Imagine, John Lennon
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
Yoo-hoo, ooh-ooh
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
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
Yoo-hoo, ooh-ooh
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
He said he was naive when he wrote this. I wouldn't look too deep into it. He saw people divided by religion, and by greed. It wasn't so much a call to communism as it was a call to peace and an end to greed. Greed which leads to poverty and oppression. Religion which leads to war.
I think a lot of people took his words and twisted the hell out of them, and he hated the song because of it.
This.
He’s on record admitting it was hippy spew.
I hate that it’s made it into the mainstream Christmas rotation this song of garbage
Walking it back to try and stay relevant
What he wrote was twisted into something he didn't mean, and he was naive to think a world like that could exist, anyway. It had NOTHING to do with communism. Why would he write, "Nothing to kill or die for" if he supported communism, which did nothing but kill millions upon millions of innocent people?
If we want to talk about musical influence on pop culture, why don't we look at all the hair bands of the 80s that tried to look like women?
I agree with you there. It's just that John Lennon was not advocating killing to get there. is song got twisted into something he never meant.
In my humble opinion, Paul McCartney is the real useful idiot. John was naive and idealistic. Paul is just a shill for the evil establishment.
At least you understand the meaning of Useful Idiot.
"Nothing to kill or die for"
Like I said, he said he was naive when he wrote it. That line just proves he wasn't a communist, because communism was killing a hell of a lot of people in the 60s.
I get it, some people hate Lennon, but trying to say this song is somehow responsible for the idiots of today is pretty naive itself.
Just as the OP is naive about 50 years:
"Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age 48 in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion."
(Didn't want to use the Rosenbergs as an example)