A collection of remixed solo songs by John Lennon, Gimme Some Truth was released on what would have been the former Beatle’s 80th birthday.
Gimme Some Truth was issued on five physical formats, plus digital download and on streaming services. Each of the formats contain newly-remixed audio, and are collectively known as the Ultimate Collection series.The new mixes were made by Paul Hicks with assistance from engineer Sam Gannon. Hicks previously remixed Lennon’s Imagine for its 2018 reissue. New and restored transfers of the original multitrack tapes were used, and the remixes were made with vintage analogue equipment and effects at Los Angeles’ Henson Recording Studios, and mastered in analogue by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios.
This was not the first Lennon compilation titled Gimme Some Truth. A 2010 compilation of the same name contained 72 songs spread across four CDs. Although those songs were not remixed, the two releases share a broadly similar tracklisting – only six songs on the 2020 collection were not on the earlier release: ‘Angela’, a live version of ‘Come Together’, ‘I Know (I Know)’, ‘Angel Baby’, ‘Dear Yoko’, and ‘Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him’.
Artwork
The cover of Gimme Some Truth was a monochrome shot of Lennon taken in the Apple offices in November 1969, the day he returned his MBE to the Queen.
The original image contained both Lennon and Yoko Ono, although she was airbrushed out of the new version.
The artwork for Gimme Some Truth, plus the CD and LP booklets and other typographical art was designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, the graphic designer who worked on David Bowie’s albums Heathen, Reality, The Next Day, Blackstar, the Nothing Has Changed compilation, and the live album Glastonbury 2000.
Does the new or 2018 “Gimme Some Truth” vinyl versions of the albums contain a digital download?