Matthew Krouse
CD OFTHEWEEK
I must have been 10. A difficult age to decide what you want when mother offers you a gift. I chose a Meccano set, my older sister demanded a copy of John Lennon’s album Imagine. By the time I turned 11 I was already bored with the Meccano, but somehow I have never tired of Lennon’s masterpiece – and for nearly 30 years it’s come and gone inside my head.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Lennon’s death and so there’s obviously got to be some focus on who he was and what he did. Last month saw the release of a new documentary called Gimme Some Truth, culled from Lennon and Yoko Ono’s personal home movies, soon to be released on DVD. And now the world can revel in a digital remix of Imagine (EMI), that classic of pop classics.
The track listing remains the same as the original, so there are no jolting surprises, only the remote and nostalgic echo of Lennon who struck an uncanny balance between anger and naivety. Only an absolute dreamer could say that to imagine a world without countries would be an easy thing to do.