History Music / Imagine

''Imagine'' is the fifth studio album by Music/JohnLennon, released in 1971. It is best known for the iconic title track "Imagine," which has become Lennon's SignatureSong. Other hits and fan favourites include "Jealous Guy," "Crippled Inside," and "Gimme Some Truth".

* AnswerSong: "How Do You Sleep?" (see TheReasonYouSuckSpeech below).

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* ExcitedShowTitle: "Oh Yoko!"

*** Some people have also read "Crippled Inside" as containing a few subtle digs at [=McCartney=] (Wiki/ThatOtherWiki lists "You can live a lie until you die" as one of the lines interpreted this way), but it's not clear if Lennon ever confirmed this.

''Imagine'' is the fifth studio album by Music/JohnLennon, released in 1971. It is best known for the iconic title track "Imagine," which has become Lennon's SignatureSong. Other hits and fan favourites include "Jealous Guy," "Crippled Inside," and "Gimme Some Truth." It's widely seen as one of Lennon's best albums and was listed at #80 in Magazine/RollingStone's [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]].

[[AC: Side One]]

[[AC: Side Two]]

* SpecialGuest: Music/GeorgeHarrison plays electric and slide guitar on "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier," "Gimme Some Truth," "Oh My Love," and "How Do You Sleep?". During "Crippled Inside" he plays dobro. Klaus Voormann, who designed the album cover of ''Music/{{Revolver}}'' plass bass and upright bass. Music/PhilSpector provides backing vocals during "Oh Yoko!"

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: "Imagine," by Lennon's own admission, "is virtually The Communist Manifesto" set to music, "even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement." (It could arguably be considered more similar to the writings of [[UsefulNotes/{{Anarchism}} anarcho-communists]] like Pyotr Kropotkin and Emma Goldman, who took issue with some of Marx's ideas). Of the song, Lennon 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."
** This is a song where Lennon advocates abolishing nationalism, religion and capitalism and it still became a universal musical hit. As Lennon himself said:
-->''Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugar-coated it is accepted ... Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey." Not that the controversy ever died. To this day some people will take offence or debate the lines.''

* ShoutOut:
** "Gimme Some Truth" references the nursery rhyme "Old Mother Hubbard" during the line: "No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky / Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me."
** Creator/{{Gotlib}} once parodied the album cover with his character Hamster Jovial. [[https://berichtenuithetverleden.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/gotlib-hamster-jovial-et-ses-louveteaux/]]

* TakeThat:
** "How Do You Sleep?" is directed at Music/PaulMcCartney, evidently in response to some lines Lennon had read as being subtle digs at him in [=McCartney=]'s ''Music/{{Ram}}''. [=McCartney=] later confirmed that "Too Many People" was indeed directed at Lennon, but they ultimately reconciled before Lennon's death. "How Do You Sleep?" reads as being absolutely ''scathing'' and incorporates several of [=McCartney=]'s song titles ironically, but Lennon was already downplaying their differences shortly after the release of ''Imagine'', saying, "There's really no feud between me and Paul. It's all good, clean fun." By the mid-seventies, he stated that the song was as much [[SelfDeprecation directed at himself]] as it was at Paul.
*** Some people have also read "Crippled Inside" as containing a few subtle digs at [=McCartney=] (Wiki/ThatOtherWiki lists "You can live a lie until you die" as one of the lines interpreted this way), but it's not clear if Lennon ever confirmed this.
** "Gimme Some Truth" expresses frustration about "short-haired yellow-bellied sons of Tricky Dicky," referencing UsefulNotes/RichardNixon.
** A photo of John in the album's liner notes parodies the album cover of [=McCartney's=] ''Music/{{RAM}}'', replacing the ram with a pig.

[[caption-width-right:350:''I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one.'']]

* RearrangeTheSong: Lennon wrote the melody of "Jealous Guy" in India in 1968, for a song called "Child of Nature". Perhaps because Paul had written "Mother Nature's Son" (both songs apparently inspired by the same Maharishi Mahesh Yogi lecture), John didn't attempt it for ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum''. He briefly tried it again in the early rehearsals for ''Music/LetItBe'' (changing the original opening line from "on the road to Rishikesh" to "on the road to Marrakesh"). Obviously knowing it was a strong melody, he rewrote the lyrics from scratch for this album.

