NME: Yoko Ono reacts to ‘Imagine’ being used in Olympics opening ceremony

The classic song was covered by John Legend and Keith Urban for the Tokyo Olympics

By Will Lavin

Japanese-born artist and musician Yoko Ono and British musican and artist John Lennon (1940 - 1980), December 1968. (Photo by Susan Wood/Getty Images)

Yoko Ono has reacted to her and John Lennon‘s classic, ‘Imagine’, being used during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Kicking off today (July 23), the ceremony marked the official opening of Tokyo 2020, a year later than planned, after it was postponed due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

Held at Tokyo’s new Olympic Stadium, socially distanced and masked athletes walked out and waved to empty stands – something acknowledged by Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“Yes, it is very different from what all of us had imagined,” he said during the ceremony. “But let us cherish this moment because finally we are all here together.”

After the athlete parade, a number of drones formed a globe above the stadium, after which John Legend and Keith Urban joined Spanish performer Alejandro Sanz, Beninese singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo and the Suginami Children’s Choir for a moving virtual rendition of Lennon and Ono’s ‘Imagine’. You can see a snippet below.

Following the performance, Ono took to Twitter to react and share her thoughts on what ‘Imagine’ embodied to her and Lennon.

“IMAGINE. John and I were both artists and we were living together, so we inspired each other,” she wrote. “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.”

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