Imagine (song) - Inspiration and Lyrics

Inspiration and Lyrics

Several poems from Yoko Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit inspired Lennon to write the lyrics for "Imagine"—in particular, one Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original Imagine LP titled "Cloud Piece", which reads, "Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in." Lennon later said the composition "should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song. A lot of it—the lyric and the concept—came from Yoko, but in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit." When asked about the song's meaning during a December 1980 interview with David Sheff for Playboy magazine, Lennon told Sheff that Dick Gregory had given he and Ono a Christian prayer book, which helped inspire in Lennon what he described as:

The concept of positive prayer ... If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing—then it can be true ... the World Church called me once and asked, "Can we use the lyrics to 'Imagine' and just change it to 'Imagine one religion'? That showed they didn't understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea."

With the combined influence of "Cloud Piece" and the prayer book given to him by Gregory, Lennon wrote what author John Blaney described as "a humanistic paean for the people." Blaney wrote, "Lennon contends that global harmony is within our reach, but only if we reject the mechanisms of social control that restrict human potential." In the opinion of Blaney, with "Imagine", Lennon attempted to raise people's awareness of their interaction with the institutions that affect their lives. Its lyrics ask the listener to abandon three of humanity's most cherished concepts: religion, nationhood, and possessions.

However, Lennon's lyrics describe only hypothetical possibilities, offering no practical solutions, lyrics that are at times nebulous and contradictory, asking the listener to abandon systems while encouraging a system similar to communism. Critics have indicated the hypocrisy in his encouragement of listeners to imagine living their lives without possessions: Lennon, the millionaire rock star living in a mansion. Others argue that Lennon intended the song's lyrics to inspire listeners to imagine if the world could live without possessions, not as an explicit call to give them up. In 1981, former Beatle Ringo Starr defended the song's lyrics during an interview with Barbara Walters, stating: " said 'imagine', that's all. Just imagine it." Blaney commented: "Lennon knew he had nothing concrete to offer, so instead he offers a dream, a concept to be built upon."

Lennon stated: "'Imagine', which says: 'Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,' is virtually the Communist manifesto, even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement." He told NME: "There is no real Communist state in the world; you must realize that. The Socialism I speak about ... not the way some daft Russian might do it, or the Chinese might do it. That might suit them. Us, we should have a nice ... British Socialism." Blaney described Lennon as "more than a little confused", and the song's lyrical position as isolationist, in contradiction with the "global oneness" they would seem to endorse. Blaney described the song as "riddled with contradictions. Its hymn-like setting sits uncomfortably alongside its author's plea for us to envision a world without religion." Authors Ben Urish and Ken Bielen wrote: "the listener is, in a sense, deceived into absorbing the song's message." They describe Lennon's "dream world" without a heaven or hell as a call to "make the best world we can here and now, since this is all this is or will be." In the opinion of Urish and Bielen, "because we are asked merely to imagine—to play a 'what if' game, Lennon can escape the harshest criticisms".

Ono described the lyrical statement of "Imagine" as "just what John believed: that we are all one country, one world, one people." Rolling Stone described its lyrics as "22 lines of graceful, plain-spoken faith in the power of a world, united in purpose, to repair and change itself."