Imagine by John Lennon

This piece is a song, by John Lennon, which is in the key of C major.

The overall structure of this piece is typical of pop songs, where there is a reapeat of the verses, a bridge before the next verse/chorus, and lastly the chorus. So in a sense, it goes like this. ABABABC.

The song starts which an intro which begins which an expansion of the Chord I C chord, as shown. The expansion from root position to the chordal 7th can be seen as a tonic expansion in terms of harmonic function, and then it progresses to the F chord, which is the chord IV. At the end of the intro, there is a chromatic passing note of the A# in the upper voice. This intro is basically the "theme" of this piece, and you can see it recurring throughout the verses. So basically the intro and verses comprises of the harmonic function progression of Tonic to pre dominant. The verses, in my opinion, forms period structures, comprising of an antecedent phrase and a consequent phrase. For example, from bars 3-4, "imagine there's no heaven" is an antecedent phrase to bars 5-6, "it's easy if you try."is the consequent phrase. Even more largely, the whole verse line from bars 3-6 could also be seens as an antecedent phrase to bars 7-10.

Then the song progresses to the bridge. Here, the dinstict feature that draws our attention to is the nice decending bass line as the chord progresses from chord IV to vi to ii7 and to ii2. The two notes, C and A, acts as a pedal in the upper chord voicing when the bass line decsends. The harmonic progression here is basically a Pre Dominant expansion which then goes into the dominant in page two, which continues the bridge.

Yup, here it is. As i was saying, we can see the harmonic progression from the predominant expansion to the dominant as seen here. Here, there is an expansion of the Dominant fuction where we have a Chord V in root position and a passing 64, which leads to the Chord V7. Note the voice leading of the progression? Nice stepwise ascent to the chordal 7 which prepares us for the Verse(Chord I) or the Chorus (Chord IV).

The chorus starts with a Chord IV, then progresses into a Chord V64, and to the Chord 1 tonic. Now, what we then see here is an interesting chromatic passing in the inner voice, from G to G# to A. Also, the upper voice of the Chord I goes downwards from the middle C to the B. B, being the 7th note in the C chord. (Notice he did not leap to the 7th? but somehow preparing it by approaching it by setpwise descent?) We can see this section (Chord I6-5 to III to III7) as passing from Chord I to chord IV, which the E maj chord as a passing chord, or a expansion of the tonic? So it then goes on to the chord V64, and reapeats itself for 2 more times before ending with the tonic Chord I6 C chord. Again, structure wise, we can kinda see that there is a period structure going on in the chorus, almost similar to the verse. This piece has a strong ending to it due to the progression from the dominant to the tonic, giving us a perfect cadence. (seems like Mr. Lennon knows his cadences.)

So, that's all for know, until i realise any mistakes and new stuff to comment on....so have fun analysing my anlaysis and i look forward to comments!

"To be good, is god, but you don't need god to be Good"- i think what this song is trying to say and i totally agree.