Cee Lo Green changes lyrics to Lennon's Imagine to include pro-religion message enraging fans

New Years Eve performer Cee Lo Green dropped a bomb on John Lennon fans Saturday night after changing lyrics to his song Imagine while on live television.

The last words of lyrics 'Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too,' by the late Lennon were changed to 'And all religion's true' by the hip-hop artist who sang in New York's Times Square.



Broadcast before 2.304 million viewers of NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly right before the ball dropped, Mr Green's change didn't go unnoticed and attracted immediate criticism.

Scroll down to watch the performance



Hits: Musician Cee Lo Green sang the John Lennon song Image on New Years Eve in New York but changed a few words setting off a firestorm by Lennon fans

Mr Green swatted off those critical responses left and right on Twitter following, in sometimes similarly obscene rebuttals, but by late Sunday morning he had removed all of the postings.

'Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all,' Mr Green was seen as explaining in a tweet.

Changed: The last words of lyrics Imagine's 'Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too,' by the late John Lennon were changed to 'And all religion's true'

'People need to respect the very man that you're trying to honor by playing his song,' New York musician Gary Heimbauer vented in a YouTube video 20 minutes after seeing the performance.



'You just changed his lyrics and completely reinvented the meaning of the song. That's just one of the most arrogant things I've ever seen, especially to do when the whole world is watching on New Year's Eve and John Lennon was just such an important person to New York City.



'That was just horrible and I hope that there is some more outrage to that and not just my own,' Mr Heimbauer said.

In agreement, a forum on Reddit mentioning the lyrics change collected 1,150 comments by Sunday afternoon, most of them in heated agreement.



Responding: Singer Cee Lo Green took to Twitter after his performance to explain not meaning to offend by his choice of words

One viewer originally came to Mr Green's defense explaining, 'You know, after watching the video of the performance, it's possible that he either f--ked up the line on the spot, or that he learned the tune incorrectly,' Reddit user Chrispdx wrote.



'I don't think this is some kind of 'powerful statement regarding God and Religion', I think he just f--ked up the lyrics because he didn't grow up with the song...' he concluded.

Several other Reddit users mentioned other artists changing Lennon's lyrics in the past too.

Moments after his post, Chrispdx's updated his response, however:



'Edit: read his tweet, he meant it, f--k that guy.'