14 Uplifting Covers of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’

Some songs are so timeless, so anthemic and so succinct that audiences can’t help but return to them again and again. John Lennon‘s “Imagine” is almost certainly one of them.

In October of 1971, “Imagine” was released into a world rife with devastating international conflict and deep political divisions in America, where Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono had decided to make their home just a few months prior. It would not be inaccurate to point out that the world appears to be in a similar state at the time of this writing.

But “Imagine” is a graceful song, not an aggrieved one. It’s plain and straightforward and clear in its belief that through the strength of human coalition, change is achievable. Power to the people.

“In this simple paean to global unity and fellowship,” author Kenneth Womack wrote when “Imagine” was added to the United States National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, “Lennon had the courage, incredible as that may seem both then and especially now, to imagine new possibilities for living in a better, and as of yet unrealized world.”

In the below list, we’ve rounded up 14 covers of “Imagine,” each an indication that Lennon’s song is still moving people’s souls.

1. Elton John

On Sept. 13, 1980, Elton John held an absolutely enormous concert in New York City’s Central Park — so big that it’s not even known how many people attended the performance. At that show, John sang “Imagine,” noting just before starting it that he hadn’t seen his friend Lennon “in a long time.” Less than three months later, that friend would be murdered outside his apartment building a short distance away.

 

2. Neil Young

Lennon found a home in New York City, a place where he could escape from the notoriously nosy British media and bothersome Beatle fans. It’s fitting then that Neil Young chose to perform “Imagine” at the 2001 benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes, held in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. At one point in the performance, Young adjusts the lyrics ever so slightly from “Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can” to “I wonder if I can.” It’s a tiny change, but one that nods to the idea that revolution is sometimes as much an internal struggle as an external one.

 

3. Ray Charles

Way back in 1968, Lennon was asked by Rolling Stone about which covers of Beatles songs he liked the most. “Well, Ray Charles‘ version of ‘Yesterday‘ — that’s beautiful,” he replied. “And ‘Eleanor Rigby‘ is a groove. I just dig the strings on that.” We have to think he’d appreciate Charles’ cover of “Imagine,” too.

 

4. Joan Baez

If there is one person who knows a thing or two about the relationship between art and activism, it’s Joan Baez, who spent decades of her career advocating against oppression both within the United States’ borders and abroad. In songs like “Imagine,” which Baez covered for her 1972 album Come From the Shadows, she recognized the way protest music could motivate people. In 2017, she spoke to CBS Mornings about how that idea really hasn’t changed much over the years: “You know, people are waiting for a ‘We Shall Overcome,’ they’re waiting for another ‘Blowin’ In the Wind‘ and ‘Imagine.’ Hasn’t been written yet. But if music wasn’t involved in social change, then I ain’t interested, you know?”

 

5. Chris Cornell

Without the existence of Lennon, it’s not entirely clear that Chris Cornell would have taken the career path he ultimately did. “I actually looked to him as a father figure when I was a kid,” Cornell told Howard Stern in 2011, an interview appearance at which he also performed an acoustic version of “Imagine.” “Because I sat in a room at nine and 10 years old and listened to Beatles records and John Lennon records over and over and over. He was an intense guy with an intense attitude, musically, lyrically and as a person.”

 

6. Diana Ross

Leave it to Diana Ross to take a minimalist song like “Imagine” and turn it into a sweeping, lush, cinematic statement. Amazing.

 

7. Madonna

Let’s stick with show girls for a second here with Madonna‘s cover of “Imagine” that she often performed on her Re-Invention Tour, though she’s covered it a number of times since then, too.

 

8. Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins 

For a while in the ’60s, Lennon played a Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Nashville model guitar, Years later, Atkins himself and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits teamed up for an acoustic rendition of “Imagine.”

 

9. Billy Preston and Yolanda Adams

Who better to perform “Imagine” at a Lennon tribute concert than one of his own former collaborators, Billy Preston? Preston played it with Yolanda Adams on vocals. Lennon at one point advocated strongly for Preston to officially join the Beatles as a member, though Paul McCartney did not agree.

 

10. Eddie Vedder

“Most of us have heard John Lennon sing ‘You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,'” Eddie Vedder said in a 2014 statement. “I don’t know how to reconcile the peaceful rainbow of flags we see each night at our concerts with the daily news of a dozen global conflicts and their horrific consequences. … But I know that we can’t let the sadness turn into apathy. And I do know we are better off when we reach out to each other. ‘I hope someday you’ll join us.’ Won’t you listen to what the man said.”

11. Queen and Paul Rodgers

In 2005, Queen and Paul Rodgers performed “Imagine” for tens of thousands of people in London’s Hyde Park. “Lennon, from a frankly less-than-glamorous teenager with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, developed into the coolest guy on Earth,” Brian May said in 2020. “He was cool enough to write the greatest teen pop song ever…’I Want to Hold Your Hand;’ to embrace psychedelia and make it musically valid; to leave the Beatles when he felt it had all become a shallow game he didn’t want to play anymore; and then to put his whole being into promoting peace in his solo work, producing almost certainly the greatest, most daring and personally revealing solo albums ever made, including songs such as ‘Jealous Guy,’ the soul-bearing ‘God’ and the immortal anthem for mankind, ‘Imagine.'”

 

12. Willie Nelson

In 2015, the John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert was held, featuring a number of famous artists performing some of his classic songs. Willie Nelson adeptly handled “Imagine” with his trusty Trigger guitar.

 

13. Gerry and the Pacemakers

This is a real full circle moment. Gerry and the Pacemakers were another British band that came out of Liverpool’s Merseybeat scene in the ’60s, just like the Beatles. In 1981, they included a cover of “Imagine” on a live album called Ferry Cross the Mersey in which lead singer Gerry Marsden dedicated it “to very dear friend of mine who was killed last year.”

 

14. Julian Lennon

We simply felt we must conclude this list with a cover of “Imagine” by none other than Lennon’s own son, Julian, which he released in 2022. Up until then, he had never performed the song. “Why now, after all these years?” he said then. “I had always said that the only time I would ever consider singing ‘Imagine’ would be if it was the ‘End of the World.’… But also because his lyrics reflect our collective desire for peace worldwide. Because within this song, we’re transported to a space, where love and togetherness become our reality, if but for a moment in time.”