Day 3847 - "Imagine" by John Lennon - 12.01.21

John Lennon's "Imagine" was the record for today. I wrote the following for my friends.

I haven't listened to this album in a long while. It was nice to revisit this morning. This is one of the great John Lennon records for sure. Of course the title track is amazing and iconic. There have been many occasions in the past where this song has brought me to tears because of its beauty and message. Back in 1988 I went and saw the John Lennon documentary "Imagine: John Lennon" and I do remember tearing up watching that documentary and hearing this song. I was way, way, way into John at that time. "Crippled Inside" is a cool track. It stood out to me more than usual this past weekend when i was listening to it. "Jealous Guy" is one of my all time favorites from John. I literally woke up with that song in my head this morning. "It's So Hard" is okay. "I Don't Want To Be A Soldier Mama" is quite a powerful song. It also sounds big. I really got into the groove of this one this morning. "Gimme Some Truth" is another powerful and angry song. This song is punk rock in my opinion. It may not be the fast power chords of punk, but the attitude certainly feels punk. This is a song that I grow to love more and more. "Oh My Love" is a pretty song. "How Do You Sleep" is another angry song. Part of me likes when John is in angry mode. I think he can pull it off well. However, I must say that I don't really like it when he and Paul fight. Part of what I liked about "Get Back" the documentary was that it showed that even while those two were getting on each others nerves and there were tensions, there were times when they were amazing together. Seeing them write and create together was magic. Seeing them play music together and have fun together was amazing and I guess I'd rather remember that more than the anger and the fighting. So I am torn on this song. It is a good song, but I don't know that I want to listen to it the way I would "Imagine" or "Jealous Guy" or even "Gimme Some Truth." "How?" is another track I really love. This was on the soundtrack to the "Imagine" documentary. That soundtrack was the first collection of John Lennon songs that I owned. I listened to that tape to death back in the day. So I have listened to this song so many times. I do remember thinking back in the day that there was something different about the production of this song and in hindsight knowing more about the production of the song, I thought there was a certain level of cheese to the song. I think that quality I was reacting to was the Phil Spector factor. I think I was reacting to the strings and that sort of soft 70s sound. Now, I don't mind that aspect so much. "Oh Yoko!" is just a fun pop love song. My feelings on Yoko go up and down. I have to say when watching the "Get Back" documentary this past weekend, I was really annoyed by her constant silent presence. And then when you did hear her it was doing that screeching thing that she does. Sometimes I find her annoying or sometimes I find her a really interesting artist and other times I find her quite sweet in her love of John. No matter how I feel about Yoko I can't deny that John truly loved her and I love the joy in the song. As much as I like the angry John, I love the "in Love" John and this song has it in spades. This could be my favorite song on the whole record.

This is something I saw today.