ABSTRACT
In a recent BBC poll, John Lennon’s Imagine was voted ‘the song lyric of the twentieth century’. Immediately re-released by Parlophone, the 1971 mega-hit shot to the top of the charts once again, where it occupied the No. 1 slot at the time of the millennial transition. The eponymous album was subsequently reissued, in digitally remastered format, along with the usual paraphernalia of limited edition memorabilia —explanatory booklet, never-seen-before photographs, tie-in television programme about the making of the record, etc. What’s more, the piano on which Lennon composed his masterwork (complete with cigarette burns!) was put up for auction on the Internet, with an estimated reserve price of between $1.5 and $3 million.
