John Lennon "imagine"

Imagine a world without violence; a world without suffering; a world without hate. These words streamed through John Lennon’s mind as he sat at his plain, brown, Steinway upright piano composing his most influential song, “Imagine”. This same piano was bought by George Micheal years after Lennon’s assassination. Since the purchase, Micheal’s has decided to spread the dreams of Lennon through a tour he calls the Piano Peace Project. The tour will stop at many sites of American tragedy, one being the location of the assassination of JFK. Through a discussion of the lyrics of Lennon’s song “Imagine”, and the iconic status similarities shared among Lennon and JFK, we will begin to discover why Micheal’s decision to link these two men, who seem so different at first glance, together through this tour was such a monumental, accomplishment.

The song “Imagine” is about acknowledging suffering and about hope for the future.

“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"

The song is not simply about peace, or equality; this song goes much deeper than that. The lyrics actually depict how perplexing human nature really is. Beauty and hostility have proved throughout our nations history to be more alike than one would have thought. Properly expressed, beauty shines through. Overtly expressed, war erupts. Yet, just exactly how does the same root produce such opposite effects? What went wrong? I don’t think anyone will ever have a solution to that problem. John Lennon understood this, hence the very title of his song “Imagine”. He knew the world could never live in complete harmony, yet he still believed in the right to dream.

Lennon was not the only one who believed in dreaming, JFK was quoted in saying, “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on”. JFK didn’t quite understand the importance of the statement he was making at the time, but looking back this quote means much more than I think even he would have expected. Two men,