Yoko Ono to Receive a Writing Credit for 'Imagine'

Thirty six years after John Lennon was murdered outside his manhattan apartment, his widow, Yoko Ono, is to receive a writing credit for perhaps his most famous (and covered) song of all time: "Imagine."

According toVariety, Ono and her son Sean Lennon received the Centennial Song award at the annual meeting of the National Music Publishers Association. During the ceremony, NMPA's CEO David Israelite showed a video from 1980 in which Lennon explains that Ono deserves a writing credit on the song because of her enormous influence upon it. Per his request, Ono will now be added to the track as a co-writer.

The credit is particularly significant because of the copyright law stating that a song enters the public domain 70 years after its last creator's death. Instead of becoming available for use free of charge in 2050, it will now be many more years after that before people can freely add "Imagine" to anything without proper compensation.

After Ono accepted the Centennial Song award, Patti Smith and her daughter Jessie performed an emotional cover of the song.

Proudest day of my life: The National Music Publishers Association just gave the centennial (song of the century) award to Imagine, but WAIT! Surprise! They played an audio interview of my father saying (approximately) 'Imagine should've been credited as a Lennon/Ono song, if it had been anyone other than my wife I would've given them credit.' Cut to: my mother welling up in tears, and then Patti and Jesse Smith @michiganmanhattan Imagine! Patience is a virtue! (PS they officially declared Imagine to be a Lennon/Ono song and gave my mother a second award! )

A post shared by Sean Ono Lennon (@sean_ono_lennon) on Jun 14, 2017 at 4:44pm PDT

Listen to "Imagine," below.