Elton John covered ‘beautiful song’ by John Lennon just weeks before Beatles member was killed

Just weeks before the death of John Lennon, fellow music legend Elton John performed one of the songwriter’s biggest hits.

Performing to a huge crowd of around 350,000 people just a few streets away from Lennon’s home, the Madman Across the Water hitmaker paid tribute to Lennon. The Central Park show performed by John featured many of his biggest hits up to that point, with the Rocketman performer leaving room for a beautiful tribute to Lennon, who would be killed just a short while after the performance. John performed twenty-two songs at the show, including covers of Little Richard and Nigel Olssen. He also featured a spread of songs from Blue Moves, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, and his self-titled debut.

Towards the end of the set, John paid tribute to Lennon, saying he had not seen The Beatles’ songwriter in some time. He said: “We’re going to do a song written by a friend of mine who I haven’t seen for a long time. It’s a very beautiful song. You all know it. He only lives just over the road. He hasn’t done a record in ages, but he’s doing one at the moment.”

Though John noted Lennon had not made a record in some time, the songwriter had been working on Double Fantasy, which would prove to be the last record Lennon released. John’s performance on September 13, 1980, took place just months before Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980. A full setlist of John’s Central Park show can be found below.

• Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
• Tiny Dancer
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• All the Girls Love Alice
• Rocket Man
• Sartorial Eloquence
• Philadelphia Freedom
• Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
• Saturday Night (Nigel Olsson cover)
• All I Want is You (Nigel Olsson cover)
• Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
• Harmony
• White Lady White Powder
• Little Jeannie
• Bennie and the Jets
• Imagine (John Lennon cover)
• Ego
• Have Mercy on the Criminal
• Someone Saved My Life Tonight
• Your Song
• Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance!)
• Good Golly, Miss Molly (Little Richard cover)

The cover of Imagine was praised by those who have since watched the performance. One fan on YouTube wrote: “My wife and I were there for this concert! Lovely day.” Another added: “Elton John’s piano playing is so unique, he kept it simple but played it brilliantly, and completely made it his own. I feel that Elton John’s influence on piano accompaniment in pop music is huge; we tend to forget how important his style is for piano players.”

John and Lennon had worked together in the studio on Lennon’s underrated masterpiece, Walls and Bridges. Though Elton John has performed Whatever Gets You Through the Night live just once, it stands out as one of the best songs either man worked on. John has performed the song just once, at Madison Square Garden with Lennon during his “lost weekend” period.

The song Empty Garden is too tough a track for John to play live, with the songwriter suggesting a performance in Las Vegas left him feeling too emotional. He told Julian Lennon: “I played it when I was in Vegas [on] the million-dollar piano and there was a video with your mum and your dad walking through Central Park.

“It’s very hard for me to sing it. I get quite emotional singing that song, and it moves me so much because it reminds me of how… God, if your dad was alive today, can you imagine what he’d be doing?” You can listen to John perform Imagine in Central Park below