The Intro
It may have been a new year, but the world was still reeling from the death of John Lennon. Though he was knocked from the top spot by the sickly There’s No One Quite Like Grandma, once the holiday season was over, the public saw sense. One of Lennon’s finest songs, and his biggest seller, the stately Imagine made for a fitting epitaph.
Before
After undergoing primal therapy, the stark, cathartic album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band saw the singer deal with the demise of The Beatles and the childhood trauma of losing his mother when he was a child. It doesn’t get much bleaker than the one-two punch of God and My Mummy’s Dead at the end of that LP, released in 1970.
Lennon started 1971 with a strong political statement. Power to the People saw him reference his non-confrontational approach in Revolution and turn it on its head, urging the public to rise up. Such grand statements didn’t help him appeal to the already paranoid US president, Richard Nixon. But it was a hit, reaching seven in the UK charts.
Work began on Lennon’s second solo album in May. After jamming with George Harrison in New York, the guitarist agreed to be on board for the sessions, and invited Klaus Voorman along too, to resume bass playing duties after his work on the previous LP.
The sessions properly started on 11 May at Lennon’s Ascot Sound Studios at his Tittenhurst Park residence (several tracks had however already been recorded back in February). Phil Spector was back on board as producer after barely being involved in his last album, despite his credit. Lennon wanted a less brittle sound than before, adding strings to the mix and hoping for greater commercial appeal. This might have been partly down to the ensuing war with his former songwriting partner. Lennon perceived Too Many People on Paul McCartney’s album Ram to be a personal attack on him, and so wrote the nasty How Do You Sleep? in response. So, this new album wasn’t exactly smothered in commercial appeal – but it was certainly warmer in general than John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, thanks in part to Torrie Zito’s strings. And of course, because of the title track.
Imagine was inspired in part by Yoko Ono’s 1964 book Grapefruit, particularly the poem Cloud Piece, which featured the words ‘Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in’ – that made it to the back of Imagine‘s sleeve. Another inspiration was – ironically, considering the line ‘And no religion, too’ a Christian prayer book, given to Lennon and Ono by the comedian Dick Gregory. Lennon also once compared Imagine to The Communist Manifesto.
Perhaps with the musical motif John’s Piano Piece (created during the sessions for Let It Be in 1969) in mind, Lennon finished creating the most of Imagine – both musically and lyrically – in early 1971 at a piano in one of his Tittenhurst bedrooms, while Ono watched on.
The recording of Imagine began late in the morning on 27 May and finished that evening at Ascot Sound Studios. Initially, Spector had tried to record Lennon on his famous white baby grand in his and Ono’s all-white room, but wasn’t happy with the acoustics. He also had session pianist extraordinaire Nicky Hopkins playing along with Lennon but in different octaves. With Voorman on bass and Alan White on drums, Imagine only took three takes in the end. Zito’s strings, performed by The Flux Fiddlers, were overdubbed on 4 July at The Record Plant in New York City.
Review
Where do you start with one of the most famous songs of all time? The reputation of Imagine is so huge, it’s like writing about an ancient hymn. So it came as some surprise to discover it wasn’t even released as a single in the UK until 1975. Why that is the case, I don’t know.
I do know that, in part due to the formidable power of Imagine through the decades, there has also been considerable criticism aimed at the song. Mainly due to the idea that we should imagine no possessions when the man suggesting we do that is a very, very rich man. I don’t think that’s fair, however. Lennon isn’t being hypocritical. As Ringo Starr suggested in a 1981 Barbara Walters interview, Lennon isn’t telling us to give up our possessions. He’s simply asking us to imagine it. Yes, that might make for a convenient get-out clause for the ‘working class hero’, and I can understand the critics who complain that Imagine is trite. And yet, despite being more of a cynic than a dreamer, I buy into it. Imagine is aimed at all the dreamers, the people longing for a better world. The idea that the world Lennon asks us to imagine could be real was out of reach in 1971. In 2024, it’s even harder to picture. But, if you’re still a child at heart or there’s even an element of hippy longing inside you, the chances are you love Imagine.
Musically, Imagine is just as simple as the idealistic world Lennon conjures up – and again, that’s part of its mass appeal. And as prone to overproduction (not as important as him also being a total psychopath, of course) as he was, his work on Imagine is perfect. The piano reverb is warm and enveloping, wrapping you up in the cotton wool of a world with no hell, nothing to kill or die for – a world of peace. The strings are uncharacteristically subtle for a Spector production, and so much better for it.
