55 Years Ago Today: John Lennon Released No. 1 Album Featuring 'Best Song I've Ever Written'

John Lennon released his second solo album, Imagine, on Sept. 9, 1971. It became his first solo album to reach No. 1.

By late October, the album had pulled off a rare transatlantic feat. It topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K. at the same time.

Billboard called Lennon "the real British Dylan" in its review, per uDiscover Music.  The title track became one of Lennon's most enduring songs. He later called it his best work.

"Imagine is the best song I've ever written," Lennon told writer David Sheff in 1980, per MusicRadar. "It's almost like a prayer."

The song's origins, though, involved more collaboration than Lennon first let on. The song's title traces back to a poem in Lennon's wife Yoko Ono's 1964 book, Grapefruit. The poem "Cloud Piece" included the line "imagine the clouds dripping."

Lennon borrowed that imagery directly for his own lyrics. For years, though, he never publicly credited Ono for the connection.

That changed in a 1980 interview with BBC Radio 1's Andy Peebles, per MusicRadar. Lennon admitted the song should carry both their names.

"A lot of it, the lyric and the concept, came from Yoko," he admitted.  "But in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit, her book.

Source: uk.news.yahoo.com/Paolo Songco

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