Cee Lo Green may have wowed his fans with a live performance on NBC’s New Year’s Eve from Times Square, but John Lennon fans are saying “Forget You” to the southern hip-hop artist. It seems as if Cee Lo Green blasphemed against the spirit of Lennon by altering the late singer’s lyrics to his iconic 1970s song “Imagine.” Instead of reading the former Beatles’ gospel as is, he changed the most controversial verse from “and no religion too” to “and all religion’s true.”

Since then, Green has taken a lot of heat from Lennon fans and caused a Twitter uproar. (And that’s when you know you’ve made it) Of course, it’s important to realize that many artists alter the lyrics of songs they cover, and in most cases the original performer doesn’t take offense. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen many renditions of “American Pie” (Don McLean as interpreted Madonna) and even “Satisfaction” (The Rolling Stones as interpreted by Britney Spears). Most artist consider self-interpretation and new perspectives as an honor.

Of course, in the case of a politically charged song like “Imagine”, it’s hard to imagine Lennon shrugging off Cee Lo’s arbitrary tinkering. Imagine is a song that credits religion, nationalism and materialism as the cause of suffering. As one pro-Lennon fan tweeted, “If ‘all religion’s true’ it would be a pretty bleak place.”

Naturally, younger fans may not quite remember who John Lennon was, aside from his cameo appearances in comedy flicks of today, and of course docudramas about Mark David Chapman. However, anyone who knew of Lennon back in the day understood that he was anti-religion throughout his career, which even threatened his mainstream popularity. Would Lennon approve of such a lyric chance? We’re thinking the Walrus would be “crying.”

Perhaps it is ironic that the ex-Beatle who once remarked that his band was “bigger than Jesus” would suffer similar blasphemy a lifetime later. Cee Lo Green is hotter than the Beatles today (at least in concert) and so his core audience accepted the lyric change without a fit. However, Cee Lo wasn’t above answering his critics. He later tweeted, “Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world where u could believe what u wanted, that’s all.” Guess the “change in his pocket” wasn’t enough to please everybody.

Imagine the controversy you are missing out on by not seeing Cee Lo Green live!