"Imagine" is a song written and performed by English musician
John Lennon. The best selling single of his solo career, its lyrical
statement is one of idealistic
collectivism.[citation
needed] It challenges the listener to imagine a
world at peace, without the divisiveness and barriers of borders,
religions and nationalities, and to consider the possibility that the
focus of humanity should be living a life unattached to material
possessions.
Lennon and
Yoko
Ono co-produced the song and
album of the same name with
Phil Spector. Recording began at Lennon's home studio at Tittenhurst
Park, England, in May 1971, with final overdubs taking place at the
Record Plant, in New York City, during July. One month after the
September release of the LP, Lennon released "Imagine" as a single in
the United States; the song peaked at number 3 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and the LP reached number one on the UK
chart in November, later becoming the most commercially successful and
critically acclaimed album of Lennon's solo career. Although not
originally released as a single in the United Kingdom, it was released
in 1975 to promote a compilation LP and it reached number six in the
chart that year. The song has since sold more than 1.6 million copies in
the UK; it reached number one following Lennon's death in December 1980.
BMI named "Imagine" one of the top 100 most-performed songs of the
20th century. The song ranked number 30 on the
Recording Industry Association of America's list of the 365
Songs of the Century bearing the most historical significance. It
earned a
Grammy Hall of Fame Award and an induction into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame's
500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. A UK survey conducted by the
Guinness World Records British Hit Singles Book named it the
second best single of all time, and
Rolling Stone ranked it number 3 in their list of "The
500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Since 2005, event organisers have
played it just before the New Year's
Times Square Ball drops in New York City. Dozens of artists have
performed or recorded versions of "Imagine", including
Madonna,
Stevie Wonder,
Joan
Baez,
Elton John, and
Diana Ross.
Emeli Sandé recorded a cover for the
BBC to use
during the end credits montage at the close of the
2012 Summer Olympics coverage in August 2012. "Imagine" subsequently
re-entered the UK Top 40, reaching number 18.
Inspiration
and lyrics
Several poems from
Yoko
Ono's 1964 book
Grapefruit inspired
Lennon to write the lyrics for "Imagine"—in
particular, one
Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original
Imagine LP titled "Cloud Piece", which reads, "Imagine the
clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in."
Lennon later said the composition "should be credited as a Lennon/Ono
song. A lot of it—the lyric and the concept—came from Yoko, but in those
days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted
her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit."
When asked about the song's meaning during a December 1980 interview
with
David Sheff for
Playboy
magazine, Lennon told Sheff that
Dick Gregory had given Ono and him a
Christian prayer book, which helped inspire in Lennon what he
described as:
The concept of positive prayer ... If you can imagine a
world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without
religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God
thing—then it can be true ... the World Church called me once
and asked, "Can we use the lyrics to 'Imagine' and just change
it to 'Imagine one religion'?" That showed [me] they
didn't understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose
of the song, the whole idea.
With the combined influence of "Cloud Piece" and the prayer book
given to him by Gregory, Lennon wrote what author John Blaney described
as "a humanistic
paean for
the people."
Blaney wrote, "Lennon contends that global harmony is within our reach,
but only if we reject the mechanisms of social control that restrict
human potential."
In the opinion of Blaney, with "Imagine", Lennon attempted to raise
people's awareness of their interaction with the institutions that
affect their lives. Its lyrics ask the listener to abandon three of
humanity's most cherished concepts: religion, nationhood, and
possessions.
However, Lennon's lyrics describe only hypothetical possibilities,
offering no practical solutions, lyrics that are at times nebulous and
contradictory, asking the listener to abandon systems while encouraging
a system similar to
communism.
Critics have indicated the hypocrisy in his encouragement of listeners
to imagine living their lives without possessions: Lennon, the
millionaire rock star living in a mansion. Others argue that Lennon
intended the song's lyrics to inspire listeners to imagine if the world
could live without possessions, not as an explicit call to give
them up.
In 1981, former Beatle
Ringo Starr defended the song's lyrics during an interview with
Barbara Walters, stating: "[Lennon] said 'imagine', that's all. Just
imagine it."
Blaney commented: "Lennon knew he had nothing concrete to offer, so
instead he offers a dream, a concept to be built upon."
Lennon stated: "'Imagine', which says: 'Imagine that there was no
more religion, no more country, no more politics,' is virtually the
Communist manifesto, even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I
do not belong to any movement."
He told NME:
"There is no real Communist state in the world; you must realize that.
