Line #59 Music/Imagine


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imagine_8062.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one."'']]
3
4	''Imagine'' is the fifth studio album by Music/JohnLennon, released in 1971 through Apple Records. 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".
5	----
6
7	!! Tracklist:
8	[[AC:Side One]]
9	# "Imagine" (3:01)
10	# "Crippled Inside" (3:47)
11	# "Jealous Guy" (4:14)
12	# "It's So Hard" (2:25)
13	# "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" (6:05)
14
15	[[AC:Side Two]]
16	[numlist:6]
17	# "Gimme Some Truth" (3:16)
18	# "Oh My Love" (2:50)
19	# "How Do You Sleep?" (5:36)
20	# "How?" (3:43)
21	# "Oh Yoko!" (4:20)
22	[/numlist]
23	----
24	!! Gimme Some Tropes:
25	* AnswerSong: "How Do You Sleep?" was written as a retort to Music/PaulMcCartney's [[Music/{{Ram}} "Too Many People"]], and responds to [=McCartney's=] portrayal of him and Yoko Ono as egotists by mocking [=McCartney=] as a shell of his former self subsiding on his good looks to obscure what Lennon deems a lack of talent.
26	* ApologisesALot: "Jealous Guy."
27	-->''I'm just a jealous guy''.
28	* TheAtoner: "Jealous Guy," about a man who apologizes to his partner for being disrespectful to her, but acknowledges he is just a jealous guy.
29	* {{Bowdlerization}}: There are versions of "Imagine" that replace the line "and no religion too" with "and one religion too", to better appeal to Christian listeners. Which rather fails to address the fact the song implicitly asks the listener to consider the absence of both Heaven and Hell, and to view their absence in a positive light, but then, these versions are not very well known or liked outside of their target audience.
30	* CallBack: "How Do You Sleep?" references ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'', PaulIsDead and "Yesterday."
31	* TheCameo: Music/GeorgeHarrison plays guitar on some tracks on this album.
32	* CoverVersion: "Imagine" and "Jealous Guy" have been covered countless times.
33	* CultSoundtrack: Not exactly, but a companion movie, "Imagine" was released by Lennon a year later. This film is more a sort of documentary, though, than an actual film.
34	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: "Gimme Some Truth," "Oh My Love," "How?" are all songs in which Lennon explores his self-identication and looks for some truth in his life.
35	* TheDissTrack
36	** "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.
37	*** Some people have also read "Crippled Inside" as containing a few subtle digs at [=McCartney=] (Website/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.
38	** "Gimme Some Truth" expresses frustration about "short-haired yellow-bellied sons of Tricky Dicky," referencing UsefulNotes/RichardNixon.
39	** 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.
40	* DoubleEntendre: Lennon uses the phrase "going down" in "It's So Hard" twice, first in the context of depression, second in the context of having sex.
41	** In "How Do You Sleep?" Lennon sings about Music/PaulMcCartney: "The only thing you done was yesterday," being both an attack on the fact that [=McCartney=] was unable to duplicate Music/TheBeatles' artistic and financial success on his own, and literally saying that the Beatles song "Yesterday," from ''Music/{{Help}}'' was the only thing memorable about Paul.
42	* DraftDodging: "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier."
43	-->''Well, I don't wanna be a soldier, mama, I don't wanna die''
44	* DreamSequence: The utopian vision in "Imagine" is basically this. Could be DreamingOfThingsToCome too, but that might be stretching it a bit.
45	* EnemyWithin: "Crippled Inside."
46	-->''One thing you can't hide''
47	-->''Is when you're crippled inside''
48	* EvolvingMusic: 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.
49	* FaceOnTheCover: John's face in close-up.
50	%% * Getting Crap Past The 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.
51	* GreenEyedMonster: "Jealous Guy", in which the protagonist apologizes for offending his partner because he was just jealous.
52	* 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" 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.
53	* LyricalDissonance: "Crippled Inside" has an upbeat melody with jaunty accompaniment, but the lyrics are quite dark and almost cynical.
54	* MeadowRun: At the end of the "Oh Yoko!" music video. Though, they did it on a shore of the beach and referencing the famous scene from ''Literature/WutheringHeights'' for they [[NarmCharm shout each other's names]] in the same fashion as the film.
55	* OneWomanSong: "Oh Yoko!" about Yoko Ono.
56	* OneWordTitle: "Imagine" and "How?"
57	* {{Pacifism}}: "Imagine" and "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier Mama."
58	-->''Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do''
59	-->''Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too''
60	-->''Imagine all the people: living life in peace''
61	* QuestioningTitle: "How Do You Sleep?" and "How?"
62	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: "How Do You Sleep?", directed toward Music/PaulMcCartney at the depth of their mutual hatred. A response to Paul's "Too Many People" from ''Music/{{Ram}}'', released earlier the same year. (The two buried the hatchet a few years later.)
63	* SayMyName: "Oh Yoko" about Yoko Ono.
64	* 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."
65	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: "It's So Hard," where Lennon acknowledges both the good and difficult things about life. The album overall incorporates material at both ends, with "Imagine" being firmly at the idealistic end and other material ("How Do You Sleep?", "Crippled Inside") being very cynical. Most songs are somewhere in the middle, though.
66	* 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\|Beatles Album}}'', plass bass and upright bass. Music/PhilSpector provides backing vocals during "Oh Yoko!"
67	* TalkingInYourSleep: "Oh Yoko!"
68	-->''In the middle of a dream I call your name''
69	* TimeMarchesOn: "How Do You Sleep?", because it was a reflection of John's feelings against Paul at that particular moment in time. Later they became friends again.
70	* TitleTrack: "Imagine."
71	--> ''Imagine all the people...''
72	* TriumphantReprise: "Oh Yoko!" to "My Mummy's Dead", in a way. They both incorporate elements of the children's rhyme "Three Blind Mice" into their melodies, but "My Mummy's Dead" is a GriefSong for Lennon's mother sung in a CreepyMonotone, while "Oh Yoko!" is, of course, a love song to his wife.
73	* WarIsHell: "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier," where Lennon shows that war is so horrible that a young recruit doesn't want to be drafted and killed in a faraway land.
74	-->''Mama, I don't wanna die!''

Context Music / Imagine