Imagine (John Lennon album)

While in New York, former Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison had a short jam session,[3] during which Lennon asked Harrison to perform on Lennon's next album. Recording was scheduled to begin in a week's time at Lennon's Ascot Sound Studios, at his Tittenhurst Park residence.[3] Harrison agreed, and called his friend the bassist Klaus Voormann, to ask him to join in.[3]

The first songs recorded for Imagine were "It's So Hard" and "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" in February 1971 at Ascot Sound Studios, during sessions for Lennon's single "Power to the People".[4][5] A cover of the Olympics' 1958 song "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)", later released on John Lennon Anthology, was recorded on 16 February.[6] Lennon would choose to remake "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" on 24 May 1971,[6] the opening day of the main album sessions.

Lennon enlisted help from Nicky Hopkins, members of the Apple band Badfinger, Alan White and Jim Keltner. George Harrison would also drop by to contribute lead guitar parts on various songs.[7] Recording for the album started on 24 May at Ascot Sound Studios.[6] Lennon showed the musicians a song that he had recently written, the album's title track "Imagine".[3] Besides recording the tracks that would end up on the album, also recorded during the sessions was the unreleased song "San Francisco Bay Blues", a demo for a track that would later turn up in complete form on Lennon's Mind Games album, as "Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)", and a demo of "I'm the Greatest".[3]

Lennon and Ono flew to New York on 3 July to continue sessions for the album the next day, at Record Plant.[3] Although the basic tracks for Imagine were initially recorded at Ascot Sound Studios, many of the instruments were re-recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, where strings and saxophone by King Curtis were also added.[3] The tracks that were finished at Record Plant are: "It's So Hard", "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" and "How Do You Sleep?"[3] As on his last album, Phil Spector joined Lennon and Yoko Ono as co-producer on Imagine. Extensive footage of the sessions, showing the evolution of some of the songs, was originally filmed and titled Working Class Hero before being shelved.[3] Footage of "Gimme Some Truth" aired as part of the BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test on 12 December 1972.[3] Bits of footage were subsequently released as part of the documentary film Imagine: John Lennon.[3]

1971 Billboard ad for the album.

Imagine was written and recorded during a period of particularly bad feeling between Lennon and former bandmate Paul McCartney,[8] following the Beatles' break-up the year before and McCartney winning his case in the High Court to have their legal partnership dissolved.[3] Harrison guested on half of Imagine's ten tracks, including "How Do You Sleep?" – a song written in retaliation against McCartney's alleged personal attacks on Lennon and Ono, on his recent Ram album.[9][10] Lennon said in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul ... to create a song ... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta ... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and The Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep?'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time ..."[11]

The track "Imagine" became Lennon's signature song and was written as a plea for world peace. Years later he acknowledged Ono's role in the song's creation and stated his regret that he had not credited her as a co-writer. "Jealous Guy" has also had enduring popularity; it was originally composed as "Child of Nature" during the songwriting sessions in India in 1968 that led to The Beatles' double album The Beatles.[12] "Oh My Love" and the song "How?" were influenced by his experience with primal therapy.[13]

Lennon also indulged his love of rock and roll with "Crippled Inside" and "It's So Hard". "Gimme Some Truth", originally heard during the Let It Be sessions in early 1969, appears on the album with a new bridge. The politically themed "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" closes the first half of Imagine in a cacophonous manner. The last song on the album was "Oh Yoko!"; EMI pushed for this track to be the single, but Lennon thought it was too "pop".[14]

The photographs on the front and back covers were taken by Yoko Ono, using a Polaroid camera.[15] It was previously believed that the front cover photo was taken by Andy Warhol.[16] The back cover includes a quote ("Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put them in.") from Ono's book Grapefruit, whose UK re-release the Lennons were promoting at the time.[17]

Apple Records issued Imagine on 9 September 1971 in the United States and a month later, on 8 October, in the UK. Early editions of the LP included a postcard featuring a photo of Lennon holding a pig, in mockery of McCartney's similar pose with a sheep on the cover of Ram.[18][19] Even though John along with producer Phil Spector championed "Back To Mono" the album was released in the new 4-channel quadraphonic format.[20] In the US, this 4-channel mix was only available on a Quad 8-track tape with some versions using the phrase Quadrasonic. In the UK and Australia the Quad mix was issued on vinyl using Sony's SQ matrix system along with an Q8-track version in the UK. In Japan the Quad mix was also issued on vinyl but using Sansui's QS matrix system also known as RM (regular matrix) plus they released a discrete 4-channel reel to reel tape of the album. "Imagine", backed with "It's So Hard", was released as a single, in the US on 11 October 1971.[3] The album went to number 1 worldwide and became an enduring seller, with the title track reaching number 3 in the United States. "Imagine" was not issued as a single in Britain until four years later, to coincide with the release of Lennon's Shaved Fish singles collection.[21]

Reception

Retrospective professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[22]
Christgau's Record Guide	A[23]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[24]
The Great Rock Discography	9/10[24]
Mojo	[25]
MusicHound Rock	4/5[26]
Paste	[27]
Q	[28]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[29]
Uncut	[30]

Reviewing the album in 1971, Rolling Stone magazine's Ben Gerson said it "contains a substantial portion of good music" but considered Lennon's previous album to be superior. He also warned of the possibility that Lennon's "posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant".[31]

Imagine was voted the fifth best record of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide.[32] Robert Christgau, the poll's supervisor, also ranked it fifth on his year-end list,[33] and later appraised it as "primal goes pop—personal and useful", in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).[23] In 2012, Imagine was voted 80th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[2]

All songs written by John Lennon; "Imagine" and "Oh My Love" co-written with Yoko Ono.

Side one

1. "Imagine" – 3:01
2. "Crippled Inside" – 3:47
3. "Jealous Guy" – 4:14
4. "It's So Hard" – 2:25
5. "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" – 6:05[nb 3]

Side two

1. "Gimme Some Truth" – 3:16
2. "Oh My Love" – 2:50
3. "How Do You Sleep?" – 5:36
4. "How?" – 3:43
5. "Oh Yoko!" – 4:20

Personnel per John Blaney.[46] Track numbering refers to CD and digital releases of the album.

• John Lennon – vocals (all), piano (1, 7 & 9), electric guitar (2, 4–6, 8 & 10), acoustic guitar (3), whistling (3), harmonica (10)
• George Harrison – dobro (2), slide guitar (5, 6 & 8), electric guitar (7)
• Nicky Hopkins – tack piano (2), piano (3, 5, 6, 9 & 10), electric piano (7 & 8)
• Klaus Voormann – bass guitar (all but 2), double bass (2)
• Alan White – drums (1 & 6–10), vibraphone (3 & 5), Tibetan cymbals (7)
• Jim Keltner – drums (2, 3 & 5)
• Jim Gordon – drums (4)
• King Curtis – saxophone (4 & 5)
• John Barham – harmonium (3), vibraphone (9)
• Joey Molland, Tom Evans – acoustic guitar (3 & 5) (credited as "Joey and Tommy Badfinger")
• John Tout – piano (2 & 8) (incorrectly credited as playing "acoustic guitar")[47]
• Ted Turner – acoustic guitar (2 & 8)
• Rod Linton – acoustic guitar (2, 6, 8 & 10)
• Andy Davis – acoustic guitar (6 & 8–10)
• Mike Pinder – tambourine (3 & 5)
• Steve Brendell – double bass (2), maracas (5)
• Phil Spector – harmony vocal (10)
• The Flux Fiddlers (members of the New York Philharmonic) – orchestral strings (1, 3–5, 8 & 9)

Footnotes

Citations