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ALBUM REVIEW

Imagine

Released - September 9, 1971, Apple Records. Produced by John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Phil Spector

John Lennon - Vocals, Pianos, Electric, Acoustic & Slide Guitars, Harp

Additional Personnel - Klas Voormann, Alan White, George Harrison, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, John Barham, Jim Gordon, King Curtis, Steve Brendel, Ron Linton, Joey Molland, Tom Evans, The Flux Fiddlers (aka The New York Philharmonic)

All songs written by John Lennon

(Click on song for lyrics and song personnel)

REVIEW

A very powerful album put out by John Lennon here. As usual most of the songs send out different messages to his fans in a way you no longer seen done today. The title cut, "Imagine", goes down as John's best song ever. The one song Lennon fans and all sane people identify him with. "You may say I'm a dreamer/But I'm not the only one". Well, maybe to a point it was a dream, but it was a great dream and he wasn't the only one. This is one of the few songs that even today makes me stop whatever I'm doing to listen to it. "Jealous Guy" is another great song written for Yoko Ono, and perhaps former wife Cynthia Lennon and son Julian, too. Exactly who it was written to is open to debate, maybe all of them. "Cripple Inside" is a song directed at Mr. Average Citizen, another wake-up call like his song "God". "Give Me Some Truth" was yet another political song directed at those in power, and the song would be used against him a few years later when he tried to fight for his right to stay in the US.

The most interesting song on the album (when it first came out anyway) was his counter attack on friend and former Beatle Paul McCartney, with "How Do You Sleep". It was great that years later the two made up, but what a put down song! When you compared it to "Imagine" you really had to think of the two different messages John was sending out. Overall another album any Lennon fan must have, if you don't like Imagine, you don't like John Lennon.

-Keno 1999

To listen to some soundclips from Imagine or to purchase it, click on: Imagine (Remastered)

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