Pure Imagination is a 1971 show tune written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley for the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It appears on the album Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Music from the Original Soundtrack of the Paramount Picture) and is sung in the movie by Gene Wilder, who plays Willy Wonka. The writers reportedly created the song over the phone in one day and it includes a spoken introduction. At release the track was not a hit, and the film itself was not a blockbuster, but it gained popularity after television reruns in the 1980s and has since been covered and remixed by many artists. The song has appeared in later works, including the 2023 Wonka film where Timothée Chalamet performs it in promotional material and in the film itself. Notable covers include Lou Rawls (1976), the Glee cast (2011), Fiona Apple in a Chipotle short (2013), Barbra Streisand with Seth MacFarlane (2016), and an instrumental version in Thor: Ragnarok (2017). After Gene Wilder’s death in 2016, streams and sales surged by more than 1000% as fans paid tribute.
