11 December 1975 and 31 January 1981
I’ve been to Strawberry Fields, the area of Central Park in New York that is now a memorial to John Lennon. (Call me morbid, but I had first popped across the street to the outside of the Dakota building, where he was shot.) Its main feature is a large flat circular black-and-white mosaic with, at its centre, the one-word title of what has now become Lennon’s signature song.
There are things I like about ‘Imagine’. That ghostly piano riff certainly packs a punch, but suffers from overuse through the rest of the track. And even a stony-hearted cynic like me can appreciate the sentiment of all the people living life in peace, above us only sky.
But the best-known failing of ‘Imagine’ is so fundamental as to sink the whole enterprise. The video (below) even illustrates it; in an English country mansion, at a white grand piano, dressed in designer clothes, all paid for by fans who bought his records, the millionaire John Lennon is indeed singing “Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can”. Lest you think he and Yoko had downsized in their move to New York, the Dakota is a fairly exclusive apartment building too. Unfortunately, this is how Lennon had positioned himself in the 1970s: penthouse preaching down to pavement. No-one expects him to give up his wealth and trappings for the sake of one line in one song, but a bit of self-awareness would have been nice.
