John Lennon’s “Imagine” is a piece of self-indulgent, smug, soporific, fluff, says Francis Leach. And those are its good points.

Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas

This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

Brace yourself, this is not going to be easy.

We are fast approaching the 50th birthday of a Baby Boomer sacred moment. Yes, John Lennon’s “Imagine” is about to turn 50.

The album first saw the light of day in September 1971, amidst the enduring horrors of the Vietnam War, in the wake of the brutal slaying of students by the National Guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970, the Pakistani genocide of Bengalis in what is now known as Bangladesh, and the Troubles exploding into vivid horror in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, John was holed up living the life a reclusive Lord of the Manor at his Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, England, sitting at his Steinway piano, whacked out on heavy duty gear, and trying to capture the zeitgeist.

Boomers treat this song as an article of faith, a protest anthem Magna Carta. Be warned, we are in for an avalanche of prosperity nostalgia, as the children of the ‘60s get all misty eyed about this piece of Hallmark Greeting card sentimentality that sounds like Neil Sedaka necked a couple of valium, pressed into vinyl.

If anything, it’s already begun.

Just a few weeks back, ABC radio’s breakfast host, Fran Kelly, excitedly told her audience that she had a treat for them later in the program, that she was going to play them “Imagine” in anticipation of the upcoming anniversary.

I nearly sent my bowl of Weet-Bix flying across the room as I dived for the radio to turn it off, like a batter rounding third base and heading for home plate, trying to beat the throw from the outfield.

So let me be the miserable Gen-Xer the world needs in moments like these, and burst that Boomer bubble.

“Imagine” is a piece of self-indulgent, smug, soporific, fluff. It is, in fact, the most overplayed and overrated song of all time.

As a consequence of this heresy, I know I might need to seek witness protection from irate, ageing white guys who cling to their Mojo subscriptions and bore people stupid at dinner parties debating whether the Walrus actually was Paul, but it’s a price I’m prepared to pay.

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There are a number of reasons “Imagine” wins the brown medal for the song you never want to hear again in your life.

First and foremost, it’s just so … wet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Beatles and Lennon fan, with a record collection to show for it. Of all of those records, Lennon’s solo debut, “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band” stands tallest amongst these giants.

Released in December 1970, “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band” was the Beatle stripped bare. It is a stark, confronting, desolate, frightening scream, as Lennon deconstructs his Beatles persona (“God”), mourns the mother he never really had (“Mother”) , stares unblinkingly at his loneliness (“Isolation”), bitterly mocks his class status (“Working Class Hero”) and proclaims “the dream is over”.

All this, and it ends with a nightmarish nursery rhyme called “My Mummy’s Dead”.

This record remains Lennon’s towering achievement, an album that literally reeks of the pain and desperation of a man who feels trapped by his own mythology and is desperately trying to find a way out.

Yet, less than nine months later, lost in a world of indulgence and bathing in an ocean of rock star cliches – the drug habit, the country estate, the Rolls Royce – Lennon falls back into being everybody’s protest poster boy.

Not a mop-top this time, but uber-hippy, with his grab bag of disingenuous slogans like, “imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can.”

Yes, John, millions could, because they lived in poverty, neglect and under the threat of war and violence, and they didn’t need to have some zonked-out rock star throwing a pity party for them so he could do a bit of poverty tourism, thanks.

Don’t let the Beatle Boomer in your life off the hook here, either. “Imagine” is the John Lennon they’ve cultivated for their own narrative. Most of them would run scared from the room if someone dropped the needle down on a copy of “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band”, because it’s all a bit too real.

As John also sang – “gimme some truth – and the truth is “Imagine” is John Lennon shirking it.