Imagining "Imagine" : John Lennon's gibberish-filled anthem.

Daily Standard ^ | Joel Engel

[Hillary's Folly]

Imagining "Imagine"
On the anniversary of John Lennon's death, it's worth taking a look at the gibberish in his beloved anthem.
by Joel Engel
12/08/2003 12:00:00 AM

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TODAY MARKS the 23rd anniversary of John Lennon's murder by a deranged fan, an act that at once revivified the ex-Beatle's career and established his 1971 song "Imagine" as the official utopian anthem. For millions of people around the world, the song's three minutes of bumper-sticker slogans describe the best of all possible worlds.

But before the faithful gather in memoriam to light candles and sing "Imagine" together, as they always do on the anniversary, a few of them might want to stop and consider that the lyrics are hardly a recipe for universal bliss. Chaos may be closer to the truth.

Put aside for a moment the inconvenient fact that John once admitted he'd written "All You Need Is Love" as irony. Or that, as a Beatle, his most spirited vocals may have been on the group's cover of "Money (That's What I Want)," which begins: The best things in life are free / But you can keep them for the birds and bees. Or that, on his solo debut album, recorded a year before "Imagine," he sang: I told you before, stay away from my door / Don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother . . . Let's just take the words of "Imagine" at face value.

Imagine there's no heaven . . . No hell below us . . . Imagine all the people living for today. Okay, let's imagine that; let's imagine six billion people who believe that flesh and blood is all there is; that once you shuffle

off this mortal coil, poof, you're history; that Hitler and Mother Teresa, for example, both met the same ultimate fate. Common sense suggests that such a world would produce a lot more Hitlers and a lot fewer Teresas, for the same reason that you get a lot more speeders / murderers / rapists / embezzlers when you eliminate laws, police, and punishment. Skeptics and atheists can say what they like about religion, but it's hard to deny that the fear of an afterlife where one will be judged has likely kept hundreds of millions from committing acts of aggression, if not outright horror. Nothing clears the conscience quite like a belief in eternal nothingness.

Imagine there's no countries . . . Nothing to kill or die for / No religion too / Imagine all the people / living life in peace. Hmmm. A single, borderless entity. No passports or customs inspectors rifling through your luggage. So far, so good. But wait a second. By what laws, rules, cultures, customs, and mores would we all be living? America's? Saudi Arabia's? Iceland's? Cuba's? Obviously, organizing billions of people from different traditions around a common mindset would require some serious coercion that progressives (many of whom will be out in force tonight with lighted candles) keep reminding us is not our prerogative--not even in countries with brutal dictators. And if there's nothing to kill or die for, then there's really nothing to live for, either--not equality, not liberty, not justice. It bears remembering that those young Englishmen who declared, in the 1930s, that they wouldn't fight for king and country did nothing for the cause of peace; quite the opposite. Lennon's own Oxford Pledge may warm the hearts of pacifists, but it's true music to a tyrant's ears.

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people, sharing all the world. . . . Let's begin implementing the third stanza's message by splitting up the royalties to this copyrighted song. Mrs. Lennon, I imagine, will be only too happy to share with the rest of us the proceeds from the semiannual checks she receives for its licensing. In fact, why don't we all participate in every revenue stream created by John's invaluable catalogue? No, even that's not good enough. John wants us all to own everything, so we're each entitled to an equal share of not only his catalogue but also every album, tape, and CD ever made--by every artist. True, in such an egalitarian world, there soon won't be any record stores from which to take home recorded merchandise, since the owners will have nothing left to sell and are anyway no longer the owners (we all are). Nor will there be anything to play or record the music on (assuming any artist still wants to record), since there'd be no one to build the equipment. Why should anyone volunteer to work in a factory making hard goods when everyone else is living in the poshest houses and eating at the finest restaurants for free? Of course, housing and food are going to be problems, too, unless someone volunteers to mine the quarries, hammer nails, plant corn, and catch salmon for the rest of

us. In John's imagined world, su casa es mi casa. So is su radicchio.

And the world will live as one. One what? Violent mess, apparently.

Imagine that.

Joel Engel is an author and journalist in Southern California.

[sarasota]

Let me guess at the answer: because of his conscience. It's all about the ego, not the higher power, for some.

[August West]

Just basic Grammar.

[BSunday]

Atheism with a capital "A" is a religion.

I've been hearing that for a number of years now, and I don't think it's a religion as much as it is an absence of religion. I think it's faulty to equate Atheism with Humanism. I don't know of any churches with "Church of Atheism" out front. I think we Christians will have to think more rationally and characterize things more fairly instead of coloring it with our pre-decided notions, if we want to be taken more seriously. IMO, "Atheism is a religion" is just one of those things someone said that everyone agreed with, without really thinking about it, just because it sounded like general acceptance of it would make life better for Christians in the political arena.