The Socialism I speak about ... [is] not the way some daft Russian might
do it, or the Chinese might do it. That might suit them. Us, we should
have a nice ... British Socialism."
Blaney described Lennon as "more than a little confused", and the song's
lyrical position as
isolationist, in contradiction with the "global oneness" they would
seem to endorse. Blaney described the song as "riddled with
contradictions. Its hymn-like setting sits uncomfortably alongside its
author's plea for us to envision a world without religion."
Authors Ben Urish and Ken Bielen wrote: "the listener is, in a sense,
deceived into absorbing the song's message."
They describe Lennon's "dream world" without a heaven or hell as a call
to "make the best world we can here and now, since this is all this is
or will be."
In the opinion of Urish and Bielen, "because we are asked merely to
imagine—to play a 'what if' game, Lennon can escape the harshest
criticisms".
Ono described the lyrical statement of "Imagine" as "just what John
believed: that we are all one country, one world, one people."
Rolling Stone described its lyrics as "22 lines of graceful,
plain-spoken faith in the power of a world, united in purpose, to repair
and change itself."[nb
1]
Composition and
music
Lennon composed "Imagine" one morning in early 1971, on a
Steinway piano, in a bedroom at his
Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, England. Ono watched as he
composed the melody, chord structure and almost all the lyrics, nearly
completing the song in one brief writing session.
Urish and Bielen criticised the song's instrumental music as overly
sentimental and melodramatic, comparing it to the music of the pre-rock
era and describing the vocal melody as understated.
In Blaney's opinion, the song's melody "[is] apparently incomplete ... a
simple
motif that cries out to be developed and extended."
Lennon wrote "Imagine" in the
key of
C major.
Its 4-bar piano introduction begins with a C chord then moves to Cmaj7
before changing to F; the 12-bar verses also follow this chord
progression, with their last 4 bars moving from Am/E to Dm and Dm/C,
finishing with G, G11 then G7, before resolving back to C.
The 8-bar choruses progress from F to G to C, then Cmaj7 and E before
ending on E7, a C chord substituted for E7 in the final bar. The 4-bar
outro begins with F, then G, before resolving on C. With a duration
of 3 minutes and 3 seconds and a
time signature of 4/4, the song's tempo falls around 75
beats per minute.[10]
The first two bars of the piano introduction
|
Four bars of the main vocal melody from the verse
|
|
Recording and commercial reception
A 1971
Billboard advertisement for "Imagine"
Lennon and Ono co-produced the song and album with
Phil Spector, who commented on the track: "We knew what we were
going to do ... It was going to be John making a political statement,
but a very commercial one as well ... I always thought that 'Imagine'
was like the national anthem."[11]
Lennon described his working arrangement with Ono and Spector: "Phil
doesn't arrange or anything like that—[Ono] and Phil will just sit in
the other room and shout comments like, 'Why don't you try this sound'
or 'You're not playing the piano too well' ... I'll get the initial idea
and ... we'll just find a sound from [there]."
Recording began at
Ascot Sound Studios, Lennon's newly built home studio at Tittenhurst
Park, England, in May 1971, with final overdubs taking place at the
Record Plant, in New York City, during July.
Relaxed and patient, the sessions began during the late morning, running
to just before dinner in the early evening. Lennon taught the musicians
the chord progression and a working arrangement for "Imagine",
rehearsing the song until he deemed the musicians ready to record.
In his attempt to recreate Lennon's desired sound, Spector had some
early tapings feature Lennon and
Nicky Hopkins playing in different octaves on one piano. He also
initially attempted to record the piano part with Lennon playing the
white
baby grand in the couple's all-white room. However, after having
deemed the room's acoustics unsuitable, Spector abandoned the idea in
favour of the superior environment of Lennon's home studio.
They completed the session in minutes, recording three takes and
choosing the second one for release.
The finished recording featured Lennon on piano and vocal,
Klaus Voormann on bass guitar,
Alan White on drums and the Flux Fiddlers on strings.
Issued in the United States in October 1971, "Imagine" peaked at
number 3 on the
Billboard Hot 100.
It reached number 1 in Canada on the
RPM national singles chart, remaining there for two weeks.[16]
Upon its release the song's lyrics upset some religious groups,
particularly the line: "Imagine there's no heaven".
When asked about the song during one of his final interviews, Lennon
said he considered it to be as strong a composition as any he had
written with
the Beatles.
He described the song's meaning and explicated its commercial appeal:
"Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional,
anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugarcoated it is accepted ... Now
I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with
a little honey."
Lennon once told
Paul McCartney that "Imagine" was "'Working
Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself".
