Fans Slam Cee Lo for Changing 'Imagine' Lyrics

Not everyone is thrilled with Cee Lo Green's lyric change on New Year's Eve, MSNBC reports. When singing John Lennon's "Imagine" at New York's Times Square celebration, he changed "Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too" to "Nothing to kill or die for, and all religion's true." Green tweeted his explanation, the Huffington Post reports: "Yo I meant no disrespect. ... I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all." (The tweet has been removed from his feed.)

Comic Colin Quinn tweeted about the lyric change, saying Green "'cleaned it up a little.' I did the same thing when I changed NWA to 'N-word' WA." Other Twitter users criticized Green's version as poorly sung or cringed at the irony of his wearing jewels and a full-length fur coat while singing "imagine no possessions." Among Green's defenders: one tweeter who posted that "nothing could be sillier than defending the sanctity of a pop song—especially one as dull and schmaltzy as 'Imagine.'" (More Cee Lo Green stories.)