John Lennon wrote “Imagine” one morning in early 1971 in his room at the country estate in Tithurst. Yoko Ono watched. Lennon sat at the white grand piano that is now world-famous from films and photos and composed “Imagine” from start to finish, in one go.
The wistful melody, the feathery chord pattern, the memorable four-note progression and almost all of the lyrics – 22 graceful, simple lines of song about believing that if people realize they have the same dreams, you can change the world and heal it .
“He certainly didn’t think: ‘Hey, this is going to be an anthem!'” Yoko said 30 years later. “’Imagine’ was just what John believed in – that we are all one country, one world, one people. He wanted to convey the thought.”
And he wasn’t alone: Yoko Ono herself had been celebrating the transformative power of dreams in her own art even before she met Lennon in 1966. The first line of “Imagine” – “Imagine there’s no heaven” – is taken from one of the interactive passages in Ono’s 1964 book “Grapefruit” (“Imagine letting a goldfish swim across the sky”).
But Lennon’s language was pop, and of course an ex-Beatle mastered it perfectly. He later said that Imagine, with its idea of equality for all people through the dissolution of government, borders and religion, was “literally the Communist Manifesto”. But the elemental beauty of its melody, the warm restraint of his voice, and the transparent sound of producer Phil Spector – who wrapped Lennon’s performance in delicate strings and let echoes fly like a summer breeze – all underscored the idea of fundamental humanity the song was about told.
Lennon knew he had written something special. In one of his last interviews, he stated that “Imagine” was on par with the best songs he had made for the Beatles. But the song is more than that, taking on a meaning that transcends Lennon’s work – a timeless anthem of comfort and hope that has carried listeners through deep grief, from Lennon’s own death in 1980 to the horror of 9/11 . One can hardly imagine a world without “Imagine” today.
Appeared on: “Imagine” 1971
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