[LikeLight]

I don't endorse anything suggested in the song. But I am not bent out of shape by merely being asked to imagine them. What are you so afraid of?

What I am so afraid of is people like Stalin, Mao and Hitler who kill millions in the name of achieving the Utopian vision John Lennon sets before us in Imagine . . . large chunks of gullible humanity have bought into these lies before and it can happen again . . . a song like Imagine helps to subtly set the stage for slaughter . . .

[BSunday]

I personally can't enjoy the song because of the lyrics

Me too, although the melody is very pretty.

[stuartcr]

And being bad doesn't make people hitlers either. Hitlers get much more publicity than Theresas, I would venture to say that there have been many more people as good as Mother Theresa, in the world, than hitlers.

[Taliesan]

I am a Christian, but I don't think "religion" is all that keeps people from descending into barbarism.

There is a "natural" law, built into the heart of every person. I think the Creator built it there, and it is there whether you later in life become a Christian, an atheist, or a druid. Others think is evolved with us as we arose majestically from the bio soup. That's an argument for another thread.

I think a government with an official religion is hell on earth, and the only thing worse is a government officially atheist. They're both pretty bad. The only tolerable government is one that thinks it is too dumb to know.

[Revolting cat!]

Imagine no Hitlery, 
And no fans legion too!

[Stone Mountain]

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Imagining "Imagine" : John Lennon's gibberish-filled anthem. , sarasota wrote: Let me guess at the answer: because of his conscience. It's all about the ego, not the higher power, for some.

Yeah, but if conscience is enough to stop people from thosee bad acts, then what do we need religion for? His original premise was that man needed religion to stop us from being murderers, rapists, etc. But apparently he was able to make the decision not to murder or rape without the benefit of religion. If that's the case, I'm wondering why he doesn't think everyone else could do so as well...

[August West]

Morality, as passed onto me through religion. That's also the origin of my rights as a human - so, I ain't complaining.

[A Navy Vet]

You made a leap from my original statement by comparing deaths from organized religion to deaths by atheism. I have no arguement regarding the misery caused by atheist totalitarian regimes, but that's a different topic from what I was originally addressing.

My point wasn't that religious motives cause MORE suffering than atheist control motives, I'm just saying it's one more reason that people go to war and suffer. Case in point: 9/11 and the various regimes that we are fighting because of their radical religious fanatics...which is usually instigated by their organizational hierarchy. Believe in what you will, but organized religion is much to political for my tastes.

[LikeLight]

The only tolerable government is one that thinks it is too dumb to know.

Now that's a profound (and correct) philosophy brilliantly stated.

[dfwgator]

IMAGINE THERE'S NO LENNON..... Ah... thats better.

Mark David Chapman took care of that.

[sarasota]

I'll await his answer. The "water" is getting a little too muddy.

[Taliesan]

I agree. I have the same experience with alot (not all) pop music, because in pop art of all kinds the form and the content disconnect and can contradict each other.

Madonna had a song about ten years ago with an achingly sweet melody. I loved it. Then I listened to the words...they are addressed to a parting, and false, lover.

When once I understand the words, I can't pretend I don't. Some can, apparently; I can't, and don't want to be able to.

[Trampled by Lambs]

But morality, based upon religious principles, is the foundation for law across the world. Always has been.

Exactly. This is the world we live in. My point is that religion, in itself, does not stop people from being "bad" nor does it ensure that people will be "good". People will always do evil things, either because they can not control themselves or because they justify it using religion (hi there, Osama!) and imagining that god is on their side. Thus I can easily imagine that a world without religion (or one that had progressed beyond it) might not be that bad of a thing. (keyword: imagine)

..and yes, I believe in good and evil.. I just see them as human conditions and concepts, not as religious beings.

[August West]

Some animals rape e.g. Monkeys. Societal mores and laws all stem from religion.

[LikeLight]

Imagine a world in which good and evil co-exist . . . now imagine that evil attacks good . . . should good just stand there and let itself be overcome by evil? Should good embrace evil? Or should good resist evil?



Because that's the world we live in. And we face this decision every day.

[cars for sale]

I can see that and for me it always was biscuits and gravy

[Trampled by Lambs]

I am a Christian, but I don't think "religion" is all that keeps people from descending into barbarism. There is a "natural" law, built into the heart of every person. I think the Creator built it there, and it is there whether you later in life become a Christian, an atheist, or a druid. Others think is evolved with us as we arose majestically from the bio soup. That's an argument for another thread.

I think a government with an official religion is hell on earth, and the only thing worse is a government officially atheist. They're both pretty bad. The only tolerable government is one that thinks it is too dumb to know.

Very good. You and I are in complete agreement except that I think that this "natural law" is just built in to most people and not put there by a god.

But then, I have no way of knowing that you may very well be right which is why I call myself an agnostic rather than athiest.