to play a 'what if' game, Lennon can escape the harshest criticisms".

Former Beatle Ringo Starr defended the song's lyrics during a 1981 interview with Barbara Walters, stating: "[Lennon] said 'imagine', that's all.

Just imagine it.".

The morning after the November 2015 Paris attacks, German pianist Davide Martello brought a grand piano to the street out in front of the Bataclan, where 89 concertgoers had been shot dead the night before, and performed an instrumental version to honour the victims of the attacks; video of his performance went viral.

This led Katy Waldman of Slate to ponder why "Imagine" had become so frequently performed as a response to tragedy.

In addition to its general popularity, she noted its musical simplicity, its key of C major, "the plainest and least complicated key, with no sharps or flats" aside from one passage with "a plaintive major seventh chord that allows a tiny bit of E minor into the tonic".

That piano part, "gentle as a rocking chair", underpins lyrics that, Waldman says, "belongs to the tradition of hymns or spirituals that visualize a glorious afterlife without prophesizing any immediate end to suffering on earth".

This understanding is also compounded by the historical context of Lennon's own violent death, "remind[ing] us that the universe can run ramshod over idealistic people".

Ultimately, the song "captures the fragility of our hope after a violent or destructive event ...

[bu]t also reveals its tenacity"..

In June 2017, the US National Music Publishers Association awarded "Imagine" a Centennial Song Award and recognized Lennon's desire to add Yoko Ono as a co-author of the song.

Performances and cover versions（ビューが一定数を超えたら日本語訳公開）

Elton John performed the song regularly on his world tour in 1980, including at his free concert in Central Park, a few blocks away from Lennon's apartment in The Dakota.

On 9 December 1980, the day after Lennon's murder, Queen performed "Imagine" as a tribute to him during their Wembley Arena show in London.

In 1983, David Bowie performed it in Hong Kong during his Serious Moonlight Tour, on the third anniversary of Lennon's death.

On 9 October 1990, more than one billion people listened to a broadcast of the song on what would have been Lennon's 50th birthday.

Ratau Mike Makhalemele covered the song on an EP of Lennon covers in 1990.

In 1991–92, Liza Minnelli performed the song in her show at Radio City Music Hall.

Stevie Wonder gave his rendition of the song, with the Morehouse College Glee Club, during the closing ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics as a tribute to the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

In 2001, Neil Young performed it during the benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes.

Madonna performed "Imagine" during the benefit Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope.

Peter Gabriel performed the song during the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

Herman Cain, then the CEO of Godfather's Pizza, performed a parody of "Imagine", identified as "Imagine There's No Pizza", before the Omaha Press Club in 1991, which became a viral video when he ran for President of the United States 20 years later.

Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park to honour John Lennon with the word "Imagine" on it.

Since 2005, "Imagine" has been played before the New Year's Eve ball drop at New York City's Times Square.

Beginning in 2010, the song has been performed live; first by Taio Cruz, then in 2011 by CeeLo Green and in 2012 by Train.

However, Green received criticism for changing the lyric "and no religion too" to "and all religions true", resulting in an immediate backlash from fans who believed that he had disrespected Lennon's legacy by changing the lyrics of his most iconic song.

Green defended the change by saying it meant to represent "a world [where you] could believe what [you] wanted".

The event got media attention outside of the US, with Britain's The Guardian stating "Lennon's original lyrics don't praise pluralism or interchangeable religious truths – they damn them"..

Numerous artists have recorded cover versions of "Imagine".

Joan Baez included it on 1972's Come from the Shadows and Diana Ross recorded a version for her 1973 album, Touch Me in the Morning.

In 1995, Blues Traveler recorded the song for the Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon album and Dave Matthews has performed the song live with them.

American singer and guitarist Eva Cassidy recorded a version for her 2002 album of the same name; this version failed to reach the top 100 in the United Kingdom but peaked at number 35 on the UK Indie Chart.

Dolly Parton recorded the song for her 2005 covers album Those Were the Days.

David Archuleta reached number 36 in US and number 31 in Canada with his rendition.

A cover version of the song, performed by Italian singer Marco Carta, entered the top 20 in Italy in 2009, peaking at number 13.

Seal, Pink, India.Arie, Jeff Beck, Konono Nº1, Oumou Sangaré and others recorded a version for Herbie Hancock's 2010 album The Imagine Project.

In February 2011, the recording won a Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Collaboration.

"Imagine" was performed as part of the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir and the Liverpool Signing Choir, the choirs sang the first verse and accompanied Lennon's original vocals during the rest of the song.

A cover performed by Emeli Sandé was also used by the BBC for a closing montage that ended its coverage.

"Imagine" subsequently re-entered the UK Top 40, reaching number 18.

In 2014, to celebrate 25 years of UNICEF's Convention on the Rights of the Child, the organisation launched an initiative using the song.

Performers including Ono, Hugh Jackman and ABBA announced the initiative at an event at the UN General Assembly in New York, with the intention of spreading the message that every voice matters.

To do this, various celebrities and singers recorded cover versions of the song, which can be played on a downloadable app for people around the world to virtually sing with the celebrities and then share the videos on social media with related hashtags.

In 2015, American singer and songwriter Lady Gaga performed the song at the 2015 European Games opening ceremony.

The song was played for 70,000 people in Baku, Azerbaijan, that served as host of the event.

In 2018, the song was performed at the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Pyeongchang (South Korea).

The same year Yoko Ono released a solo rendition of the song, the first since she received credit as co-writer.

In 2020, amid the first COVID-19 lockdowns, Gal Gadot and a number of other celebrities performed an online version of the song intended to raise morale in the face of the pandemic.

The performance was poorly received by audiences, many of whom criticized it for being a tone-deaf message from a group of socialites and members of the international elite who were largely unaffected by the pandemic.

In June 2020, actor Chris O'Dowd, who appeared in the online version of the song, said the criticisms of the project were "justified", referring to the video as "creative diarrhoea"..

A pre-recorded version of the song performed by John Legend, Keith Urban, Alejandro Sanz and Angélique Kidjo, with musical arrangement by Hans Zimmer, was featured in the opening ceremony for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in July 2021, and another pre-recorded cover version again as a theme song in the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in February 2022.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lennon's son Julian Lennon for the first time covered his father's song, calling on world leaders and everyone who believes in the song's sentiment of hope and peace to stand up for refugees.