For their “last single” Now and Then, the remaining 2023 Beatles kept John Lennon’s chorus, but changed where it fell. This necessary “repair” meant losing some of Lennon’s most touching passages.
The Beatles have released a new track - using new technology to strip Lennon’s vocals out of an old demo casette tape. Will this be part of Beatles canon?
Released on September 9, 1971, the power of Imagine has not diluted. It is the song many turn to at times of crisis: from Neil Young after 9/11 to a pianist on the streets of Paris in 2015.
John Lennon’s Revolution was panned by the radical media as a ‘petty bourgeois cry of fear’ in 1968. Then, in 1987 it was claimed by Nike to be the controversial soundtrack of its most seminal advert.
Neil Sedaka’s song “The Immigrant” was a top hit in 1975, but today it seems even more relevant, as debates rage in the United States over immigration, repatriation and racism.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono visited Canada on a peace mission: They met with leaders and asked difficult questions, relevant today. How do we effectively protest against social injustices and war?
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne