 The morning after the November 2015 Paris attacks , German pianist Davide Martello brought a grand piano to the street out in front of the Bataclan , where 89 concertgoers had been shot dead the night before , and performed an instrumental version to honour the victims of the attacks ; video of his performance went viral . This led Katy Waldman of Slate to ponder why " Imagine " had become so frequently performed as a response to tragedy . In addition to its general popularity , she noted its musical simplicity , its key of C major , " the plainest and least complicated key , with no sharps or flats " aside from one passage with " a plaintive major seventh chord that allows a tiny bit of E minor into the tonic " . That piano part , " gentle as a rocking chair " , underpins lyrics that , Waldman says , " belongs to the tradition of hymns or spirituals that visualize a glorious afterlife without prophesizing any immediate end to suffering on earth " . This understanding is also compounded by the historical context of Lennon 's own violent death , " remind [ ing ] us that the universe can run ramshod over idealistic people " . Ultimately , the song " captures the fragility of our hope after a violent or destructive event ... [ bu ] t also reveals its tenacity " . 