On 30 November 1971, the Imagine LP reached number one on the UK
chart.
It became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed
album of Lennon's solo career.
Film and
re-releases
In 1972, Lennon and Ono released an 81-minute
film to accompany the Imagine album which featured footage of
the couple in their home, garden and the recording studio of their
Berkshire property at Tittenhurst Park as well as in New York City.
A full-length documentary rock video, the film's first scene features a
shot of Lennon and Ono walking through a thick fog, arriving at their
house as the song "Imagine" begins. Above the front door to their house
is a sign that reads: "This Is Not Here", the title of Ono's then New
York art show. The next scene shows Lennon sitting at a white grand
piano in a dimly lit, all-white room. Ono gradually walks around opening
curtains that allow in light, making the room brighter with the song's
progression.[24]
At the song's conclusion, Ono sits beside Lennon at the piano, and they
share a quaint gaze, then a brief kiss.
Included in the film is a scene during which Lennon talked with an
American homeless man who had been living on their property. The man
viewed Lennon as his
messiah
figure, to which Lennon responded: "I'm just a guy ... that writes
songs ... [I] take words and stick them together and see if they have
any meaning".
Lennon's vexation quickly turned to charity, and he asked the man: "Are
you hungry?"
The man concurred, and Lennon replied: "OK, let's give him something to
eat."
Several celebrities appeared in the film, including
Andy Warhol,
Fred Astaire,
Jack Palance,
Dick Cavett and
George Harrison. Derided by critics as "the most expensive home
movie of all time", it premiered to an American audience in 1972.
In 1986,
Zbigniew Rybczyński made a
music video for the song, and in 1987, it won both the "Silver
Lion" award for Best Clip at
Cannes and the Festival Award at the
Rio International Film Festival.[27]
"Imagine" was released as a single in the United Kingdom in 1975 in
conjunction with the album
Shaved Fish, and it peaked at number six on the
UK Singles Chart. Following
Lennon's murder in 1980, the single re-entered the UK chart and was
number one for four weeks in January 1981. "Imagine" was re-released as
a single in the UK in 1988, peaking at number 45, and again in 1999,
reaching number three. It is Lennon's best-selling single in the UK and
as of 2012, has sold 1,600,000 copies there.[28]
In 1999, on National Poetry Day in the United Kingdom, the BBC announced
that listeners had voted "Imagine" Britain's favourite song lyric.
In 2003, it reached number 33 as the B-side to a re-release of "Happy
Xmas (War Is Over)".[29]
Recognition
and criticism
The John Lennon Peace Monument, Liverpool, England
Rolling Stone described "Imagine" as Lennon's "greatest
musical gift to the world", praising "the serene melody; the pillowy
chord progression; [and] that beckoning, four-note [piano] figure".
Included in several song polls, in 1999,
BMI named it one of the top 100 most-performed songs of the 20th
century.[30]
Also that year,
it received the
Grammy Hall of Fame Award and an induction into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame's
500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[31]
Triple J ranked it number 11 on its
Hottest 100 of All Time list.[32]
"Imagine" ranks number 23 in the year-2000 list of best-selling singles
of all time in the UK.[33]
In 2002, a UK survey conducted by the
Guinness World Records British Hit Singles Book ranked it the
second best single of all time behind
Queen's "Bohemian
Rhapsody".[34]
Gold Radio ranked the song number 3 on its "Gold's greatest 1000 hits"
list.[35]
Rolling Stone ranked "Imagine" number 3 on its list of "The
500 Greatest Songs of All Time", describing it as "an enduring hymn
of solace and promise that has carried us through extreme grief, from
the shock of Lennon's own death in 1980 to the unspeakable horror of
September 11th. It is now impossible to imagine a world without
'Imagine', and we need it more than he ever dreamed."
Despite that sentiment,
Clear Channel Communications included the song on its
post-9/11 "do not play" list.[36]
On 1 January 2005, the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation named "Imagine" the greatest song
in the past 100 years as voted by listeners on the show
50
Tracks.[37]
The song ranked number 30 on the
Recording Industry Association of America's list of the 365
Songs of the Century bearing the most historical significance.[37]
Virgin Radio conducted a UK favourite song survey in December 2005,
and listeners voted "Imagine" number 1.[38]
Australians selected it the greatest song of all time on the
Nine Network's
20 to 1
countdown show on 12 September 2006. They voted it eleventh in the youth
network
Triple J's Hottest 100 Of All Time on 11 July 2009.[39]
Jimmy Carter said, "in many countries around the world—my wife and I
have visited about 125 countries—you hear John Lennon's song 'Imagine'
used almost equally with national anthems."[40][nb
2] On 9 October 2010, which would have been Lennon's 70th
birthday, the Liverpool Signing Choir performed "Imagine" along with
other Lennon songs at the unveiling of the
John Lennon Peace Monument in
Chavasse Park,
Liverpool England.[42][43]
Beatles producer
George Martin praised Lennon's solo work, singling out the
composition: "My favourite song of all was 'Imagine'".
