Sifting through Imagine Lyrics
May 21st, 2008 by zania
I am not American so I do not have the dubious pleasure of being able to watch American Idol, but it is hard to avoid the hype around it when the latest ‘news’ covers it in great detail. So yeah, I know that David Archuleta has just won and that one of the songs he sang was John Lennon’s classic - Imagine. Now I love Imagine. It is one of my favourite songs of all time and yes, I do know all the lyrics.
But I was interested to see what other people thought of them. After all John Lennon wrote these words back in the late 60’s. I still think they are relevant today, but what do other people think? So I searched the title on the net and had a look.
Well, most people were just posting the lyrics. I guess it gave them a blog post to do without much effort. But I found one very interesting post. This is it:
Imagine A Mormons Favorite Song? (This Could Save Your Marriage)
And then you can casually point out that ‘Imagine,’ the big finale song for David Archuleta tonight, is a hippie rant against God, religion, and freedom, blaming the problems of the world on religious belief and economic freedom …
Interesting… I just had to take a closer look.
I found a blog by a guy called Jeff Lindsay, a Chemical Engineer, an esteemed Inventor and a Business Innovations expert. He looks like an interesting and motivated guy. Oh yes, and as you may have guessed by his post, he practices the Mormon religion.
I am an atheist. However I have no argument with people who have faith. It’s just not for me (and no, it wouldn’t help me overcome my depression if I had a religious belief - my depression is chemical whether I like it or not). But I do not know an awful lot about the Mormon religion so the rest of my post is not going to be about that.
What interested me was the way Jeff Lindsay pulled apart John Lennon’s song and brought it down to a rant against God, religion and freedom and an approach to politics, which would culminate in:
a one-world socialist mega-government based on atheism with no morality other than living for today (and obeying your Marxist-Lennonist [sic or perhpas not...] masters).
Hmmm. Let’s look at Freedom. Jeff see’s freedom in terms of private property. I guess he would; he is an innovator, a finacial achiever. How else would he see it? Certainly not as freedom from the poverty and hunger which has been cast over large parts of the world by greedy, capitalist big business.
Believe it or not, we can agree. It’s just that I prefer Lennon’s view that ‘no possessions’ is infinitely preferable to the situation whereby most of the ‘possessions’ are held by the few. When Lennon was talking about possessions he was not talking about your latest computer game or your wide screen tv (as of course he would not have been in the late 60s). He was talking about the ‘free market’ and the evil done by those who have taken the free market theories and used them for their own gains.
Will your free market world really give you freedom to live when there is no energy left? When the environment has been messed up so much in search of profit that you fear for your children’s health and their future?
Okay, so it is suggested that Lennon was making ‘a hippie rant’ when he imagined a world with no war - no one fighting over countries and saying they were ‘theirs’. Perhaps Jeff Lindsay agreed with the invasion of Iraq. I will have a look later to see if I can find out. But I bet there are many many Iraqi citizens and American parents, grieving the deaths of their servicemen sons and daughters killed in Iraq, who agree with Lennon’s views on war and ‘possession of countries’ right now.
As to John Lennon’s views on religion, I agree whole heartedly. But in doing so, neither of us are talking about God (or any other name you wish to call the being you worship). Lennon was arguing that organised religion can be twisted by the powerful to cause wars. Again, I bet there are many people today who would still agree with that.
So, overall it’s been an interesting experience visiting Jeff Lindsay and his blog Mormanity. I hope he won’t mind me posting this link to him. Despite my disagreement with his post I still think he’s an interesting guy.
I might just pop in and read his thoughts again some time. Finding someone intelligent to debate with (even if he doesn’t know I am doing it) can cheer me up no end! 
COOL POST.
Imagine is probably my favorite song of all time too! It so freaking drives me out of my skin when all of the neo-conservatives that I have to work/associate with always think that people like Lennon are/were socialists/communists/(insert other derogatory term ending with ists here), when that is so far from the truth. Lennon just wanted every one to get along. The song is about tolerance. Yeah, perhaps war is just a way of life, but imagine if it wasn’t. Maybe mulsims/arabs/hindus/jews/anyone who is not a WASP, aren’t such bad people after all.
This reminds me of another thing that really freaks me out about some of my fellow American’s, they abso-freakin-lutely hate Al Gore, and most all outspoken envioronmentalists for that matter. They will argue till their face turns blue that Global Warming does not exist. My response is “Why the FLIP does it matter??? Lets just FLIPPIN pretend it does exist and try to clean the air and curb pollution!!!!, What the FLIP is wrong with CLEAN AIR??? No I’m sorry, why don’t you let me FLIPPIN fart in your face if you like dirty air so FLIPPIN much!!!”. Well, ok then.
Jeff probably did agree with the war in Irag. Most conservative americans still do. Although many will readily admit that they think its a quagmire or that they regret how it has gone down, they still think it was the right thing to do. There is some logic behind their argruments, but I’m a pacifist and so I don’t think that the solution fit the problem. I was content with the status quo at the time.
Oh, one minor correction, David Archuleta was the runner up. The other David won.
Glad you liked the post Brian,
and I agree with your sentiments.
The global warming debate… I am one of those who still thinks there may be more to global warming than is proposed by Al Gore and other environmentalists, but to tell you why would take another entry (which would be better written by my partner, who has the theory all worked out… ) But this does not mean that I think the environmentalist argument isn´t important. It is. Very important. We need to clean our act up, for many reasons.
As you say, why debate the issue? Why not just get on and do what we know we can do to make our air cleaner?
Whoops! on the winner of American Idol. The Spanish press got it wrong… it isn´t the first time