Despite the concept of unity that Lennon touched on with David Sheff, the song was also inspired by the communist movement. Lennon later confirmed that the similarities between his ideals set out in the song and Communism were indeed deliberate: “‘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.”
The misunderstood meaning of iconic John Lennon song ‘Imagine’
John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ is arguably the most loved song of all time. The track captures Lennon crying out for a fairer world, and it epitomises the Beatle’s legacy within one collective effort. As the decades go on, ‘Imagine’ has morphed into a tragically appropriate tonic to whatever travesty is currently tearing the world apart and, in reality, the true meaning of the track has decayed.
‘Imagine’ is undisputedly Lennon’s most widely revered track from his post-Beatles career but, in truth, the song feels as though it no longer belongs to him due to the plethora of different ways it has been interpreted over the last half a century. The legacy of the song was most perfectly summarised by President Jimmy Carter, who noted: “In many countries around the world — my wife and I have visited about 125 countries — you hear John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ used almost equally with national anthems.”
The song is impossible to avoid and because it has become so deeply ingrained into the culture that the true meaning of the track has become lost. It’s now become the go-to song when it comes to grief or mourning; this is down to the tangible sense of hope that rings out from ‘Imagine’ and an overriding feeling that everything will eventually be okay. However, that’s not the initial message that Lennon intended the song to have.
How ‘Imagine’ took on this meaning can be traced back to a moment when Queen covered the track in tribute to Lennon the day after his death during their performance at Wembley Arena. Stevie Wonder then performed the number during the closing ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics, in tribute to the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Later, Neil Young delivered a blistering cover of the iconic track during the ‘9/11 Tribute to Heroes’ concert, and then in 2004, Madonna covered it during a benefit concert for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Fast forward again to 2015, following 90 music lovers lost their lives after attending an Eagles of Death Metal concert at The Bataclan in Paris, the song took on its most pertinent meaning. The day after the brutal killing, German pianist Davide Martello took a grand piano out to the street out in front of the venue to perform a tear-jerking instrumental version of ‘Imagine’, a moment which epitomised the sombre mood that united Paris following the attack.
Yet, in an interview with David Sheff for Playboy Magazine, shortly before his death in December 1980, Lennon shared that Dick Gregory had given him and Ono a Christian Prayer-book which had inspired him to write the track. “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 Beatle continued, “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 [me] they didn’t understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.”