<\/p>\n
With a music catalog as extensive as John Lennon<\/strong>\u2019s, it may be a matter of opinion to some fans which of his songs is most iconic. However, based on streaming data, it\u2019s clear that his 1971 track \u201cImagine\u201d has stood the test of time.<\/p>\n Lennon, who was born on October 9, 1940, became a member of The Beatles, consisting of Paul McCartney<\/strong>, George Harrison<\/strong>, and Ringo Starr<\/strong>, after the group was formed in Liverpool, England, in 1960.<\/p>\n After the world-famous group disbanded in 1970, Lennon went on to pursue a successful solo music career.<\/p>\n Lennon\u2019s solo projects consist of John Lennon\/Plastic Ono Band (1970), Imagine (1971), Some Time in New York City (1972, with Yoko Ono<\/strong>), Mind Games (1973), Walls and Bridges (1974), Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll (1975), and Double Fantasy (1980, with Yoko Ono).<\/p>\n Ono, 85, who was married to Lennon from 1969 until his untimely death in December 1980, also released Milk and Honey posthumously.<\/p>\n During an interview with David Sheff<\/strong> for Playboy Magazine, Lennon revealed his immediate inspiration for the song.<\/p>\n After receiving a Christian prayer book from Dick Gregory<\/strong>, he said, \u201cThe concept of positive prayer \u2026 if you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion\u2014not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing\u2014then it can be true.\u201d<\/p>\n Lennon added, \u201cThe World Church called me once and asked, \u2018Can we use the lyrics to \u2018Imagine\u2019 and just change it to \u2018Imagine one religion?\u2019 That showed [me] they didn\u2019t understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, Lennon did confirm what many listeners believed to be true, that \u201cImagine\u201d had undertones of Communism.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Imagine,\u2019 which says: \u2018Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,\u2019 is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I\u2019m not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Related: The Story Behind Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s 1971 Hit That\u2019s Storming the Charts Again<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Although it can be hard to quantify just how popular \u201cImagine\u201d is, there are certainly some stats to support it. According to several outlets, as of October 2025, the song has over 804 million streams on Spotify and 331 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n Not accounting for Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, vinyl, radio play, and beyond, \u201cImagine\u201d still boasts an estimated 1.125 billion streams.<\/p>\n Imagine was also the name of the 1971 album, which included the songs “Crippled Inside,” “Jealous Guy,” “It\u2019s So Hard,” “I Don\u2019t Want to Be a Soldier,” “Gimme Some Truth,” “Oh My Love,” “How Do You Sleep?,” “How?,” and “Oh Yoko!”<\/p>\n Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman<\/strong> on December 8, 1980, outside The Dakota apartment building in New York City.<\/p>\n Fans can now visit his Imagine memorial in Strawberry Fields, Central Park, New York City, to pay tribute.<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Oct 9, 2025, where it first appeared in the Celebs<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With a music catalog as extensive as John Lennon\u2019s, it may be a matter of opinion to some fans which of his songs is most iconic. However, based on streaming data, it\u2019s clear that his 1971 track \u201cImagine\u201d has stood the test of time. Lennon, who was born on October 9, 1940, became a member […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2079340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[344803,390673,344804],"class_list":["post-2079339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-john-lennon","tag-john-lennon-plastic-ono-band","tag-yoko-ono"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Enduring-Story-Behind-His-Most-Iconic-Song.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2079339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079341,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079339\/revisions\/2079341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2079340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2079339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2079339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2079339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Is \u2018Imagine\u2019 About?<\/h2>\n
‘Imagine’ Is John Lennon’s Most Popular Song:<\/h2>\n
How Did John Lennon Die?<\/h2>\n