IMAGINE
1. Imagine – Probably John’s most famous song and one of the most famous songs ever actually. It conveys the message that people would get along better if there wasn’t any conflicts. It has a great piano sound and the his voice sounds good. The strings are nice throughout. Drums from Alan White are straight forward and don’t sound too bad. I’m petty and admit that it bothers me that John says to imagine there’s no heaven or religion. I know what he’s saying but that still bothers me. Oh well, moving on. It’s a good song, but I’ll be honest and just flat out say that I’m sick to death of it and rarely, if ever, listen to it. I’ve just heard it a million times and always change the channel or skip it if it comes on.
2. Crippled Inside – Starts off with a pretty cool electric guitar plucking and then goes into a nice beer barrel saloon type piano line with some crisp sounding drums. Slide guitar throughout. Country sounding slide guitar solo. George? Don’t know off the top of my head. I like the song and I’ll be honest and admit I really didn’t listen to the lyrics, but John’s voice sounds good. I like the beat and the song in general. Good one.
3. Jealous Guy – I think this is my favorite John solo song. I have always loved it. John sings this with a kind of draw that’s awesome. The piano sounds good again and I like the bass. The strings are a tad heavy, but they don’t bother me. The drums are muddy though. I guess you cant have everything. The whistling at the 2:10 mark is kind of blah, but the strings sound great here and the build up at 2:35 is incredible. What a song. Love, love, love it.
4. Its So Hard – Straight blues beat with a crappy sounding, distorted guitar to start us off. John’s voice has an effect on it throughout. I don’t care for the sax playing much. Sounds sloppy. I like the piano addition at the .32 mark. The synth at the 1:30 mark is wild. I actually like it here. The song in general isn’t that good to me, and there’s better blues to be heard if that’s your poison.
5. I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier Mama. I Don’t Want To Die – Some groovy piano playing with some slide guitar. Too much hi hat splashes. I don’t know. It feels like John is whining into the mike when he’s singing this. That’s probably his intent, but it gets on my nerves after awhile. Speaking of that, the song is way too long and doesn’t really do anything. At the 2:45 mark the high pitched sax comes in and reminds me of Yoko, so its not going to be a winner to my ears. I don’t care for this.
6. Gimme Some Truth – I kind of like the beat and music to this song, but John’s complaining kind of grates on me. Would have a been a perfect song for POB in my opinion. Sounds like George again on the guitar. Did he even play on this record? I’ll have to check. The production kind of took a step backwards on this song too. Muddy. I know that doesn’t bother some people, but it’s a big pet peeve for me. Overall, its an alright song that I can handle.
7. Oh My Love – A slow tune that has a decent guitar sound and some nice piano playing. It’s a nice enough song and its short, but its not something I would ever go back to or look for. Not much else to say really.
8. How Do You Sleep? – I like this one. I really dig the beginning with the strings warming up and so forth. I don’t care if he’s bashing Paul or not, but his voice sounds good here. The strings, guitar, and drums all sound pretty good. It drives and I like that. Another good slide guitar solo. Good song, but it might be a little long for some.
9. How? – String heavy song with John asking questions throughout. Drums are muddy again. The singing and lyrics are weak in some spots. Not my cup of tea. This is a typical John song. When I say that, I mean that it sounds like a half dozen of other tunes he put out. One of my criticism’s for Johns stuff is that a ton of his songs sounds the same to me. Maybe that’s just my ears though.
10. Oh Yoko – Nice toe tapper here. Refreshing to me because it’s a happy song if nothing else. The acoustic is cool and the constant off beat bass drum is cool. The piano playing is good as usual. John’s vocals are alright. He doesn’t do anything fancy, but it sounds good. Nice song, but its painfully long.
Well, I do have to admit that I actually enjoyed listening to this album. Its been a long time. The only word I can come up with to describe how much more I like this effort then POB is “INFINITE”. The overall production is better here and John just seemed to enjoy this one more. Not a lot of grudges if you get my drift. Decent effort. A ton of strings, but they never sounded out of place except for maybe 'How?'. I'm anxious for the next one.