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.

[Stone Mountain]

We all know that the world of Imagine cannot exist as man currently exists. The Idea has lost.

That doesn't mean the idea has lost. Just that it isn't viable in today's times. If that counts as a loss for an idea, than any idea that expresses an ideal will lose when judged against reality. That, to me, doesn't mean the idea has lost.

The idea of Capitalism, Religion, Realist has however proved to work in reality.

Yes, but Lennon isn't talking about reality. That's why the song is called Imagine.

I think the only reason to even talk about it is parallel to discussing the comment by Chamberlain (Peace in our Time - appeasement of Evil). It was shown to be short sighted and wrong - yet it is still used today as a valid concept.

Again, Lennon's purpose was to write a song about an ideal. Not to provide a blueprint to run the world.

You may not see Imagine as anything but a song of a dreamer - but you would be surprise at the number of people who build their life philosophies on such trivial works. The number of Communist Congressmen should validate this point nicely.

I will grant you that people who build their life philosophies on nothing but rock songs have a huge problem. I don't see that as a problem with rock songs. I see that as a problem with stupid people.

[Stone Mountain]

That doesn't mean the idea has lost. Just that it isn't viable in today's times.

Or any other time, I should also mention...

[CyberCowboy777]

I see that as a problem with stupid people.

Which is why we discuss it. Some will learn in hearing us and the others we must know.

[CyberCowboy777]

I would not be bothered by the discussion unless it swerves into a discussion on banning the song!

[Stone Mountain]

I see that as a problem with stupid people. Which is why we discuss it. Some will learn in hearing us and the others we must know.

Not sure what the last part of this means. However, stupid people will always be stupid and always be influenced by something - to criticize Imagine because stupid people might misinterpret it doesn't seem like a valid criticism to me. Hey - look at how many people misinterpret the [Insert name of holy text here].

[CyberCowboy777]

The last part - Know thy enemy.

The song represents the dreams of a liberal (at least).

[.cnI redruM]

I'll try to set it's limit stop accordingly. Thanks.

[CyberCowboy777]

The 'others' are those that are awakened but not knowledgeable. In discussions like this "newbies" learn, even if not directly about the song - but philosophies.

[Stone Mountain]

I would not be bothered by the discussion unless it swerves into a discussion on banning the song!

I think I'm not bothered so much as surprised and amazed that this song bothers so many people on such an apparently deep level.

[CyberCowboy777]

Yeah.. not sure why so deeply - but I hate this song - like I hate Katie Couric.

[Trampled by Lambs]

Tough one to answer. For me, it just is. Its a good point but I don't buy it. It would take me a lot of thought and a full essay to answer it tough. Read through my other posts on this thread and maybe you will come closer to an answer.

Why do you have difficulty spelling the word "god"? Are you ashamed of your faith?

[Trampled by Lambs]

Yes, I do. There is right and wrong, good and evil. I just believe that they are human concepts rather than supernatural beings that influence us one way or another.

The "contract" is unsigned but valid. You are born into it. Those who break it eventually pay, one way or another. Hmm.. not always but often enough that those who reject the "contract" are still held in check. Otherwise we'd have been wiped off the planet long ago.

[Trampled by Lambs]

ack... though, not tough.

[TASMANIANRED]

Rome essentially subsumed much of what was Greek, the greeks spent a lot of time pondering what was right and moral and what was natural law, hence Plato. The ideas of self governance for city states was implemented here. Unfortunately they also considered anything non Greek as barbarians and as such worthy of conquer. Athenians had no problems killing Trojans eventhough today we would consider them to be of the same people, Pretty much NY going to war with Trenton.

Same thing applied to the Romans but the Greeks were non Roman so they had to be gotten rid of as well.
Neither culture despite how advanced they were in the arts,be it architecture or literature or government prevented them from slaughtering with bloody abandon when it came to anything perceived as other.

