In advance of his death, in December, President Jimmy Carter selected a song to be played at his funeral. Honoring his request, Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks performed “Imagine” in the Washington National Cathedral on January 9. It was a moving rendition of a ballad written and recorded more than 50 years ago.
The choice of “Imagine” was criticized by some. Carter was a born-again Christian, and the song envisions “a world without religion.” The president may have connected more with the song’s call for a time and place without countries (“nothing to kill or die for”) or possessions (“no need for greed or hunger”).
Whatever he related to, Carter had a particular affinity for the song. He once observed, “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.”
Carter didn’t mention Yoko Ono, but he can be forgiven the slight. Most people think of “Imagine” as a Lennon song, and at the time of its release, in 1971, Ono received no credit for her part in creating it. However, as Lennon told me when I interviewed him in 1980, Ono co-wrote “Imagine.”
“I wasn’t man enough to let her have credit for it,” he admitted. “I was still selfish enough and unaware enough to sort of take her contribution without acknowledging it.”
In an interview with the BBC, Lennon said, “If it had been Bowie [I’d written it with], I would have put ‘Lennon-Bowie,’ you see. If it had been a male—Harry Nilsson—‘Old Dirt Road’ is ‘Lennon-Nilsson.’ But when we did [‘Imagine’], I just put ‘Lennon’ because, you know, she’s just the wife and you don’t put her name on, right?”
Being deprived of credit for “Imagine” was only one slight Ono endured in the course of her long career as an artist, musician, and activist. Ever since she and Lennon became a couple, she’s been in his, and the Beatles’, formidable shadow. Her contributions have been further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism.
In 2021, I began researching a biography of Ono, who turned 92 in February. Many of the people I spoke with who were familiar with her art were fans. However, many others repeated a tired trope. I found that Ono remains best known for the high crime she purportedly committed: breaking up the Beatles.
She’s been accused of hypnotizing Lennon, attacked as a home-wrecker, and charged with destroying Lennon as an artist. This is as recent as December 2023, when some fans, blaming Taylor Swift for a series of losses by the Kansas City Chiefs, charged Swift with “Yoko Ono–ing” the team—destroying it by seducing her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce, the way Ono destroyed the Beatles by seducing Lennon.
Ono didn’t break up the Beatles. John did. As he once said, “I started the band, and I disbanded it.” Regardless, the story persists. I recently saw a bumper sticker on a passing car: STILL PISSED AT YOKO.
Not only did Ono not break up the band, she may actually have helped it stay together longer than it would have otherwise. Lennon had a foot out the door by the time he got together with Ono. Without her support, the other foot might have followed sooner than it did—she literally held his hand when they came together to the final Beatles recording sessions. If not for her, there might not be an Abbey Road or a Let It Be.
And there definitely wouldn’t be an “Imagine.” As Lennon himself said, “The song … could never have been written without her.”
In 2017, the National Music Publishers Association corrected the record when it presented its Centennial Song Award to “Imagine,” listing Ono as the co-writer. That she finally got credit was significant for rock ’n’ roll history. It was also an affirmation of Ono’s belief system—she truly thinks that imagining a better world is the first step in creating one. “All my works are a form of wishing,” she said once. “Wishes affect the world. When we dream together, our dreams become reality.”
David Sheff is the author of several books, including the memoir Beautiful Boy, which was adapted into a movie starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere
