With the recent release of a deluxe box set of John Lennon’s Imagine album, it was perhaps predictable that something would appear here. I have several favourite songs on this album, but the most constant go-to song for me through the ages has always been Gimme Some Truth.
The title track was such an obvious opener for this album, but Gimme Some Truth could easily have fit that bill as well. Indeed, it ended up opening side two on the vinyl. I have always loved the immediate impact of it. The song has no intro – it just dives straight into the main chords and the lyrics from the first beat. It is the most direct song on the album in every sense. It is in your face, telling you exactly what it’s all about without using imagery or symbolism. The title says it all, really. Nothing about the song is beating about the bush, nor should it. The song fittingly delivers the same honest directness that it is calling out for.
Lennon would write several politically-themed protest songs around this time, from Give Peace A Chance to Power To the People to Instant Karma. Gimme Some Truth is another one, also very much of this time, and one of his most extrovert – if not outright angry – protest songs. The song contains various political references emerging from the time it was written, during the latter years of the Vietnam War.
Like so many of the songs that would make up the Imagine album, this song was not a new one – at least musically. Lennon said at the time “I started it a year or two ago – probably in India. We wrote a lot there. It was an old lick that I had around a long time, but I again changed the lyrics.” Other songs on the album were in the exact same boat – Jealous Guy started out in India as a song called Child of Nature (and Beatle recordings of the early version exists), but that one also got brand new lyrics in time for its inclusion on an album.
We know that Gimme Some Truth was attempted by The Beatles as early as January 1969 during their Get Back sessions. This eventually evolved into the Let It Be album. Unofficial recordings from those sessions include the group performing several songs that would eventually go onto the members’ solo recordings, and they feature a few early performances of Gimme Some Truth. Of that, Lennon simply said “It didn’t get much attention [by The Beatles] so it became a personal track instead.”
The lyrics of Gimme Some Truth would express Lennon’s frustration with deceptive politicians (“short-haired yellow-bellied sons of Tricky Dicky”), with hypocrisy, and with chauvinism (“tight-lipped condescending mommy’s little chauvinists”). The song encapsulates some widely held feelings of the time, when many people were participating in protest rallies against their governments.
No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope
I’m sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mamas little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now
With this song, Lennon continued the lyrical writing style that he had started a few years prior – to be as direct as possible. Of this, Lennon said: “I started with Mother [Plastic Ono Band, 1970] onwards. Trying to shave off all imagery, pretensions of poetry, illusions of grandeur. I didn’t want to write any of that. Just say what it is, simple English, make it rhyme, and put a backbeat on it and express yourself as simple and straightforwardly as possible. As they say, northern people are blunt, right?”
In his later years, Lennon reflected on this period with no small amount of chilling foreshadowing: “I dabbled in so-called politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt maybe than a genuine concern. More out of guilt for being rich and thinking that maybe perhaps love and peace isn’t enough. That to have a go and get shot or something or get punched in the face to prove I’m one of the people. OK. So that, you can put that down to the Tariq Ali, Abbie Hoffman, Rubin period. I was doing it almost against my instincts. Not that I didn’t believe in love and peace, but still it was getting near the line where it was becoming not quite love and peace, and it was becoming that ordinary thing called ‘rally’. And it was partly out of guilt, I think, and not knowing the right thing to do.”
The band nailed the basic track on their fourth take. The new deluxe box set offers many glimpses of the work in progress, and as heard in the so-called ‘Element Mixes’ the combination of a harpsicord sound from the electrical piano and John’s cyclical guitar chords creates a distinctive backdrop for the overdubs made later.
We also hear complete studio audio, dialogue and all, from the recording of the final vocal track and hear John singing to the limit with a croak in his voice – a tradition started as early as 1963 when The Beatles recorded Twist And Shout. He is clearly keen to complete the vocal before all his voice is spent, and after an impatient outburst joked to the cameraman Nic Knowland “I hope you’re getting the delicacies of recording over there, Nic.”
As mentioned, George Harrison was present on much of the Imagine sessions. Amongst other things, he provided a stinging slide guitar to Gimme Some Truth. The song itself is biting, and Harrison more than delivers on that end as well – but for some reason, he was not happy with his own contribution. Lennon was more pleased: “George does a sharp solo with his steel finger. He’s not too proud of it, but I like it.”
Lennon would often look back on earlier works harshly, but he seemed to still enjoy the feel of Gimme Some Truth nearly ten years later. “I like the track because it comes across well and sounds good… yes, I like the sound of it. The guitars are good and the voice sounds nice, and you know, it says whatever it says well.”
Phil Spector’s original mix features generous (and characteristic) amounts of echo. The new deluxe box set offers an ‘Ultimate Mix’ by Paul Hicks which removes a lot of those elements and brings the sound closer to the raw take. This really is very effective, and suitably sharpens the bite of this angry rocker.
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