Listening to Lennon #2: Imagine

By the spring of 1971, Lennon's confused mess of anger, resentment, and frustration had a focus: his oldest and truest friend, Paul McCartney. Macca's own frustrations had led him to sue the Beatles as an organization in order to force a break-up of the legal entanglements that were, in his view, preventing any of them from moving forward either artistically or financially. This had, obviously, infuriated the other Beatles, with his formal announcement that The Beatles were no more--something that Lennon had made clear nearly a year and half earlier but which the band had agreed to keep quiet--compounding the (not inaccurate) controlling image they'd developed of Paul. And then there was the release of McCartney's second solo album, Ram which (deservedly) enjoyed much more commercial success than did his first, and which (undeservedly) generated immense ire on the part of John, mostly due to "Too Many People," a song with a couple of Lennon-aimed snarks that was, as I wrote before about this slight but enjoyable album, "probably about as close as McCartney can ever get to building up righteous indignation." So as Lennon went into the studio, similarly determined to make his second solo album less artistic and more accessible, he did so with at least one additional goal--give it to Paul McCartney but good. But he didn't get around to that until most of the way through the album.

Imagine is most famous, of course, for its masterful title track, which opens the album. Some people will go to their deathbeds insisting that they hate "Imagine" or at least find it vapid or saccharine or somehow quasi-totalitarian, but I think these people are being driven political hang-ups, whether they acknowledge them or not. Yes, lyrically the song is ponderous and self-important--and this is where the Yoko Ono haters note her influence on the song--but its melody is sweet, its piano gorgeous, and its overall vibe, weighted by over a half-century of invocations, is exactly what album producer Phil Spector aimed for it to be: anthemic. Steve Martin has gotten 15 years worth of laughs out of his gag number "Atheists Don't Have No Songs," but of course Lennon proved him wrong decades before. "Imagine" is a damn hymn, a reverent paean to a worldview that has moved tens of millions, and must be respected as such.

It's not, I think, the best or most beautiful song on the album though. For that, I would nominate "Jealous Guy," which is just an astonishing gem, one I'd never really listened to over all the decades (the decision not to release it as a single was a crime). I can see the argument that the song's lush, haunting arrangement is overproduced, but to my ear the strings and percussion are properly placed in the background of Lennon's vocal, which is, in my opinion, equal to any of his best Beatles ballads, like "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" or "Dear Prudence." And lyrically it's fascinating: obviously autobiographical, yet also open-ended. Ian Leslie, writing in John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, is convinced (mostly by the whistling break in the song; he sees that as a give-away) that while Lennon was, thanks to the intensive therapy he'd subjected himself to, plainly thinking about Yoko, he was probably also thinking about Paul. McCartney himself agrees, or at least did at one time; Leslie quotes him in his book: "In the end, I think John had some tough breaks. He used to say 'Everyone is on the McCartney bandwagon.' He wrote 'I'm Just a Jealous Guy,' and he said that the song was about me." I don't know if I believe that, but I want to.

So two absolutely great, and eminently listenable songs on this album; what else? "Crippled Inside," another obvious product of Lennon's therapy, is to my mind a spiritual cousin to McCartney's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," a song with lyrics spelling out interior ugliness while being accompanied by a delightfully jaunty--in this case rockabilly rather than musical hall--tune. "It's So Hard" is a short, solid blues song, perhaps a little too prettified by the album's production, but worth listening to a time or three. The propulsive beat of  "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Want to Die" hides the fact that the song is as underdeveloped as any of Macca's lazier tunes; Lennon's just vamping here. The same can be said for "Gimme Some Truth." "How" is a perfectly fine love ballad, though after listening to it over and over, I'm convinced McCartney stole from it for "So Bad" on Pipes of Peace. By contrast "Oh My Love," which Lennon co-wrote with Yoko (he actually acknowledged her contribution on this song, unlike on others), is a genuinely searching and loving song, with George Harrison's gentle guitar accenting Lennon's voice wonderfully. And the final track, "Oh Yoko!," is a head-popping, hand-clapping charmer, a bright and hopeful tune with a harmonica finale that finishes off the album excellently.

What did I skip? "How Do You Sleep?," of course. What do say about this musically compelling, lyrically embarrassing song? It's a huge, burning, sweeping number, funky and intense in its groove; with a better subject matter it might have been one of Lennon's greatest recordings. But as it is, this awesome musical set-up just perversely provides listeners with a bunch of cheap shots. Some of the lines are admittedly quite sharp ("The sound you make is Muzak to my ears / You must have learned something in all those years"), but mostly what Lennon spilled out about his former songwriting partner was childish and mean. (It's not to George Harrison's credit that he got into the recording with such gusto; one the other hand, it is to Ringo Starr's credit that, when he stopped by the studio, he was nonplussed by it all, and told John it was time to stop.) John later dismissed the song, and apparently Paul was able to get past it as well. Again, Leslie situates the song in John and Paul's long, complicated relationship, quoting Lennon as simply stating that "How Do You Sleep?" actually "isn't about Paul. It's about me."

How to rank Imagine? It's better than Plastic Ono Band, though not by leaps and bounds. The best stuff on it is some truly world-class pop music; the worst stuff on it drags it down. I give it an A-; a genuinely great album, but not quite as great as it could have been.