Imagine Turns 40
These days with our fast paced lifestyle, albums come and go with the pace of a mouse click or a thumb tap on our iPhones. And then there are some albums that you gravitate back to again and again, and resonate with you and millions of other people around the world to gain the status of a classic album. John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ sits as an icon in this category for so many.
Listening the title track conjures up snap shots of the world around us, old and new which puts the obvious stamp of timeless on this song especially.
Released in 1971, ‘Imagine’ is considered the most popular of John Lennon’s works and was listed in 2003’s Rolling Stone magazine as the 76th greatest album in history.
The basic tracks for ‘Imagine’ were initially recorded in his home studio in Tittenhurst Park, however many of the instruments were re-recorded at the Record Plant in New York city with Phil Spector joining Lennon and Yoko Ono as co-producer on ‘Imagine’. There is also a video documentary available entitled ‘Gimme Some Truth: The Making Of John Lennon’s Imagine’ which details the evolution of some of the songs on the album.
As the title track and signature song ‘Imagine’ was written as a plea for world peace. In a book written by Geoffrey Giuliano called ‘Lennon In America’, Lennon commented that ‘Imagine’ was an “anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it’s sugar coated, it’s accepted.”
Other stand out tracks on ‘Imagine’ include ‘Crippled Inside’ with its country esk twang jig along, the slow tempo blues track of ‘It’s So Hard’, ‘Gimme Some Truth’ which rocks along with bite and purpose, ‘How’ with its points of reflection and of course ‘Oh Yoko!’ ending the album with a beautiful tribute to Lennon’s beloved.