On the home front, the Romans raised butchery no new standards. The arena was the entertainment not only of the masses but of the elite as well. Blood lust was the mean not the exception and this was among very high cultures.

[stuartcr]

OK, thanks

[Zionist Conspirator]

Yes, I do. There is right and wrong, good and evil. I just believe that they are human concepts rather than supernatural beings that influence us one way or another.

Then as "human concepts" they are purely subjective hang-ups with no metaphysical associations whatsoever. That puts them on the same level as a million other things that mankind has changed its mind about over the years (slavery, discrimination, etc.), which means there's no reason for your "good and evil" to outlast changing cultural mores, popular vote, or whatever powers have the ability to force their wills on the population as a whole. And you're satisfied with this as your basis of "morality?"

The "contract" is unsigned but valid. You are born into it. Those who break it eventually pay, one way or another. Hmm.. not always but often enough that those who reject the "contract" are still held in check. Otherwise we'd have been wiped off the planet long ago.

The "contract" is a myth, the creation of rationalist philsophers of the "18th Century." And all you can do is to invoke police power to prevent all miscarriages of justice (you aren't falling back on "supernatural powers," are you?). But once again, what police power punishes can change with cultural/political mores, etc. If someone advocated decriminalizing murder how would you argue against it? With societal pragmatism? You surely wouldn't start falling back on metaphysical arguments, would you?

BTW, there are have been innumerable miscarriages of justice that have gone undetected over the millenia of human history. No way can your police (or whatever your "one way or another" entails) correct this. But then, since these rules are are merely subjective human hang-ups with no metaphysical reality, it doesn't really matter whether people pay or not, does it?

And why should you care if the human race were wiped off the earth? Would the random, meaningless, self-existent material universe give a darn?

[Trampled by Lambs]

Whew.. here we go again. But I'm home now so...

I'm gonna cheat and just refer to your text by paragraph number, starting with paragraph 1.

Yes, I am satisfied. Because the truly important things (to me, at least) are generally enforced. Every sane person knows that it's not a good thing to allow a person to run around lopping people's heads off with an axe.. or steal their property or rape them or beat them up or whatever. So society finds ways to put a stop to such things. Do they always succeed? Do people still get beat up or killed? Are there still thieves? Of course but by and large, in a successful society, such things are the exception not the rule. If "sins" like homosexuality, the worship of pagan gods or idols etc. are not enforced, that doesn't bother me. For example, I find homosexuality to be repugnant and against nature but hardly a crime in and of itself.

P2: No, I would not resort to metaphysical arguments. No sane society would decriminalize murder so the point is moot. And, of course bad things have happened. You seem to speak in absolutes. Society does it's best to keep such from happening. It matters whether people pay because if they did not then a larger number of people who "reject the contract" would feel free to act out their anti-social urges.

Hmm, I got a little lost there, paragraph-wise. But lastly, I care about the human race because I'm part of it. Except for certain exceptions, I rather like humans. I also think we're hard wired to perpetuate the species. I don't care what the random, meaningless, self-existent material universe thinks about it.

Thanks for forcing me to think out my arguments a little. However, I don't see much point in continuing this any further. Freepmail me if you like.

Wow, can you still see John Lennon back there somewhere? :)

[Trampled by Lambs]

Oh yeah, one more thing. Why do you always avoid spelling the word god? Seriously.

[GATOR NAVY]

It's basically a goofy song but I have fond memories of it. Singing it karaoke here in Japan has got me many free beers over the years, and in my pre-married days, it was a good way to pick up Japanese girls.

"Ooooo, sugoi..."

[Zionist Conspirator]

I think we have each stated our positions sufficiently and agree with you that there is little reason to continue our argument, except to note that you expect the State to enforce human hang-ups rather than decrees of the Creator. Yuck. That is one thing you apparently have in common with the late, unlamented Lennon (and with Thomas Jefferson, for that matter).

I do not spell out "G-d" out of reverence for one of the Divine Names.