Music critic
Paul Du Noyer described "Imagine" as Lennon's "most revered"
post-Beatles song.
Urish and Bielen called it "the most subversive pop song recorded to
achieve classic status."
Journalist Dave Berg, writing in the
The Washington Times, reflected on the song's selection for the
New Year's Eve celebrations in
Times Square. He considered it an "insidious and a horrendous
choice" and found it strange that what he considered a "sad and
depressing" song had "achieved the status of a secular hymn."[46]
Berg said, "atheists have embraced the song as their own", and he gave
the example of an "Imagine" themed advertisement from the
Freedom From Religion Foundation."[46]
While Berg considered the song an atheist anthem which served to
dishonor both the victims of 9/11 and the US, a Methodist pastor he
spoke with about it disagreed, "insisting the song was simply a
metaphysical criticism of religion and politics."[46]
Harvard economics professor Mathias Risse criticised Lennon's lyrical
suggestion that humanity could reach a stage of development devoid of
religion, countries and possessions as unrealistic: "Lennon's is not a
dream in which we ought to join. We cannot imagine what he asks us to
imagine in any action-guiding way."[47]
Performances and cover versions
In December 1971, Lennon and Ono appeared at the
Apollo Theater in
Harlem.
Lennon performed "Imagine" with an acoustic guitar, yielding the
earliest known live recording of the song, later included on the
John Lennon Anthology (1998).
In 1975, he sang "Imagine" during his final public performance, a
birthday celebration for
Lew
Grade.
Elton John performed the song in September 1980 during his free
concert in
Central Park, a few blocks away from Lennon's apartment in
the
Dakota building.[49]
On 9 December 1980, the day after
Lennon's murder,
Queen performed "Imagine" as a tribute to him during their
Wembley Arena show in
London.[50]
On 9 October 1990, more than one billion people listened to a broadcast
of the song on what would have been Lennon's 50th birthday.[51]
Stevie Wonder gave his rendition of the song, with the
Morehouse College Glee Club, during the closing ceremony of the
1996 Summer Olympics as a tribute to the victims of the
Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[52][nb
3] In 2001,
Neil Young performed it during the benefit concert
America: A Tribute to Heroes.[54]
Madonna performed "Imagine" during the benefit,
Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope.[55][nb
4]
Since 2005, "Imagine" has been played prior to the
New Year's Eve
ball drop at
New York City's
Times Square.[57]
Beginning in 2010, the song has been performed live; first by
Taio
Cruz, and then in 2011 by
Cee Lo Green. However, Green received criticism for changing the
lyric "and no religion too" to "and all religion's true", resulting in
an immediate backlash from fans who believed that he had disrespected
Lennon's legacy by changing the lyrics of his most iconic song.[58]
Green defended the change by saying it meant to represent "a world
[where you] could believe what [you] wanted".[58]
In 2012, the
London Olympic organisers included the song as part of the games'
closing ceremony. Performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir
and the Liverpool Signing Choir, the choirs sang the first verse, and
accompanied Lennon's original vocals during the rest of the song.[59][nb
5]
More than 140 artists have recorded
cover versions of "Imagine".[60]
Joan
Baez included it on 1972's
Come from the Shadows and
Diana Ross recorded a version for her 1973 album,
Touch Me in the Morning.
In 1995,
Blues Traveler recorded the song for the
Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon album and
Dave Matthews has performed the song live with them.[62]
Seal,
Pink,
India.Arie,
Jeff
Beck,
Konono Nº1,
Oumou Sangaré and others recorded a version for
Herbie Hancock's 2010 album
The Imagine Project.[63]
Hancock performed it with Arie,
Kristina Train, and
Greg Phillinganes at the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Concert on 11
December; on 13 February 2011, the recording won a Grammy award for
Best Pop Vocal Collaboration.[64]
Emeli Sandé recorded a cover for the
BBC to use
during the end credits montage at the close of the
2012 Summer Olympics coverage in August 2012.[65]
"Imagine" subsequently re-entered the UK Top 40, reaching number 18.[66]