Album: Imagine
Artist: John Lennon
Born: Liverpool
Released: September 1971
Genre: Soft Rock
Influenced: Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Pearl Jam, Elliott Smith
I'm a big fan of the Beatles, but those that tend to hugely overstate their influence, or get into petty squabbles about who is the best Beatle or even Yoko-baiting for breaking up the group, make life very tiresome. Put simply, the beauty of the Beatles was the Lennon-McCartney dynamic, two childhood friends with hugely different characters who forged the ultimate songwriting partnership. Of course, as a teenager and still now, I tend to gravitate towards Lennon as the more intellectual, pessimistic, funny and politically engaged of the two, but that doesn't mean I lose any respect for McCartney's talents in the process. There's something raw about all the solo Beatles records in the early 70s, Harrison's All Thing Must Pass being the most accomplished of the debuts (if a little overly long and inconsistent), while McCartney was full of homespun simplicity (a fact I appreciate more given the polished FM radio pop of his later output) and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was the most edgy with its primal therapy-induced anger and confessions. Lennon's follow-up, Imagine, is comfortably the best of the best Beatles solo records, channelling some of that primal energy into great songwriting and compositions that are given shape by a brilliant assembly of musicians (including Harrison).
Recorded at a huge Georgian pile in Ascot, the album brought together some of the best session musicians of the era, including Nicky Hopkins, who appears on two other great albums from 1971 that appear on this list (Who's Next and Nilsson Schmilsson). His piano playing, along with the strings of the Flux Fiddlers, give the album its distinctive sound. The other essential component is Lennon's songwriting, best exemplified on the title track, which in its simplicity and child-like vision is one of the most compelling anti-war songs ever recorded. Ruth & I were lucky enough to make it to the John Lennon Museum, while we were in Japan in 2005, and being in that pure white room with lyrics from his songs written on one wall was a wonderful legacy to his vision.
Imagine also sees Lennon exploring some new musical styles, with Crippled Inside his attempt at country rock, though as always you get the sense that it's slightly tongue in cheek. It's So Hard is a basic blues song, full of primitive sexual double-entendres, but a good B-side to Imagine in that it explores the difficulties of achieving that vision of utopia. I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama is more a jam session than a fully-shaped song, but the real highlight of side 1 is Jealous Guy, one of the best singles cut by any of the solo Beatles. There's a vulnerability, rawness and confessional quality to Lennon's songs that few can match.
Side 2, unsurprisingly, fails to match the heights of the first. Gimme Some Truth is a more overtly anti-war song than Imagine and is not sugar-coated either. This song, with its reference to Tricky Dicky (Richard Nixon), nearly got Lennon deported from the US in the early 70s. Oh My Love sounds like Julia from the White Album (with Harrison on guitar, Hopkins on piano) and is one of his more underrated gems. How Do You Sleep? has a great slide guitar line played by George Harrison, but is mainly of interest for its historical context, plumbing the depths of Lennon's antagonism towards McCartney following the break-up of The Beatles. Though Lennon would later make unconvincing efforts to soften the impact of his words, the bitterness is plain to hear (though as McCartney says in the clip below, their relationship mellowed before Lennon's untimely death). How? again typifies the dominant sound of the record, a mix of piano and strings, but the lyrics are much more raw and stem from Lennon's primal therapy. Finishing things off is Oh Yoko!, a little sickly sweet but quite jaunty at times, and used to brilliant effect in Wes Anderson's Rushmore. So that's that, this lengthy blog brings the chapter on The Beatles to a close, leaving with you the words of Paul on his friend John.
I'm a big fan of the Beatles, but those that tend to hugely overstate their influence, or get into petty squabbles about who is the best Beatle or even Yoko-baiting for breaking up the group, make life very tiresome. Put simply, the beauty of the Beatles was the Lennon-McCartney dynamic, two childhood friends with hugely different characters who forged the ultimate songwriting partnership. Of course, as a teenager and still now, I tend to gravitate towards Lennon as the more intellectual, pessimistic, funny and politically engaged of the two, but that doesn't mean I lose any respect for McCartney's talents in the process. There's something raw about all the solo Beatles records in the early 70s, Harrison's All Thing Must Pass being the most accomplished of the debuts (if a little overly long and inconsistent), while McCartney was full of homespun simplicity (a fact I appreciate more given the polished FM radio pop of his later output) and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was the most edgy with its primal therapy-induced anger and confessions. Lennon's follow-up, Imagine, is comfortably the best of the best Beatles solo records, channelling some of that primal energy into great songwriting and compositions that are given shape by a brilliant assembly of musicians (including Harrison).
Recorded at a huge Georgian pile in Ascot, the album brought together some of the best session musicians of the era, including Nicky Hopkins, who appears on two other great albums from 1971 that appear on this list (Who's Next and Nilsson Schmilsson). His piano playing, along with the strings of the Flux Fiddlers, give the album its distinctive sound. The other essential component is Lennon's songwriting, best exemplified on the title track, which in its simplicity and child-like vision is one of the most compelling anti-war songs ever recorded. Ruth & I were lucky enough to make it to the John Lennon Museum, while we were in Japan in 2005, and being in that pure white room with lyrics from his songs written on one wall was a wonderful legacy to his vision.
Imagine also sees Lennon exploring some new musical styles, with Crippled Inside his attempt at country rock, though as always you get the sense that it's slightly tongue in cheek. It's So Hard is a basic blues song, full of primitive sexual double-entendres, but a good B-side to Imagine in that it explores the difficulties of achieving that vision of utopia. I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama is more a jam session than a fully-shaped song, but the real highlight of side 1 is Jealous Guy, one of the best singles cut by any of the solo Beatles. There's a vulnerability, rawness and confessional quality to Lennon's songs that few can match.
Side 2, unsurprisingly, fails to match the heights of the first. Gimme Some Truth is a more overtly anti-war song than Imagine and is not sugar-coated either. This song, with its reference to Tricky Dicky (Richard Nixon), nearly got Lennon deported from the US in the early 70s. Oh My Love sounds like Julia from the White Album (with Harrison on guitar, Hopkins on piano) and is one of his more underrated gems. How Do You Sleep? has a great slide guitar line played by George Harrison, but is mainly of interest for its historical context, plumbing the depths of Lennon's antagonism towards McCartney following the break-up of The Beatles. Though Lennon would later make unconvincing efforts to soften the impact of his words, the bitterness is plain to hear (though as McCartney says in the clip below, their relationship mellowed before Lennon's untimely death). How? again typifies the dominant sound of the record, a mix of piano and strings, but the lyrics are much more raw and stem from Lennon's primal therapy. Finishing things off is Oh Yoko!, a little sickly sweet but quite jaunty at times, and used to brilliant effect in Wes Anderson's Rushmore. So that's that, this lengthy blog brings the chapter on The Beatles to a close, leaving with you the words of Paul on his friend John.
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