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Wed 17 December 2025 17:46, UK
Most would agree that while John Lennon’s solo output impressive, neither he nor his former bandmates were able to live up to the output of The Beatles. That being said, there are a number of songs that come pretty close, including one that Lennon surprisingly felt was too “embarrassing” to be featured on his 1971 album Imagine.
Lennon’s most successful solo album was his now-iconic sophomore record. Heartily helped by the lead single ‘Imagine’, which quickly gathered pace as a timeless classic from the moment it was released, the record has become one of Lennon’s finest. Even in consideration of his Beatles output, the album showcases Lennon’s unique viewpoint on life perfectly.
This is the album that has become the clearest image of what John Lennon was all about. While there are certainly moments of reflection on a life littered with mistakes, misgivings and missteps, there are also nods to the shining past, hope for the glittering future and, of course, a deep and undying love for Yoko Ono. Truly, Imagine is John Lennon through and through. But there is one track that probably showcases Lennon most intently.
In All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon is asked about his classic track ‘Oh Yoko!’, which was released in 1971. Though the track is today one of Lennon’s most popular solo recordings – thanks, in part, to its inclusion in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore – John hated the idea of it being released as a single. “It’s a very popular track,” he explained, “But I was sort of shy and embarrassed and it didn’t sort of represent my image of myself as the tough, hard-biting rock’ n’ roller with the acid tongue.”
It says a lot about Lennon’s state of mind that he was so concerned about his public image during this time. “Everybody wanted it to be a single — I mean, the record company, the public — everybody,” he added. “But I just stopped it from being a single ’cause of that.” Lennon would later admit that his paranoia negatively impacted the success of Imagine. “[That decision] probably kept it in No. 2,” he said. “It never made No. 1. The Imagine album was No. 1, but the single wasn’t.”
John Lennon form the ‘Imagine’ video. (Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Because ‘Oh Yoko!’ was never released as a single, it failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The track didn’t chart in the UK either. The Imagine album, meanwhile, held the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 200 for one week, staying in the charts for 101 weeks altogether.
These days, ‘Oh Yoko!’ is one of Lennon’s most beloved solo efforts. The single’s latent success may well be thanks to the very thing Lennon had been scared of revealing: that he’d ditched the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for something more wholesome. “It’s a message to Yoko,” he once revealed about the song’s lyrics. “Because I couldn’t say it in real life. Maybe, I don’t know. I mean not real life! Records are real life, but it expresses in song.”
In the track, Lennon does not attempt to fulfil his role as the witty, sardonic social commentator. Instead, he strips away the complexity to leave us with something simple and heartfelt: a declaration of love and desire encapsulated in one simple refrain, “Oh Yoko.”
This duality of the track perfectly captures everything Lennon was. He was the genius child who found himself fistfighting on the streets in the name of rebellion. The loved-up family man who was left floundering by the temptation of being a pop star, only to find a new life with a new woman, a person who would entirely change everything about his life. The staunch Liverpudlian would turn his back on Britain to become a New York native, a true rock and roller who first found solace in the poetry of his pop music, proclaiming that what was real was all that really mattered, only to be ashamed of how real it would soon become.
Lennon was a walking quarrel that never seemed to subside or truly succeed. ‘Oh Yoko’ is a reminder of that battle. That’s not to say he was unhappy in this churn, as anrtist he seemed to enjoy the constant challenge of expressing himself truthfully, but underneath the charming lilt of this pop ditty, we find perhaps the honest essence of a young boy who lost his mother, only to find love again in a woman named Yoko Ono.
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