''Imagine'' is the fifth studio album by Music/JohnLennon, released in 1971. It is best known for the iconic title track "Imagine," which has become Lennon's SignatureSong. Other hits and fan favourites include "Jealous Guy," "Crippled Inside," and "Gimme Some Truth." It's widely seen as one of Lennon's best albums and was listed at #80 in Magazine/RollingStone's [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time]].

* SpecialGuest: Music/GeorgeHarrison plays electric and slide guitar on "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier," "Gimme Some Truth," "Oh My Love," and "How Do You Sleep?". During "Crippled Inside" he plays dobro. Klaus Voormann, who designed the album cover of ''Music/{{Revolver}}'' plass bass and upright bass. Creator/PhilSpector provides backing vocals during "Oh Yoko!"

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: "It's So Hard," where Lennon acknowledges both the good and difficult things about life.

* GreenEyedMonster: "Jealous Guy" in which the protagonist apologizes for offending his partner, because he just was jealous.
* LighterAndSofter: While ''Imagine'' does have "Gimme Some Truth," "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier," and "How Do You Sleep?", that Lennon could go in a year from singing "The dream is over the dream is over" in "God" to singing "You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one" in "Imagine" suggests that he got ''something'' out of his system.

** "How Do You Sleep?" is directed at Music/PaulMcCartney, evidently in response to some lines Lennon had read as being subtle digs at him in [=McCartney=]'s ''Music/{{Ram}}''. [=McCartney=] later confirmed that "Too Many People" was indeed directed at Lennon, but they ultimately reconciled before Lennon's death. "How Do You Sleep?" reads as being absolutely ''scathing'' and incorporates several of [=McCartney=]'s song titles ironically, but Lennon was already downplaying their differences shortly after the release of ''Imagine'', saying, ""There's really no feud between me and Paul. It's all good, clean fun." By the mid-seventies, he stated that the song was as much [[SelfDeprecation directed at himself]] as it was at Paul.

# "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die" (6:05)

* DraftDodging: "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die."

* LighterAndSofter: While ''Imagine'' does have "Gimme Some Truth," "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die," and "How Do You Sleep?", that Lennon could go in a year from singing "The dream is over the dream is over" in "God" to singing "You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one" in "Imagine" suggests that he got ''something'' out of his system.

* {{Pacifism}}: "Imagine" and "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die."

* QuestioningTitle: "How Do You Sleep?"

** "How Do You Sleep?" is directed at Music/PaulMcCartney.

* SpecialGuest: Music/GeorgeHarrison plays electric and slide guitar on "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die," "Gimme Some Truth," "Oh My Love," and "How Do You Sleep?". During "Crippled Inside" he plays dobro. Klaus Voormann, who designed the album cover of ''Music/{{Revolver}}'' plass bass and upright bass. Creator/PhilSpector provides backing vocals during "Oh Yoko!"

* WarIsHell: "I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die" where Lennon shows, that war is so horrible that a young recruit doesn't want to be drafted and killed in a faraway land.

* A photo of John in the album's liner notes parodies the album cover of [=McCartney's=] ''Music/{{RAM}}'', replacing the ram with a pig.

'''''Imagine''''' is the fifth studio album by Music/JohnLennon, released in 1971. It is best known for the iconic title track "Imagine," which has become Lennon's SignatureSong. Other hits and fan favourites include "Jealous Guy," "Crippled Inside," and "Gimme Some Truth." It's widely seen as one of Lennon's best albums and was listed at #80 in Magazine/RollingStone's [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time]].

* WarIsHell: "I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die" where Lennon shows that war is so horrible that a young recruit doesn't want to be drafted and killed in a faraway land.

* SpecialGuest: Music/GeorgeHarrison plays electric and slide guitar on "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die," "Gimme Some Truth," "Oh My Love," and "How Do You Sleep?". During "Crippled Inside" he plays dobro. Klaus Voormann, who designed the album cover of ''Music/{{Revolver}}'' plass bass and upright bass. Music/PhilSpector provides backing vocals during "Oh Yoko!"
* TalkingInYourSleep: "Oh Yoko."

* TitleTrack: "Imagine"

--> ''Mama, I don't wanna die!''