Here is a youtube video of "Fuck You" Cee Lo Green performing John Lennon's "Imagine" with altered lyrics. Below I have included a blog post I have written where I make my case why Mr. Green should not have performed the song at all. Excuse the quality of the video, the person just pointed their camera at their TV.
What Not To Do When Covering Someone Else's Song (my journey from anger to just plain ol' disgust)
The first major controversy of 2012 has involved a man who has been dead for a little over 31 years. Like his music or not, the late John Lennon is one of (if not THE) biggest names in the history of Rock Music. From his days with the Beatles to his days fighting for a US Green Card to his murder his music has been beloved and cherished by countless millions. One Cee Lo Green, a current day artist who is best known for his song "Fuck You", covered what is perhaps Lennon's most popular song, Imagine, during a televised New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square. The controversy isn't that he covered the song at all (Imagine is one of the most covered songs of all time) it's that he changed the line "and no religion too" to "and all religion's true".
My initial reaction when reading about this story on the Internet (I did not see it live as I would rather have my balls tasered than watch a New Year's Eve countdown show) was "who is Cee Lo Green?" You see, anyone who knows me can tell you even though I am still relatively young at the age of 34 I am not up on current music. I became a hardcore Beatles/Lennon fan in my teens when most of my contemporaries were listening to the likes of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and from there my love of the "oldies" grew. I have since come to appreciate and even like some of the music of my generation, but back in the 90's if it wasn't from the 60's or 70's I didn't even bother to listen to it.
Upon researching Mr. Green and learning that his "great musical contribution" is a rather lame song in which he warbles "Fuck You", I have to admit: I was pissed off. "What gives this fat fuck the right to completely alter one of the greatest songs ever written"? I said to myself. Amongst the comments sections on various articles on the subject I saw lots of outrage and some that felt the need to defend Cee Lo. I thought I would first address some of the most common defenses first.
The Race Card. Boo...bad...don't use it because it doesn't apply and quite frankly it is rather vile to pull the Race Card when Race has nothing to do with it. "Would there be so much outrage if Cee Lo were white?" Yes there sure as hell would. Teeny bopper and waste of molecules Justin Beiber performed a cover of Beatles hit Let It Be on the same show (which was written by Paul McCartney); if he had drastically altered the song's lyrics he would have caught just as much shit as Green did for Imagine. This is John Lennon we are talking about; a man who's music has outlived him and will outlive us all. As someone said "it's like drawing dicks on the Mona Lisa".
Another defense I have seen is "it's just a song, get over it". Imagine sure enough is a song, but it is not "just a song". It's a song that's been around since before myself and Mr. Green were even born and is probably even more popular today than it was back when it was first released in 1971. It is one of the very few post-Beatles solo efforts that most would agree can hang toe to toe with the best of the group's canon.
Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow and head of Estate, has stated that the most common request she gets from artists is to cover Imagine and alter the "And no religion too" lyric. You do not need an artist's permission to record a cover of a song of theirs, but you do need permission to change lyrics. Each and every request has been denied by Widow Lennon. Say what you will about Yoko, but I think if anyone would know what John would want it would be her.
I am not against artist's covering another artist's song, or even changing a lyric: but doing so requires surgical precision and even a bit of "musical clout". Towards the end of life Johnny Cash covered the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. He changed the line "I wear this crown of shit" to "I wear this crown of thorns". This was absolutely fine. First off, he's Johnny Fuckin' Cash. Trent Reznor should have been honored that the legendary Man In Black covered his song (and Reznor of course was). Second, changing "shit" to "thorns" does not drastically or dramatically alter the original artists message or intent. The integrity of Reznor's message is still very much intact, and coming from a legendary figure near the end of his life Cash brought a different angle or spin to the song. I love both versions of Hurt (it's a great song) but if I had to choose I would pick the Cash version. It's not a big deal if the Man In Black didn't want to sing the word "shit".
Cee Lo changing the lyric "And no religion too" to "And All religion's true" is a drastically different story. Imagine is an atheistic manifesto of a ballad in which John asked the listener to imagine no Heaven or Hell as well as no religion. He saw religion as divisive and had very much been against organized religion his entire career. Imagine is one of a handful of songs in which he tackles religion, and it's never positive when he does. Listen to the song God, in which, along with Beatles themselves, he lists a menagerie of things he did not believe in which included all of the major organized religions. In Serve Yourself, the title a parody of Bob Dylan's You Gotta Serve Somebody he mocks Dylan's conversion to Christianity and as the British would say "takes the piss out of" Dylan and piousness in general.
We of course cannot ask a man who has been dead for 31 years what he thinks of the performance, but all of the evidence sure does point to Lennon not appreciating it. Artists need to realize that when you cover a song said song is not yours. It belongs to the original artist. When you say to yourself "I love that song Imagine except for that part about no religion" you have to understand that you have to take the song "warts and all". Especially when tackling a song from a legend who still has millions of fans and will continue to gain millions of fans long after you are forgotten you should tread lightly. If you don't want to sing the line "And no religion too" because you are religious then don't sing the fucking song. Especially you, Mr. "Fuck You". In fact I would very appreciative if the lame, vacuous musicians of today would do the world a favor and leave the work of Lennon and the Beatles alone. These songs have been covered ad nauseum and the overwhelming majority of these covers have been awful.
Am I personally angry that Green altered the lyric to Imagine? Not anymore. His rendition is not even the worst cover of a Lennon tune I have heard (that dishonor would go to Melissa Etheridge's cover of Happy Xmas (War Is Over) in which she managed to change a somber, introspective song looking at all the tragedy in the world during the holidays into something more cheerful because she felt the song was "too sad"). It's even funny to see this rotund gentleman waddle and warble on about "Imagine no possessions" while decked out in a fur coat and bling. It's as if he's saying "YOU Imagine no possessions, not me though!" I am however annoyed, so I'll just roll my eyes and move on, looking forward to the day when someone asks me "remember Cee Lo Green?" and I reply "Vaguely, wasn't he the Creatard who had that Fuck You song and butchered Imagine?"