So, although overfamiliarity breeds contempt and the simplistic world view (ironic considering what a cynic Lennon was) of Imagine understandably rubs some up the wrong way, I could and probably have heard Lennon’s signature solo song a million times, and will hear a million more. But I’ll never tire of it. And if, for all his flaws, Lennon is known for Imagine, well, it does him no harm.
After
Imagine was released as a single in the US in October 1971, where it reached number three. It topped the Canadian charts, and in time became his bestselling solo record. The accompanying album, also released that October in the UK, was also the most commercially and critically successful post-Beatles LP.
The following year, Lennon and Ono released a film of the same name. Its opening scene is now recognised as the official music video for the song, with the couple walking through fog as the piano begins. They enter an all-white room, where Lennon plays his white piano, and as the song progresses, Ono lets light into the room – to the consternation of critics who find it sadly ironic that Lennon is singing of no possessions just as Ono shows how wealthy they were. Four years after the creation of Imagine, the single, housed in a photo by then-girlfriend May Pang in 1974, was finally released in the UK to promote his compilation Shaved Fish. Possibly due to most fans already owning the Imagine album, it only made it to number six.
Following Lennon’s murder in 1980, it was the 1975 single that climbed the charts in January 1981 and became his second posthumous number 1, after (Just Like) Starting Over. The single was re-released in 1988 to accompany the documentary film John Lennon: Imagine, but missed out on the top 40. In 1999 Imagine reached number three.
The Outro
One of the most famous pop songs of all time, Imagine has been covered countless times. Probably the worst version is the widely ridiculed 2020 celebrity version, headed up by actress Gail Gadot during the initial COVID-19 lockdown. It is pure torture.
The Info
Written by
John Lennon
Producers
John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Phil Spector
Weeks at number 1
4 (10 January-6 February)
Trivia
Births
11 January: Singer Jamelia/Kasabian singer Tom Meighan
19 January: Actress Thalia Zucchi
22 January: Footballer Richard Butcher/Rally driver Guy Wilks
25 January: Rower Alex Partridge
29 January: Actress Rachna Khatau
30 January: Footballer Peter Crouch
31 January: Reality TV star Gemma Collins
1 February: Racing driver Rob Austin
Deaths
11 January: Labour MP Malcolm MacDonald
12 January: Actress Isobel Elsom/Labour MP Joseph Sparks
15 January: Racing driver Graham Whitehead
16 January: Actor Bernard Lee
18 January: Engineer David Stirling Anderson
19 January: Boxer Eric Boon/Geologist William John McCallien
20 January: Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Derick Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Viscount Amory
21 January: Racing driver Cuth Harrison/Welsh poet BT Hopkins/Ulster Unionist Party MP James Stronge (see ‘Meanwhile…’)/Ulster Unionist Party MP Sir Norman Stronge, 8th Baronet (see ‘Meanwhile…’)/Jockey Tommy Weston
22 January: Artist Gladys Vasey
23 January: Economist Sir Andrew Shonfield
27 January: Screenwriter Roger Burford/Landscape architect Brenda Colvin/Lawyer Cecil Davidge
29 January: Aviator John Cecil Kelly-Rogers
2 February: Cricketer Jack Parsons
4 February: Tennis player Joan Ingram/Neurologist Douglas McAlpine
6 February: Cricketer Gilbert Ashton
Meanwhile…
13 January: The prison officers’ overtime ban comes to an end.
14 January: The British Nationality Bill is published.
16 January: Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former MP Bernadette McAliskey is shot at home in County Tyrone.
Also on this day, 78% of British Steel Corporation workers vote in favour of their chairman’s ‘survival’ plan.
18 January: 10 people were killed in the New Cross house fire. Three more died in hospital.
21 January: Sir Norman Stronge and his son James, both former Stormont MPs, are killed by the IRA.
22 January: Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch agrees to buy The Times newspaper if an agreement can be reached with the unions.
25 January: Four right-wing Labour MPs: Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and David Owen – dubbed the ‘Gang of Four’ announce The Limehouse Declaration, in which they reveal plans to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
26 January: Nine more Labour MPs declare support for the SDP.
Also on this day, Secretary of State for Industry Sir Keith Joseph announces more financial support for British Leyland.
27 January: Tony Benn replaces Bill Rodgers in the Labour Shadow Cabinet.
28 January: Sir Hugh Fraser is removed as the Chairman of the House of Fraser.
Also on this day, damage is caused in cells at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland.
2 February: The Brixton prison escape is released, resulting in the Governor being transferred to an administrative post.
4 February: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announces the Government is to sell half its shares in British Aerospace.
6 February: The coal ship Nellie M is bombed and sunk by an IRA unit driving a hijacked pilot boat in Lough Foyle.
Also on this day, the Government drops two controversial clauses of the Nationality Bill.