John Lennon's 'Imagine' Named 'Absolute Worst Rock Song' of All-Time

It has been played at memorials and vigils. It has been covered by thousands of artists. It is one of the most instantly recognizable songs ever recorded, a melody so familiar that most people can hum every note before the first word is sung. And according to one critic, it is the absolute worst song in rock history.

The song is John Lennon's "Imagine." And Vinyl District critic Michael H. Little says it's the "absolute worst" rock song in history.

'Imagine' by John Lennon Worst Rock Song of All-Time

Little's indictment of "Imagine" is not a contrarian exercise in trolling. It is a considered, specific critique of what he sees as the song's fundamental dishonesty. Quoting World War I-era writer and radical Randolph Bourne — "If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you don't have a head" — Little argues that Lennon, by the time he wrote "Imagine," had run out of head entirely.

"This vapid collection of brainless cliches," Little writes, "is not asking us to dream so much as it is asking us to "ignore the human condition. And to add insult to injury, Lennon insists it's a cinch."

The hypocrisy, Little argues, is the point. "Ask him to give his iconic white baby grand piano to the bum on the next block and he'd have squawked like a seagull denied a french fry."

The Other Side of 'Imagine'

None of this means the song has no value. "Imagine" has provided genuine comfort to millions of people at moments of grief, fear and uncertainty. Its melody is one of the most beautiful Lennon ever wrote. And the impulse behind it — however naively expressed — comes from a real place. Little himself acknowledges that cynics have hearts. They're what make them cynical.

But that, perhaps, is exactly what makes "Imagine" so frustrating to those who find it hollow. It is a great song dressed up as a great idea — and according to at least one critic, the distance between those two things is the entire problem.

Released in 1971, "Imagine" remains one of the best-selling singles in history. Whether that makes Little's argument more or less compelling is, as Lennon might say, up to you to decide.