John North Editor & Publisher

ìImagine no possessions/I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger/A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people/Sharing the world.î ó Lyrics to ìImagineî
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John Lennonís song ìImagine,î which has achieved near-anthem status, keeps cropping up on my radar screen.

ìImagine,î recorded by Lennon in 1971 and produced by the now-notorious Phil Spector, is widely considered one of the greatest songs of all time, based on a number of surveys.

However, as Paul Harvey is prone to say, ìAnd now for the rest of the story.... î

Two of the most recent references to ìImagineî I have spotted appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times ó Gina Phillipsí Aug. 4 column headlined ìImagining Lennonís brotherhood of manî and a Sept. 23 photograph depicting a celebration of International Peace Day and Constitution Day by the students at Evergreen Community Charter School in Asheville.

Predictably, Phillips further immortalizes the myth of the stellar John Lennon and talks about his piano on which he (supposedly) wrote ìImagineî that has been touring the United States. She termed the songís lyrics ìone of the most poignant comments on world peace and healing ever fashioned by man.î

As for Evergreenís gala, the Citizen-Times photo caption noted that the children ìheld hands and closed their eyes and imagined the world as they hoped it could be.î

While Iím all for idealism, Lennonís disconnect between ìImagineî and his real life immediately causes me to harken to Henry David Thoreauís advice: ìIf you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundation under them.î

In the ultimate in hypocrisy,† Lennon sings ìimagine no possessionsî and ìa brotherhood of man,î But he exemplified materialism and spitefulness run amok.

A lifelong pack rat, the exorbitantly wealthy Lennon devoted an entire climate-controlled room in his luxury Manhattan apartment to a collection of expensive fur coats. Moreover, Lennon eventually could not even bear to sit in a room with the other members of the Beatles to record music. After the bandís breakup, Lennon never stopped sniping at his former best friend and band co-founder Paul McCartney.

Indeed, Elvis Costello satirized Lennon in the song ìThe Other Side of Summerî with the line: ìWas it a millionaire who said ëImagine no possessions?íî

Contrary to Phillipsí romanticized assertion, the song was written, not on the mythic piano, but on the back of a hotel bill on an airplane, according to several sources.

I agree with those critics who have described Lennonís lyrics as proposing ìnaive anarcho-communismî and ìa completely impractical proposition put forth by a man far removed from reality.î The song certainly describes a world that Lennon didnít inhabit in real life.

Ironically, Lennon used the master-and-disciple style in ìImagineî and, unimaginatively, commanded his listeners to change themselves in order to change the world ó a trite message that still constitutes the mantra of the New Age movement.

The dark side of Lennonís legacy includes his propensity to make grandiloquent statements and issue lofty challenges. Because he detached himseff from everyday realities and instead dwelt in his imaginary world, Lennon tended to be arrogant, eccentric and overconfident in his beliefs and abilities.

Despite widespread ridicule, Lennon probably deserves at least some praise for exhibiting strength of character to be true to himself and to promulgate his ideals. To his credit, he once noted, ìWe are willing to become the worldís clowns if it helps spread the word of peace.î

However, Lennon was prone to one-dimensional sloganeering, uttering one maudlin clichÈ after another.
ìëImagineí was a critical and popular success,î which, Lennon biographer Albert Goldman noted, ìdoesnít speak well for the tastes of either the public or the reviewers.î

Warts and all, I still admire Lennon for his musical abilities with the Beatles, but consider his inability to practice the preposterous philosophy that he preached as exemplifying the hypocrisy in his stature as a pop-culture figure. Lennon seemed to believe he had all the answers.

That the song ìImagineî remains so admired, to me, shows the appeal of naive sloganeering with simplistic answers that holds sway over the less sexy, but practical reality of changing the world, which requires critical thinking and a never-ending quest for truth to put solid foundations under oneís castles of ideals.
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John North, publisher and editor of the Daily Planet, may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .