John Lennon's 'Imagine' still resonates
Forty-nine years ago this month, John Lennon began piecing together the musical collection that would become his second solo studio album. The album was titled after a song that he suspected was too fanciful to become popular (Yoko Ono had to convince John that he had a hit on his hands). “Imagine” would become the best selling single of John Lennon’s astronomical and far too short career.
The honors earned by this simple three-minute tune are too many to list in this space; as is the catalogue of other performers, stars to street buskers, who have covered the song. And despite the many who have parodied it - and notwithstanding those who have performed it with a galling lack of social awareness during this pandemic (I’m looking at you Gal Gadot) — “Imagine” has remained an inspiration for five decades.
I listen to Lennon’s opus routinely, much to the chagrin of some of my friends who criticize “Imagine” for being unrealistic, too new age, or utopian. That, and it’s “insufficiently Christian” I’ve been repeatedly told. Whatever. It remains an immensely powerful song that speaks to our “better angels” to quote Shakespeare, another great British wordsmith. It invites us conceptualize a future that is appreciably better than the present.
Source: The Detroit News
