John Lennon: ‘Imagine’ (1971)
“It’s only a bloody song” John Lennon would snarl when his most famous composition was recited to him. Except, it wasn’t, was it? ‘Imagine’ was much more than just a song, its message delicately brought the simplest of piano playing and chord changes. Yet, it would become Lennon’s most beloved song (both within and without The Beatles), an anthem for freedom fighters and peacekeepers everywhere.
As peaceful and hopeful as its title track was, ‘Imagine’ continued the anger ‘Plastic Ono’ so brilliantly set off. A slighter album than ‘Ono’ (‘Imagine’ bore the negligible ‘Oh Yoko’ and the childish ‘How Do You Sleep?’ among its weaker tracks), ‘Imagine’ still brought enough sparkle, truth, and songwriting craft to merit the last worthy tome in Lennon’s back catalog (his follow-up, the appalling ‘Some Time In New York City’ (1972) proved an unthinkable bomb, and Lennon lost his penchant on subsequent records) and the most popular album of his career.
And well it should be, the melody of ‘Jealous Guy’ one of his most inspired, and the power of ‘Gimme Some Truth’ one of the most impassioned lyrics of the seventies. The first of these was embellished with Nicky Hopkins’s earnest playing and Phil Spector’s beautiful string arrangement, the second brought to life by George Harrison’s searing slide work. One beautiful, the other political, both the favorites of artists as eclectic as Bryan Ferry, Jakob Dylan, Billy Idol, and Aslan, Lennon’s influence ringing in the succeeding musical generations.
‘Oh My Love’, a beautifully transcendental song, it brought Yoko Ono’s artistic influence to the world (she receives a co-writing credit here). ‘It’s So Hard’ (saxophone in place), featured Lennon’s bluesiest vocal since ‘Yer Blues’, an expression of contempt and passion.’I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier is a middle finger salute to societal expectations far more successful than ‘Working Class Hero’ or ‘Power To The People’ had been. ‘Crippled Inside’, a busker’s dream, and a clever attack on former Beatle Paul McCartney, again brought Lennon’s angry brilliance forward.
His second attack on his Liverpudlian pal, the far more explicit ‘How Do You Sleep?’ proved the pettiest moment of Lennon’s catalog. While its presence doesn’t ruin the overall album, it would be remiss to mention how petty and undignified its lyrical content over the man he wrote many of his greatest songs with. “The only thing you did was Yesterday” alone proved Lennon’s laughable (to McCartney’s credit, he dismissed the accusation as silliness and nothing more). Lennon subsequently passed the song off as an attack on himself, but the song hasn’t aged well for Lennon’s character.
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Following this falter, the album picks speed with ‘How?’, perhaps the album’s strongest after its untouchable title track. Sincere and frightened, the one-time leather-wearing Hamburg rocker now admitted “And the world is so tough/Sometimes I feel I’ve had enough”, sighing with a negative that sounds strangely positive, perhaps its acknowledgment of the woman whose arms he now slept in ( “oh no” says syllabic a la “ono”).
And it’s at that moment that it’s hard not to feel for Lennon, though brilliant, wealthy, and successful, his flaws and fears are there on the record, wary, scary, and most of all, human. Imagine a world without ‘Imagine’ (1971)? I can’t!
