The Beatles – Imagine 1972
After several months when all four Beatles released their own non-Beatles singles, they found that without the contributions of the others, their solo recordings were somehow incomplete.
John’s solo single Cold Turkey / Working Class Hero had a success with critics and journalists, but the BBC refused to play it, so it was a commercial failure.
Paul released Come And Get It/Teddy Boy, both strongly rejected by the others and as usual made lots of money. But he was not entirely happy as a solo artist.
George didn’t want to stay behind either, and released his own single – Hear Me Lord / Run Of The Mill.
Ringo tried his favourite country. As a long-time fan of the genre, he went to country music Mecca Nashville and recorded his own solo single Beacoup Of Blues/Coochy Coochy with local musicians. It has been successful in only a few southern states in the United States.
Later In the summer, John recorded and released another solo single, Woman Is The Nigger Of The World / Oh Yoko but nobody was really interested.
After that came another important meeting, at which they agreed that they really missed each other, musically and personally. So they met again in the Abbey Road studios and recorded another great album. The creativity sparked and they ´turned each other on´ again, as John said. They made a lot of good songs, had enough material for a double album, but in the end, they decided not to spoil the fans too much and released only a single LP, so plenty of great songs remained in the archives.
Side One:
- Imagine
- Dear Boy
- Wah-Wah
- Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
- Gimme Some Truth
- Beware Of Darkness
Side Two:
- Monkberry Moon Delight
- Back Off Boogaloo
- Let It Down
- Tomorrow
- Jealous Guy
- Back Seat Of My Car
I think it’s a very well-balanced album without a single weak spot and perosonally my favourite. But three songs really stand out for me.
The opening Imagine is a bit of a lefty agitation, where the capitalist criticizes capitalism, but at least he doesn’t force us to fight for it, just to imagine it. And it´s a beautiful melody.
Gimme Some Truth is a proper Lennon-McCartney song that I really would love to hear finished in a way it was rehearsed on Get Back sessions with Paul’s backing vocals.
In the case of Uncle Albert, well .. let´s assume John and George would be a bit grumpy, maybe they would try to mention the Saville Row meeting a few times, but Ringo would be thrilled, and later sales would have showed the fans were thrilled, too. And the double A-side single Imagine / Uncle Albert would became the most successful single in the 1970s.
Oh, and don´t worry. I know it may seem pity that a lot of good songs didn’t get on the record. I agree. Fortunately, later in 1978, when John will be hiding and baking bread at home, George will be producing Monty Python films and Ringo will began to establish himself as an actor, Paul will be offered to work on a reissue of Imagine with all the unreleased songs, creating the first Super Deluxe bonus LP in history.
Once again I’d be happy with this as a Beatles album but drop Wah-Wah for My Sweet Lord. Just wondering if this really was a Beatles album and My Sweet Lord was only a single would it now be on your version of the album ?
It would have to be. But I still don’t think My Sweet Lord could be a Beatles song – even though I put it on the Green Album. I’m pretty sure the others, especially John, would veto it. Just like Hear Me Lord, which George also had to release as a solo single in this universe. And maybe George Martin would noted similarities to He’s So Fine. Although I still don’t understand this lawsuit though, the chord progression is very common and it seems to me clearly coincidental.
Anyway, wait for six years, maybe it will be released on the 1978 Imagine Super Deluxe edition 🙂