Coronavirus has done many frightening things to our world, but it has also reactivated something mawkish: the well-meaning celebrity singalong. This arrived in an Instagram post by Wonder Woman actor Gal Gadot, six days into her self-isolation, singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” with other famous friends stuck in their houses (Jamie Dornan, Amy Adams and Norah Jones among them). A few days later, her post had been watched by nearly 9m people. Many more people commented, positively and negatively, online. British comic Joe Lycett even did a parody video within 24 hours, which began: “Imagine all the bastards…”
“Imagine” splits opinion. For some, it’s a moving peace anthem with universal lyrics. But not everyone’s a fan. Rolling Stone critic Ben Gerson wrote in 1971: “The singing is methodical but not really skilled, the melody undistinguished.” Journalist Julie Burchill dedicated a magazine column to tearing it apart in 2000: “[Its] lyrics could have come out of a stoned fortune cookie or maudlin Christmas cracker.”
“Imagine” was written in early 1971, a strange time in John Lennon’s career. Barely a year after the split of The Beatles, Paul McCartney had just filed a lawsuit to dissolve the band’s contractual partnership. Lennon had just bought a new piano, spray-painted white, for his wife Yoko Ono’s birthday. Soon afterwards, he wrote “Imagine” on it.
“Imagine” was inspired heavily by Ono, who used the word in many of her 1960s conceptual art works. The night Lennon met her in London’s Indica Gallery in 1966, he climbed a ladder to look at one of these, “Cloud Piece”. “Imagine a cloud dripping,” ran its words. “Dig a hole in your garden to put it in.”
In a 1980 BBC interview, Lennon admitted that Ono should have been given a songwriting credit. “A lot of it — the lyric and the concept — came from Yoko, but those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho.” In 2017, the credit was changed to Lennon-Ono by the National Music Publishers’ Association in the US. Ono recorded her own version, against an ambient backing, in 2018.
The lyric “and no religion too” was also influenced by a book Lennon was given, by US comedian Dick Gregory, about positive prayer. “If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion… then it can be true,” said Gregory. Not released as a single in the UK until 1975 (to support the greatest hits album, Shaved Fish), “Imagine” eventually spent four weeks at number one in January 1981, shortly after Lennon’s murder.
In Geoffrey Giuliano’s book, Lennon In America, Lennon described “Imagine” as “anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic… but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted.” Covers of it came thick and fast (the website Second Hand Songs lists 402 recorded and live versions).
In 1972, Joan Baez connected it with a folk-like simplicity on her album Come from the Shadows. Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan made it more bombastic on her LP, A Time In My Life, while Diana Ross made it syrupy and soulful as a finale to hers, Touch Me In the Morning.
Later unusual versions include one by US rapper Nas in 2006 (later deleted for not having its Lennon sample cleared), and one by jazz legend Herbie Hancock for 2010’s The Imagine Project. Bringing together Pink, Seal and Jeff Beck with Congolese band Konono No.1 and Malian singer Oumou Sangaré, it won a Grammy.
“Imagine” has long been a clarion call for world peace. Former US president Jimmy Carter once said to American network NPR: “In many countries around the world… you hear John Lennon's song ‘Imagine’ used almost equally with national anthems.” It’s also a regular at charity gigs. Neil Young sang it at the December 2001 concert for New York firefighters, police and 9/11 victims, America: A Tribute to Heroes. Madonna did the same for Tsunami Aid in 2005. It has also been performed at Olympics ceremonies by the likes of Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel, as well as the Liverpool Signing Choir at the London 2012 games.
Its final lyrics have a strange resonance in a world ruled by Covid-19: “I hope some day you’ll join us/And the world will be as one.” Time can only tell if its sentiment of hope and unity changes society as much as the pandemic which has inspired it, once again, to be sung.
Inspirational or irritating — what are your thoughts on ‘Imagine’? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: EMI UK Beatles; Chimera Music; UMC (Universal Music Catalogue); Mainstream Records; Sony Classical
Picture credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images