In honour of her late husband and a universal music legend, Yoko Ono has unveiled a stripped down cover of John Lennon's 'Imagine' ahead of the release of her new covers album 'Warzone', and to celebrate what would have been the singer's 78th birthday this week.

Yoko Ono at the NYC Women's MarchYoko Ono at the NYC Women's March

The 85-year-old artist remembered the late Beatles star on his birthday yesterday (October 9th) 38 years after he was killed in New York, and acknowledged the special day with a new version of an iconic song which they co-wrote together and first released back in 1971.

Co-produced by Thomas Bartlett, the song has been stripped to a simple, dreamy synth buzz and clunky piano melody - nothing to distract from Yoko's trembling vocals, potent accent and perpetual pain for the loss of a husband taken far too soon.

'Imagine' is John Lennon's best-selling solo song of his entire career and remains a timeless exploration of a utopic future where peace is achieved through the demise of religion, materialism and borders. It's one of the most culturally significant songs ever recorded and has seen numerous covers since its inception.

Yoko will drop her fourteenth solo studio album next week through her son Sean Lennon's record label (on which her previous three albums were also released). She previously unveiled the title track to the record, which was originally the first track on her 1995 album 'Rising'. 

Meanwhile, it was only last month that saw John and Yoko's 1972 documentary film, also called 'Imagine', re-released in select theatres with fifteen minutes of additional, previously unreleased footage.

Yoko and John first met in the mid-sixties and began a relationship by 1968, when the latter was still married to Cynthia Lennon. After his divorce, John married Yoko in Gibraltar in 1969.

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'Warzone' will be released on October 19th 2018 via Chimera.