Imagine

INTRO:
Hello everyone and welcome to Explained in English. My name is Ki, and today I’m explaining the song Imagine by John Lennon.

Imagine is one of the most beautiful and I think, rightfully, well-known songs of the 1970s. John Lennon, like many artists in the 1970s, went solo. It means he broke with his previous band, which, of course, was the Beatles, and he started releasing albums on his own.

Imagine is the title track of his 1971 album, which means the song and the album have the same name; they’re both called Imagine . Both the song and the album invite us to imagine a different world; to picture what the world could be like, or what it would be like.

Imagine has the word image in it, like a picture. It’s like a kind of visual representation of a thought or an idea. And that’s what this song is asking us to do. It asks us to imagine a different future, a different present.

VERSE ONE:
The first line begins:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
Heaven is an idea that comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition. So, it’s an idea connected with religion. And heaven is generally thought of to be a place; a where your soul goes after death, after you die. Heaven is connected with the end of suffering and positive states like peace, joy, and love. Heaven is said to be a place where the concept of sin does not exist. In a sort of cliché idea of heaven , sometimes people imagine clouds, or angels, or golden streets. I can’t get into too much depth or detail about heaven here, but you need to know that John Lennon wants us to imagine or picture in our minds that there’s no heaven . He wants us to imagine that this place, even this idea of heaven , doesn’t exist. Imagine a world where the concept of heaven isn’t even a thing, it doesn’t even enter our minds. For many people like me who grew up in this tradition (the Christian tradition), it’s very difficult to imagine a world without heaven.

But, nevertheless, he says: it’s easy if you try. If something is easy , that means it’s simple, it’s done without effort. It’s not hard. So, imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try…

No hell below us
Above us only sky
Hell is like the opposite of heaven. It could be thought of as a place where your soul might go if you are a bad person, if you live in sin, if you reject the scriptures and teachings in holy books. Hell is associated with negative states like fear, suffering, pain, or hate. In a more cliché version of hell , people sometimes imagine fire, extreme temperatures like hot or extreme cold. So, John Lennon wants us to imagine that there’s no hell , that this place of eternal suffering and torture doesn’t exist. He says, no hell below us.

Below us in reference to a cliche idea of where hell is; a kind of stereotypical idea of hell as a place which is deep down under the earth, or deep underground; underneath our feet. Hell can often be thought of as a pit or a deep hole that you could fall into. So, he says: no hell below us, above us only sky.

Above us is the opposite of below. If you’re outside and you look up then you’re looking up above and you’ll see the sky . The sky is what you see when you look up, and you can often see clouds in the sky . Or, you can see birds or airplanes flying. When you look up at the sky in the daytime you can see the sun, or at nighttime you can often see the moon. So, just as hell is connected to the idea of being below or underneath us. Heaven is connected to the idea of the sky and being up above us. He says, above us only sky.

Only has the word, “one” inside of it; meaning one thing; only one thing. John Lennon wants us to abandon the idea of heaven being in the sky and hell being below us, deep underground. He wants us to just look up and see only the sky, only see what is. Or, below us and see only the ground, only what is.

What’s very curious about these lines is that if you believe in heaven and hell, then you’re imagining that they exist. They don’t actually exist if you’re living and you may never know if they’re real or not until you die. So, what he’s saying is that we’re already imagining that they exist. We’re already creating this fantastic imagery in our minds about these places that don’t have a reality. And he’s inviting us to imagine, just as much, that they don’t exist. And he says it should be easy, because you don’t actually have to imagine anything at all, you just have to open your eyes and look. What you see when you look up is the sky. What you see when you look down is your feet, and that’s it. So, verse one goes: 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
The end of the verse asks us to imagine all the people , everyone; all of humanity, living for today. Living comes from the verb to live . You can see the word life, in there. Living means to be in the process of enjoying your life, the experiences, and all of the perceptions that you have. And what you live for is like, the things that are important for you; the reasons for your existence; the purpose of your life. Some people live for money, it means they value money very much. Some people live for their families. They spend all of their time and energy and love on their families. Some people live for their work; they’re very dedicated to their job or their career. You can really live for anything. It’s what you value and how you choose to spend your energy.

