Gadhouse Vinyl Club: Imagine – John Lennon (1971)

After the total break-up of the Beatles in 1970 – the 60’s iconic pop band from Liverpool, United Kingdom. The member of the Beatles – Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon started their solo music career. “Imagine” is the second solo album of John Lennon in 1971 at his first solo album in 1970 “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band”.

“Imagine” is a rock album. On the contrary, this album is tougher and weirder from the previous album. This time, most of the lyrics on this album were written by himself, except “Oh My Love” – John Lennon and Yoko Ono were written together in this track. The producer of this album is Phil Spector. Finally, the album was released in the United States on 9 September 1971 and one month later in the United Kingdom on 8 October, 1971 by Apple Record. The cover album was taken by Andy Warhol in Polaroid version.

The feedback on the album was satisfying. The album reached into a weekly chart as a number one in Australia, Canada, Netherland, Japan, Norway, United Kingdom and United States of America. In addition, “Imagine” was also voted as 80th of 500 greatest album by Rolling Stone Magazine in 2012.

There are 10 tracks with 39.29 min in this album. 

“Imagine” – 3:01

“Crippled Inside” – 3:47

“Jealous Guy” – 4:14

“It’s So Hard” – 2:25

“I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier” – 6:05

“Gimme Some Truth” – 3:16

“Oh My Love” – 2:50

“How Do You Sleep?” – 5:36

“How?” – 3:43

“Oh Yoko!” – 4:20

First, “Imagine” is the first track on this album and it is an everlasting song about the peace of the world. Giving definition of the world with peace are no countries, border and lives as one. With his duo piano “Steinway” in his bedroom in the United Kingdom, He composed a song from here. It is a simple song with ease-understanding lyric and with only one piano and Lennon’s vocal, but it bears to the mind of audiences around the world. Described by Rolling Stone Magazine for this song as “The greatest musical gift to the world, praising “the serene melody; the pillowy chord progression and that beckoning, four note piano figure”.

Second, “Cripple Inside” is the second track of the album. The rhythm is this song more upbeat than the first track because of country song was influenced to this song. When you are looking for everyone’s appearance, they might be a normal person to inside they might be handicapped. Nobody knows. So, you can’t judge everyone from the book cover like what the music said.

And last, “Oh my love” is the final track that Lennon was written about his wife – Yoko Ono. Harmonica was used in the introduction of the song. Yoko was the people who opened wider eye for him. His life was happy because he had a good wife.

Furthermore, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released almost two-hour film for accompanying with the “Imagine” album in 1972. It was a footage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during music recording sessions which was included the scene of Lennon and Ono walked through the thick fog. That was also a part of legend music video “Imagine”.

There are various tastes of the song in this album to try. If you need to find the explanation of peace in the world, the definition of love, the significance of people’s mind. “Imagine” by John Lennon might be the answer. Although, it’s not the best album from massive critical review, but it can give a meaning of many things that even you’re might know before or not.