John Lennon’s chart-topping solo hit was supposed to be a Beatles song | Music | Entertainment

The Beatles came to a catastrophic end in 1970 just after the release of their final album, Let It Be. During that time, the Fab Four had been arguing over business decisions, personal matters and bitter disagreements about songs during their recording process. As a result, Beatles fans missed out on getting one of John Lennon’s biggest hits early.

Lennon released his seminal feel-good song Imagine in 1971 as a single from his second solo studio album of the same name. The track was a smash hit, reaching number one in five countries and going multiplatinum in the United States.

However, looking back on the song’s release, George Harrison said it was originally going to be a Beatles track.

“No, I mean, this is the funny thing,” he said in 2000. “Imagine if The Beatles had gone on and on. Well, the songs on [his solo album] All Things Must Pass, maybe some of them I would probably only just got around to do now, you know, with my quota that I was allowed [laughs].”

“I mean, I was probably trying to get them recorded in amongst all the usual John and Paul [McCartney] stuff,” he said. “For me, that was the great thing about splitting up: to be able to go off and make my own record and record all these songs that I’d been stockpiling.” He added: “And also to be able to record with all these new people, which was like a breath of fresh air, really.”

Lennon didn’t speak much about Imagine and didn’t openly admit to it originally being any kind of Beatles song.

He did pontificate about the origin of the monumental song, however, calling it a “concept of positive prayer”.

Lennon said: “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.” He added that the World Church called him to ask if they could use the lyrics to Imagine, but wanted to change the words from “Imagine no religion” to “Imagine one religion”.

“That showed [me] they didn’t understand it at all,” he said. “It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.”

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