Today’s little escape from the coronavirus comes in the form John Mayer spoofing the video of celebrities singing “Imagine” that went viral last week.
You know the video I’m talking about. Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Kristen Wiig, and several other A-listers recorded themselves singing “Imagine” by John Lennon and spliced it into a super-cut. The intention was to lift people’s spirits during this hard time—and while they meant well, the stunt didn’t land properly. Social media backlash was swift, and everyone from Charli XCX to Trevor Noah took a shot at spoofing it.
But the award for best spoof, hands down, goes to John Mayer, who joked in a new Instagram video that he was approached about doing the video but thought the celebs wanted him to sing “Imagine” by Ariana Grande, not John Lennon. He then recorded himself belting some particularly funny lyrics on Grande’s song and intermixed it with the original “Imagine” super-cut. The result? Pure hilarity.
“Gal Gadot and a bevy of other celebrities released a rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ that went far and wide across the internet,” he said in his video. “She asked me to be a part of this and I totally misunderstood the assignment and thought they wanted me to sing ‘Imagine’ by Ariana Grande from her 2019 smash hit album Sweetener.” (Mayer mixed up his Grande facts right there. Sweetener actually came out in 2018, and the song “Imagine” is off her 2019 album Thank U, Next, but I’ll let it slide.)
Check his spoof for yourself, below.
Mayer has been serving up some excellent quarantine content lately. He has a weekly live show on IG called Current Mood that’s a must-watch. Other celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Katharine McPhee are also blessing us with periodic feel-good content. Keep it coming, pals. We need it.