Here he’s asking us to imagine a world where people are living for today , for now, for whatever is happening at this moment. Another way to say this is: don’t live for some future reward. Don’t live just so you can go to heaven, and don’t live just so you can stay away from hell, or avoid some kind of future punishment. Now is enough, today is enough, just live for today . And now we get to the second verse. It begins:

VERSE TWO:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
So now, he’s asking us to imagine that countries don’t exist. Countries are political, geographical, and sometimes cultural units. An example of a country is the United States of America, or Japan, or Egypt, or France, these are all countries. And he wants us to envision or imagine a world where these artificial, created units don’t exist.

And then he says: It isn’t hard to do. If something is hard to do then it’s very difficult. But he says it is not hard, it isn’t hard . So, that means it’s easy to do. So, can you imagine that your country doesn’t exist? Is that a hard thing for you to do? Or an easy thing for you to do? He says: Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do…

Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
We remember from the first verse that he asked us to imagine people living for today. However, that’s not the case. Many people are killing or dying for something. What he’s likely talking about here is war , and in a state of war, people often die for their country. Or, they kill others in order to fight for freedom, protect their nation or their homeland. People are willing to die for something, they’re willing to get killed for some reason. Also, people are okay with killing other people , or allowing other people to die for some reason . People are killed and people die for self-defence, for wealth, for power, for control. This has been a very big part of humanity. Such a long history of war, of killing and dying for this or that reason. John Lennon is asking us to imagine that there is nothing, “no thing”, that is worth going to war for. There isn’t anything that you should kill or die for . He’s asking us to imagine a complete reversal of the way humanity normally functions. And if imagining a world with nothing to kill or die for isn’t hard enough, he also asks us to picture a world with no religion too.

In the first verse he mentioned the words heaven and hell, and these are closely connected to religion . Some of the most well known religions in the world are Christianity, Judiasm, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduisim. However, there are many, many more. Religions generally combine principles of spirituality with rules, doctrines, regulations, often dogmatic ideas, saying that this way of life is the only way that’s true and absolute. I think John Lennon sees religion as one of the other causes for killing and dying or going to war. And, he wants us to imagine a world without these things; imagine a world with no religion too . Too, spelled t-o-o, at the end of this sentence means as well or also. So, he wants us to imagine a world with no religion as well. For example, I could say, “I really like this song”, and you could say, “I really like it too ”, which means I really like it as well. I also really like it! He ends the verse by saying…

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
If you live in peace then you live without doing any harm to others; without hurting anyone else. If you’re living in peace , then you’re calm, you’re living a life of tranquility, of serenity, and of non-violence towards others. If all the people of the world are living in peace , then that means there would be no war, an absence of conflict, and certainly nothing to kill or die for.

And now we get to the chorus of the song, which is a very interesting word, chorus , because it contains the word core , as in, the heart or the center of the song. The chorus begins:



CHORUS:

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
A dreamer is of course someone who dreams , who can easily imagine a different world, a different way of living. The ending -er, spelled e-r, as in “dreamer”, is used a lot in English. You can see it in words like sing er -- someone who sings, or writ er , -- someone who writes. Here we have a dreamer -- someone who dreams.

He writes, you may say I’m a dreamer. When he says you may say , he means, I know what you’re thinking . I know you’re thinking that I’m being unrealistic. I know you’re thinking that I’m just a dreamer and that this world is fine to imagine, but that it could never happen. I understand that you can say that, you may say that this is just a big dream, a big fantasy, But, I’m not the only one . This means he isn’t alone in dreaming these dreams. He’s not the only person. He’s not the only dreamer. There are other people out there just like him, hoping for the same things, the same future. So: 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
Here, he is expressing his hope , which is like his wish or his prayer. His strong desire is that someday you will join us. If you join with him and the other dreamers like him, then you’re becoming one with them; you’re uniting with them. You’re becoming part of a movement and it becomes stronger and stronger as more people join.

So, he hopes that someday you’ll join . Someday means, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday ; someday soon. Please join us.

And when everyone joins, he says: the world will be as one. The world is the whole planet, all of the planet Earth. So, when everyone joins, the world will be as if they were one unit, no longer separated into different countries or different religions. Instead, the world will be just one, only one.

