Today, September 9th, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s internationally acclaimed ‘Imagine’ celebrates its 50th anniversary complete with a global party.
In 1971 with the help of his wife Yoko, who co-produced the record, the late Beatles legend released the iconic song, album, and a film by the same name. And exactly five decades since ‘Imagine’ was first released, to celebrate the milestone Yoko and her son Sean Ono Lennon – as well as the estate of John Lennon and Universal Music Group – will host a global party.
Speaking about the iconic track, Yoko said: “John and I were both artists and we were living together, so we inspired each other. The song ‘Imagine’ embodied what we believed together at the time. John and I met – he comes from the West and I come from the East – and still we are together. We have this oneness and ‘the whole world would eventually become one’ is the sense that we will all be very happy together. All these instructions are for people for how to spend eternity, because we have lots of time.”
Among the worldwide events marking the song’s anniversary is a watch party for the 1971 film ‘Imagine’, which was one of the first full-length conceptual music movies which contains all compositions from John’s ‘Imagine’ full length as well as four songs from Yokos ‘FLY’ LP.
Under the supervision of Yoko, in 2018 the film was completely reassembled in HD from the original 16mm negative reels, cleaned, and digitally restored frame-by-frame with the audio completely remixed.
The watch party will begin at 7:30pm BST on September 9, and people can tune in either online, or in person at participating venues for free.
Capitol Records and the Universal Music Group will release a limited collector’s edition pressing of ‘Imagine’ as a double album on white vinyl on September 10. The unique and expanded edition, ‘Imagine – The Ultimate Mixes & Out-takes’, will include the original ‘Imagine’ demo alongside a host of outtakes that demonstrate the writing and recording process evolution of the songs. And, to celebrate John Lennon’s birthday, on October 9 a three-dimensional Dolby Atmos collection of mixes and full-length Stereo versions of the content in ‘Imagine – The Ultimate Collection’ will be made available on streaming services.
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Author: Brad LeBeau
Photo: travelmag.com