John Lennon Released 'Imagine' The Same Year NPR Debuted Original Programming

We're celebrating NPR's 50th anniversary by revisiting cultural milestones from the year we began broadcasting.

"My mother and father believed very much in the power of conceptual thinking," Sean Ono Lennon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's son, explains of the inspiration for his parents' song. "We're listening to someone who isn't naive, and isn't saying these things from a kind of arrogance, or ignorance."

On this day, 50 years ago, John Lennon's album Imagine — along with its utopian title track — was released. Let's listen back.

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