Did John Lennon give American Atheists rights to 'Imagine?'

July 2, 9:58 PMAtheism ExaminerTrina Hoaks

Previous Next

14 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Atheism Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Back in the early days of atheism, as we know it in America, Madalyn Murray O'Hair had become quite famous. Not only did she go to court to fight for separation of church and state and found American Atheists (AA), she did the talk show circuit.

Through her travels, she met many famous people - those we would consider "celebrities." Madalyn, of course, was a celebrity in her own right. As the story goes, Madalyn met John Lennon, who, like Madalyn, was suspected to be an atheist. (At the very least, he seemed to be anti organized religion.)

Some time after cable access TV came around, Madalyn decided to use it as a vehicle to spread her message. She created a show called American Atheist News Forum that was recorded in Austin, Texas at the American Atheist Center and was carried on over 140 cable networks.

According to current member and former acting President of American Atheists, Frank Zindler, for the first two years that the cable show aired, its intro (or theme) song was John Lennon's Imagine. Madalyn used Imagine not only because it was (and is) a great song, but because, according to her, she had the rights to the song.

 

According to Frank, not only did Madalyn say that John Lennon had given her permission to use the song, but, she said that John had given her (American Atheists) the rights to the song. They were free to use it as they wished to help promote American Atheists and to raise money.

I spoke with Frank on the phone today to try to unravel the "facts" concerning this assertion. Frank goes way back with the American Atheists. And, to hear him tell it, he and his wife were quite close to Madalyn.

He once referred to her as like "like a second mother to me and to my wife...." In the same text, Frank explained his history with American Atheists - "...I have been a member since 1977 and was elected to her board of directors in the early 1980s. ...I was the author of several Atheist books, over fifty articles in American Atheist, and I had taken part in over 400 commercial radio and television talk-shows and debates against priests, creationists, theologians, religious apologists, enemies of the ‘Wall of Separation between State and Church,’ and Right-to-Single-Cell-Lifers. ...for thirteen years after her death I had served faithfully as managing editor of her beloved American Atheist Press, publishing newsletters, magazines, books, and Atheist ephemera."

With all of this in mind, I feel certain that if anyone were privy to the inner goings-ons of AA, it would be Frank. So, we talked.

I asked Frank if Madalyn had any documentation to support the contention that John had, in fact, given her the rights to the song. After all, Madalyn was a lawyer and she must have understood the importance of having documentation to protect herself, and American Atheists, from charges of copyright infringement.

Frank said that it certainly would have made sense, her being a lawyer, to have had some documentation, but that if it exists, he does not know where it is. Frank explained that there was a time when all the documents of AA were boxed up and eventually transported from Austin to New Jersey. He said that to this day, there are hundreds of boxes that have not been gone through in years and no one knows what lies inside of them. Though they are working diligently to make their way through the sea of documentation to organize and catalog it all, it is a very slow process.

So, why did AA stop using Imagine? According to Frank, some time after Michael Jackson bought the Lennon/McCartney catalog in 1985, AA was contacted and told to "cease and desist" using the song. They were told that Michael owned the rights to the song. I asked Frank how they were contacted and he said he wasn't sure. He said that Madalyn announced one day that they could no longer use the song because Michael Jackson had bought it. They wondered how Michael Jackson could have gotten the song, but that was the last he heard of it. Again, he said there may be some documentation of the demand, but he couldn't say for sure one way or another.

I told him that I was under the impression that Imagine was not part of that deal as John had started his solo career by then and that I thought Yoko Ono or John's kids claimed ownership of the song. He said that may have been the case, but that perhaps Madalyn did not have the time to look into it when it came up so she just stopped using it.

It could have been that she had no documentation to back up her claim or that she was just too busy to deal with it at the time. He said he doesn't recall what was going on at the time in AA, but that Madalyn may have just set the issue aside because she was too busy going to court or working on some other project. He said that he doesn't recall Madalyn ever going to court over the song. Either way, she didn't say much else about it.

Now, I realize that all of this is hearsay. I must say, though, that I have no reason to doubt Frank's account of these things. With any luck, perhaps the truth of the matter will eventually surface. Until then, this is all just speculation. But, maybe, just maybe, someone will read this who knows more about it and will help get to the truth of the matter.

Imagine what could happen if it were discovered that it's all true...