John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s classic “Imagine” is once again part of an Olympic ceremony, as John Legend, Keith Urban, Angélique Kidjo and others have collaborated on a new version to kick off the Tokyo games.
Arranged by composer Hans Zimmer, the 2021 version of “Imagine” was performed by the aforementioned artists along with Alejandro Sanz and the Suginami Junior Chorus.
On Twitter, Ono expressed her support for the performance by writing, “John and I were both artists and we were living together, so we inspired each other. The song ‘Imagine’ embodied what we believed together at the time. John and I met — he comes from the West and I come from the East — and still we are together.”
Over the years, “Imagine” has been performed at multiple Olympics including a cadre of Korean pop and rock stars — Ha Hyun-woo, Jeon In-kwon, Lee Eun-mi and Ahn Ji-young — at the 2018 winter games in PyeongChang, at the 2012 games in London, by Peter Gabriel who sang the song at the 2006 Turin Olympics, and by Stevie Wonder who performed it at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
As the International Olympic Committee noted in a statement, Lennon himself saw a connection between the song and the Olympics, saying in an interview just prior to his assassination, “We’re not the first to say ‘Imagine No Countries’ or ‘Give Peace a Chance’, but we’re carrying that torch, like the Olympic torch, passing it hand to hand, to each other, to each country, to each generation. And that’s our job.”
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Author: Brad LeBeau
Photo: travelmag.com