Imagine (album) | Page 5 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

i’ve spent today and yesterday listening to imagine over and over. for the most part, i like this album. i like it a lot more than john’s previous one plastic ono band (recap: i thought plastic ono band was great, but too depressing for my taste.)

the three songs i love the most are jealous guy, crippled inside and oh yoko. imagine and how do you sleep are also important, so i’ll give them longer thoughts as well. but first, short reviews of the other 5 songs.

It’s So Hard – it’s just pure blues rock and it’s really cool, gets me bobbing my head as i listen to it. love the sax and strings juxaposition.

i don’t wanna be a soldier mama- more blues rock, and it reminds me of the later track how do you sleep at bits.

gimme some truth- more blues rock and i’m loving it. john is putting so much power and feelings into this and it feels like any moment, john’s gonna stop playing the song and is gonna just start screaming the lyrics into the microphone with a few curse words mixed in.

oh my love- this is a more soft introspective love song which i usually expect from john (unless he’s doing a heavy blues rock thing) and i like this kind of stuff from john.

how- looking at the tracklisting, i really expected this to follow up how do you sleep. like he’s continuing the question from the last song. but instead he’s just crying for help. “how can i feel something if i just don’t know how to feel?” that line gets me. it’s a really sweet song. it’s depressing, but sweet. most of us are lost in this world not sure of who we are and what we are doing. and someone saying that they’re going through that too makes this song really comforting.

—————————————–

-jealous guy

jealous guy is a beautiful song, i’ve loved it for a long time before i picked up the album. i understand how he feels. he’s not just sorry about how he made the person he’s singing about feel (which i think he’s singing about cynthia but i could be wrong) but i think when he realized that he put her in pain, he felt guilt and pain at the realization. i could just be projecting my own situations onto that, but that’s kinda how i interpret. and to top it off, his pain caused her pain which also makes it hard do deal with. realizing your suffering took others down with you isn’t fun.

-crippled inside

when this song starts out, there’s a guitar playing softly but rickety at the same time. which is a nice transition from the first track. and the country tone makes it like a depressing (yet still upbeat) version of ringo’s first song Don’t Pass Me By . and at bits you could even sing some of that song’s lyrics over this one. but again, this song is very depressing. the upbeatness to it makes it feel disjointed but in a good way,

-oh yoko!

so, i’m gonna admit that i have a bias against yoko. when i read the name, i thought it was gonna be some crap i would not like at all. but i hear it, and it’s just a sweet love song. like something i’d expect from paul but as written by john. and it’s wonderful and sweet and upbeat and i love it.

-imagine

this song, i always compared to star trek. i can bet he wasn’t thinking of star trek at all, but it’s where my mind went. in the futuristic world of star trek they’ve reached post-scarcity and they abolished currency within their society, they also are a one world government and borders are basically non-existant on earth. there’s no squabbles over “my god is bigger than your god”, all the religions co-exist peacefully (which is what john meant when he said “and no religion too” but it’s hard to say “and no fighting over religion” in the rhythm of the song.) star trek is a good show, and imagine is a good song.

-how do you sleep?

i saved this one for last. my paul-bias is gonna get in the way of this, but let’s push forward. it starts with the sound of instruments playing at random and tuning up, so it kinda reminded me of the start of pepper. which makes that first line sharper. paul is my favourite beatle, i love paul to death, so this song makes me sick to my stomach. it’s the sharpest sounding blues rock john’s ever played, and to top it off, george is right there on his guitar. i bet this cut like a knife when john heard it. i know paul put his little digs at john in ram, but this is way more obvious and heavy hitting than pauls was. honestly, it makes me feel sick to my stomach just hearing it. they were like brothers. i know the breakup was rough, but jeez this is too much.

—————————————————————————————————–

all in all, a lot of good tracks on this album and a lot of psychedelic blues rock for the bulk of it. loved it, but how do you sleep kinda sours it for me.

next up on my list is  a couple singles and then wings’ wild life. can’t wait.

could’ve been talking about every relationship he had been in overall not just cyn and yoko. there are interviews where he had talked about some moments with cyn and the way he described how he felt in those moments was a lot like in the song.