When Elton John Rewrote ‘Imagine’ To Taunt John Lennon

Elton John holds a special place in the hearts of all classic rock fans. His lovable and colorful personality just makes it so hard to not like him. But, that doesn’t mean he’s deprived of any wits. Absolutely not, and if John Lennon was alive, he would have testified to that. This is because Elton John once poked fun at John Lennon, by rewriting his famous song Imagine!

Elton mentioned it in his autobiography

In Elton John’s recent autobiography ‘Me’, he revealed a lot of things about his interesting past. Now, Elton has avid shopping habits. That’s no secret. However, that still doesn’t stop him from making fun of others who do. One of them was one of the four Beatles, John Lennon!

In his autobiography, Elton wrote:

Out shopping one day I realized I might have exhausted the possibilities of retail therapy when I found myself buying a cuckoo clock that, instead of a cuckoo, had a large wooden pe**s that popped in and out of it every hour. I gave it to John Lennon when I went to visit him.

Elton John hadn’t even started yet, as he further wrote:

I thought it was a good present for a man who had everything. John and Yoko were as bad as me when it came to shopping. The various apartments they owned in the Dakota [in New York City] were so full of priceless artworks, antiques and clothes that I once sent them a card, rewriting the lyrics to ‘Imagine’:

‘Imagine six apartments, it isn’t hard to do, one is full of fur coats, another’s full of shoes.’

Yes, Elton John actually did that! He made fun of John Lennon by throwing a rewrite of his most iconic song to his face. And needless to say, the rewrite is very catchy. After all, not many people can write songs better than Elton John himself. However, that did not mean they had bad blood between them. Far from it, in fact.

There was no bad blood between the two

Both Elton John and John Lennon had an amazing relationship with each other. John Lennon’s last ever live performance on stage was with Elton, and it was a special one for him indeed. By then, he had been separated from Yoko Ono for almost 18 months. But, Elton John arranged for Yoko to be in the audience, and brought her backstage when it was time for Lennon to come off. the couple saw each other for the first time. Lennon had this to say about that moment:

She was backstage afterward, and there was just that moment when we saw each other and like, it’s like in the movies, you know when time stands still?

After that, Lennon and Yoko reconciled, and they owed John a lot for that. Consequently, they asked John to be the Godfather to their son, Sean. Therefore, to say that the two were just friends was a bit of an understatement.

It’s not easy to cover ‘Imagine’

Gal Gadot found this out the hard way. She recently got a lot of backlash over her star-studded cover of ‘Imagine’ for being nothing but a song sung by rich artists in their pearly mansions. One might think that this taunt by Elton John on Lennon might fit the same mold, but there’s a difference. Unlike them, Lennon had dedicated his whole life to the cause of peace. In fact, a massive part of his career was spent fighting for peace and donating to charities. This is why Elton John’s taunt was nothing more but a friendly joke between two inseparable friends.