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Imagine - John Lennon - an appreciation

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By Paraglider


The Song, not the Singer

The idea was to write about John Lennon's song, Imagine, not about John himself, the Beatles, Liverpool, Yoko Ono, New York, his assassination, or anything else. So I'll try to do exactly that. I will even restrict myself to the lyrical and musical aspects of the song, not its popularity, sources, later influence, and so on. Here goes...

The Song - taken as a whole

This song, as conceived and as first recorded, is deceptively simple. It consists of a short intro on piano, two verses, a chorus, a third verse, and a repeat of the chorus, followed by a brief 'playout' which is more or less a recap of the intro, turned to close on the tonic chord.

But the song has inner strength. The simplicity is indeed deceptive. There are subtleties in the structure and execution. Also, the lyric, though superficially platitudinous, never oversteps itself, and is in fact genuinely challenging to the open mind.

Shall we look more deeply?


The Music

Imagine is in the key of C Major, the simplest key in western music.

The four bar intro is alternate bars of C (the tonic) and F (the subdominant). Guitar transcriptions usually put Cmaj7 on beat four of bars 1 & 3, but that is only to recognise the passing note B in the piano right hand melody.

The verse harmony is simple in that it changes only on beat one of each bar:

C / / / :F / / / :C / / / :F / / / :

C / / / :F / / / :C / / / :F / / / :

Am / / /:Dm / / /:G / / /:G7 / / /:

But the first surprise is that the verse is 12 bars long and ends on the dominant seventh. Verse two immediately follows verse one, with exectly the same harmonic structure.

The chorus follows - You may say I'm a dreamer...

F / G / :C / E7 / : F / G / :C / E7 / :

F / G / :C / E7 / : F / G / :C / C / :

And the chorus, though moving at the same tempo, changes harmony twice as fast, on beats one and three. Also, the E7 chord, with its G#, which invariably falls on a vocal silence, gives an optimistic brightness to the progression, which, till now has been firmly rooted in the C-major scale. This is a standard 'Dixieland' progression, but not commonplace in rock-derivative music.

One last observation. The song has this structure:

12-bar verse

12-bar verse

8-bar chorus

12-bar verse

8-bar chorus

Find me another that does this before telling me Imagine is ordinary.

The Lyric

There is some elegant structuring here. Each of the three verses begins "Imagine" and answers with an empathetic comment. And each verse is more challenging than the one before. So, we have:

  1. Imagine there's no Heaven - It's easy if you try
  2. Imagine there's no countries - It's not so hard to do
  3. Imagine no possession - I wonder if you can

Let's just look again. There can be nothing greater than Heaven, but John saw that it is easy if you try to imagine it away. And so it is. Countries - much lesser than Heaven, yet much harder to get rid of, though, to an open mind, not so hard to do. Finally possessions - as petty as we can get, but John realised that most of us could not imagine a world with no possession - I wonder if you can - excellent writing, John!

This crescendo of challenges that forms the opening of each verse is answered by a similar set of three imaginings to close each verse. This time, we have:

Imagine all the people...

  1. living for today
  2. sharing all the world
  3. living life in peace

These are also fascinating. In context, living for today is not an apology for Hedonism. It is not 'living for the moment' in a selfish way. It is in fact very much an echo of the Sermon on the Mount - 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin'. Then, sharing all the world is not about dividing out the spoils. It is simply an opening of borders, a geographical sharing, the consequence of imagining no countries. And in verse 3, living life in peace - at first sight this could read like a mistake. Shouldn't this have followed the 'no countries' opening? But no. John realises that most wars are only ostensibly about religion or territory; they are actually about possessions - gold, oil, Helen of Troy, if you like. This song stands up on every level.

Now the chorus - You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one - Look how he doesn't instruct. He merely acknowledges that you, the listener, might not yet have considered these things, but others have. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as one - only 'I hope', no unrealistic expectation, no instruction.

And throughout the whole lyric, there is no anger, no frustration. Nothing but patience, hope and concern for humanity at large.

(This equanimity does not pervade every song on the Imagine album, but John Lennon was always a complex character. He gave us Imagine, as the title track of his signature solo album, and we can be sure it was no accident).

Comments

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SunSeven profile image

SunSeven  says:
2 years ago

What a great piece of writing! Thank you so much for this Hub Paraglider. This is one of my all time favs.

Perhaps you can spice it up with some stats like how it did on charts and how the song influenced many over the world etc?

I always used to imagine things too. May be there is something wrong with me. LOL!! Best Regards.

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
2 years ago

SunSeven -

Thank you very much. I value your appreciation. I probably will add to it over the next day or two, but I just wanted to put it 'out there' to see if it could hold its own.

nathalie  says:
2 years ago

do you know where it was recorded?

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
2 years ago

I believe it was recorded in 1971 in his own home recording studio in Tittenhurst Park, Berkshire, UK. It was probably remixed by Phil Spector (strings added) prior to release, but I'm pretty sure the original voice & piano tracks were laid at home.

justmesuzanne profile image

justmesuzanne  says:
12 months ago

This is absolutely lovely! Thank you so much! :)

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
12 months ago

My pleasure - it's a favourite of mine. Has been since way back then :)

Chris and Amy  says:
8 months ago

Thanks for your help. Excellent analysis :)

DennisBarker profile image

DennisBarker  says:
7 months ago

I love the song and your appreciation of the song shows through clearly in your writing. Thanks for putting this piece together.

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
7 months ago

Thanks Dennis :)

Teresa McGurk profile image

Teresa McGurk  says:
7 months ago

Excellent hub. So glad I found it: the song is indeed elegantly worded. When I think about some of the hymns we had to sing at school -- about God's "terrible, swift sword," etc. -- this would have been a much better message to give kids. . . Your interpretation is a literal reading of the logic of the text, great to see. Now: here's your homework -- compare "imagine" to "let it be" . . . .

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
7 months ago

Hi Teresa - that's easy. Let it be is to Imagine as Paul was to John...

nextstopjupiter profile image

nextstopjupiter  says:
6 weeks ago

great analasys of a great song

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
6 weeks ago

Thanks for the appreciation, nextstopjupiter :)

prettydarkhorse profile image

prettydarkhorse  says:
5 weeks ago

nice piece of music, nice analysis....u truly are a deep thinking sensible man...I am ur fan now...

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
5 weeks ago

Prettydarkhorse - thank you very much. Nice name, by the way :)

Lee Boolean profile image

Lee Boolean  says:
5 weeks ago

Excellent song, great piece about it. Enjoy all your writings, keep on doing what you do.

prettydarkhorse profile image

prettydarkhorse  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks..guess the picture of a horse is better than my face hahaha....i love horses, but they never like me, couldnt saddle, they are way too big than me...

this is personal....you are from Scottland, one day i dream, i could go there...u working in middle east??

Paraglider profile image

Paraglider  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks Lee!

Prettydarkhorse - Yes, I'm in Qatar, on contract work. When you go to Scotland, visit the West coast for its beauty; don't just go straight to Edinburgh (but do that too!)

prettydarkhorse profile image

prettydarkhorse  says:
5 weeks ago

yes, ill do that, i love to go there...

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