John Lennon faced the recording of Imagine, his second solo album, with the aim of returning to the top spot in the rankings. He was the only Beatle who hadn’t had a number one, so he sought to show himself as the successful composer he had been with his band, the greatest ever, without letting go of his activism. When he imagined a world without countries or religions, he never thought he had created a hymn for all humanity, a song that, 50 years after its release, is still so effective because many of the reasons that motivated to write it still hit the human race.Strawberry Fields Forever composer had started his solo career by singing for peace, but then messed with the heroine (Cold turkey). On his first solo album post Beatles, John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, he undressed his deepest feelings about his childhood traumas (Mother, My Mummy’s Dead) and his demons (Isolation, Remember), but also left strong statements Working class hero, God, I found out. Frustrated by the recent split of The Beatles-never forgave Paul McCartney for being ahead of him in announcing the group’s dissolution -, John did the primal therapy created by psychotherapist Arthur Janov based on the exteriorization of repressed anguish. Treatment influenced the rawness of the LP, in which the musician expressed his thoughts straight. As recorded in the Imagine (Blume, 2018), in which Yoko Ono compiled statements and material about the making of the self-titled disc, Lennon took a different approach to this second work: ′′ The first album was too real for people, so no one bought it. Nowadays, I understand what needs to be done: presenting the political message with a little honey “. Imagine was, for its creator, ′′ commercial but without concessions “.
