“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, you” 

“Imagine” (1971), by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

The truth is, I’ve always hated this song. It felt naive and spoken from such a place of privilege and ignorance of the arc of history that it deserved to be reviled or ignored. 

How, possibly, could these icons of pop culture have pretended to offer a solution to the problems of oppression, war, poverty and injustice by presenting us with a song of three stanzas separated by two choruses?

When I first heard it in 1971 at the age of 17 and until quite recently, it seemed fatally simplistic, saccharine and out of touch with the complexities that I knew existed in the world. 

Lately, I feel a constant pain in my chest from the moment when I wake in the morning and my mind clears to focus on the state of the world, until exhaustion sends me into a fitful sleep at night. It’s an ache born of the events I see from all corners of the globe when I open The New York Times app on my phone or read an email from a friend or colleague that I can do nothing to change. 

It’s exacerbated by futile online debates and incendiary posts that fly in every venue. I want to rage “Your outrage will not fix this and will only incite more outrage.”

John Lennon wanted us to imagine that there were no more countries? There are more countries than ever and more “reasons” for them to despise one another with more corpses, mutilated bodies and dismembered families created every day.  

My anxiousness only increases when I reflect that John Lennon, self-proclaimed troubadour for peace, singer of “Give peace a chance,” was murdered in my own city. 

This should not have surprised me. Growing up in the 1960s, it almost seemed normal to absorb the gunning down of leaders. I was in third grade when John Kennedy was assassinated and eighth grade when MLK and RFK met their untimely deaths. The Vietnam War and its tally of deaths on both sides were nightly news items as I went through high school.  Lennon had the audacity to call for a brotherhood of man? Where could this possibly come from?

I do not need to recite the ravages of recent history to make my point. Conflicts become more frequent, never find resolution, and political differences escalate beyond anyone’s ability to recalibrate for a common good. 

So, why have I changed my mind about this song and why do I feel it needs to be written on every available surface so it is constantly on everyone’s lips?

It is often said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have gotten to that point. The song still may be naive and ignorant of history but if I have to stake a position, I’d rather be on the side of the dreamers. 

Charles Rubin divides his time between Hoboken, NJ and Lake Huntington, NY.