How do you screech “chutzpah” in Japanese? Yoko Ono had herself added as coauthor of the song, Imagine, based on a 1980 statement by John Lennon that he based the song on supposed anti-religious sentiment expressed in in her 1964 book, Grapefruit, which also had a number of passages beginning with “Imagine”.
Less than a decade ago, she threatened action against Paul McCartney for reversing the Lennon-McCartney order on the liner notes for his album, “Back in the U.S.“, which featured Beatles songs on which McCartney was primary or exclusive author and Lennon had acknowledged as such. McCartney took the position: “I think it is fair and accurate for the songs that John declared were mine to carry my name first.“
Isn’t there a difference between influencing and co-writing?
In English.
Yes there is a difference. And it has legal implications.
A sub-issue is where they are changing the credit. It’s one thing to screw around just with some attribution. It’s another to try to change the copyright or otherwise assert authorship for copyright purposes.
Eekkk…John said he lifted Imagine’s lyrics from a poem in Yoko’s collection, “eat A Grapefruit”…So why didn’t she sue John, then? Yikes!
I can’t tell if Yoko started this or someone did it to get clicks and notoriety. By adding the credit it becomes news.
Remember, the guy who wrote the words “Imagine no possessions…” kept the copyright.
And didn’t credit his wife on the copyright.
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Maybe the title of this should be ‘Ono, Yoko!’
Perhaps “Oh No Yoko!” given the intended reference to the song “Oh Yoko”.
Oh, I didn’t know there was a song by that title. As a Beatles fan I have assiduously avoided all things Yoko.
I didn’t realize Yoko was pursuing John Lennon while he was still married. Maybe John should have imagined he was married.
I never realized that Yoko was already married with a daughter at the time. And to think that people wanted to be like these people.
IMHO, Lennon realized early on that he was being musically eclipsed by McCartney. So he decided that, if he could not out-perform McCartney, he would out-weird McCartney.
Enter Yoko who turned the weird up to 11.