And now we get to the final verse. Verse three. It starts:

VERSE THREE:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
Possessions. Possessions are things that you own. They could be objects like a house or a car. But, basically a possession is anything that you can say, “it’s mine”, not “yours”, “I’m the owner”. He asks us to imagine a world with no possessions , without possessions ; with no material ownership; without this idea of mine and yours, his and hers.

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. If you wonder about something, you’re thinking about it. You’re asking yourself the question. You stop, pause and consider, and you try and figure it out. So, I wonder , I wonder if you can imagine a world without possessions, without ownership? Can you do it? He’s asking if you can, if you’re able to imagine this world. Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can…

No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
What he’s saying is that without possessions, without ownership, problems like hunger and greed might go away. Hunger is what happens when you want to eat food. Generally we say that you feel “ hungry ” when you need to eat something. But, hunger as a world problem, is the state of many people across the planet not having enough food to eat. And so, they’re hungry. When many people around the planet are hungry , we say there’s a problem of hunger.

Greed is another big world problem. Greed means wanting more than you need. So, usually we say someone is greedy if they already have a lot, if they already have a lot of possessions, but they still want more and more for themselves. Some people are often greedy for money, but it could be for some other form of power or pleasure. So, greed is like an insatiable, neverending desire for more and more, even when you know other people don’t have enough.

John Lennon is inviting us to imagine a world where there’s no need for greed and no need for hunger. This means, imagine a world where these things aren’t a reality, when they aren’t happening. We live in a world where so few people have so much, and so many have so little, and John Lennon says that without possessions, there wouldn’t be this need for greed or hunger , they might cease to exist because there would be enough for everyone.

What would be created is essentially a brotherhood of man. A brotherhood is like a community. You can think of it as a lot of people together, treating one another as if they were siblings, as if they were brothers or sisters. It’s kind of tied to the idea of family. When you feel a deep connection and love for someone, you can say that they’re like a brother. If everyone feels this way then you could have a real brotherhood , a brotherhood of man. “ Man ” here means of all people, of all human beings, from all places and every background. He ends the verse by asking us to…

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
So, what’s currently true is that people possess different parts of the world. They are the owners of property, of objects. And, he’s asking us to envision , or imagine a world where people don’t do that, where instead they share ownership . There’s no true ownership, everyone shares the resources. If you need it, you use it. If I need it, I use it. We share the world and we create a community, a world community. Can you imagine this world? Can you imagine a world where people share instead of possess?

And the song finishes with one more round of the chorus (You my say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one), and ends saying:

I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one


INTERPRETATION:

It’s a really beautiful song. I think I’ve loved it from the first time that I heard it. However, I think I understand it a lot better now than when I was younger. I can see a lot of different elements in it. There’s definitely ideas of socialism and communism. It’s an incredibly optimistic and idealistic song. It really envisions a world that, to me, feels almost opposite of the one we live in. I can also see elements of eastern spirituality in this song. The three verses talk a lot about our attachments -- the things that we hold to be most valuable, that are most closely associated with our identities.

The first verse focuses on religion, talking about heaven and hell and dogma; not living for a reward in the future, or living to avoid punishment, but living in the now. Living just to be. The second verse talks about our politics, our countries , wars, killing and dying . He’s asking us to abandon that attachment, to not care so much about our idea of nation, or religion , or our traditional allegiances. He just wants us to live in peace.

The third verse mentions possessions and ownership. Possessions could be food, objects, material, profits, anything really that we feel we are the owner of. I think it’s very interesting that he mentioned that with the possessions , he wonders if we can imagine that they don’t exist. It’s true that in the history of humanity, we have seen periods of time where it seems like we’re not at war, where we’re living in peace, or where it seems like there isn’t very strong religion or spirituality, but, have we ever imagined a time where there were no possessions ? Where there was no ownership of objects and things?

I think John Lennon sees these three categories of attachments sort of blocking humanity’s progress, blocking us from a potentially beautiful world and beautiful future for humanity. However, there is optimism there. He says that we can not only imagine this but we can make it a reality. If each one of us does our parts to rid ourselves of these attachments, then we can create a much more peaceful world. If each of us does our part, then eventually we will be as one, and we’ll no longer have to dream and imagine. It can be our reality.

OUTRO:

Okay! Now is the time to go and listen to Imagine. I really hope that this explanation helps you appreciate the song all the more. Thank you and I’ll see you next time. Bye bye!

-Kiah