Dearest Rachel –
I’m pretty sure that, once upon a New Year’s Rockin’ Eve of yore, when we actually watched those sorts of things live on the television rather than on some stream across the internet, you and I saw, just before the ball began its minute-long decent to the roof of the Flatiron Building, what has apparently become the new “Auld Lang Syne” insofar as it’s become a routine part of the holiday festivities: a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by a singer of the day (and I use the term loosely, as I don’t remember who it was we saw back then, and this year’s guest hardly fit that description; but I’m getting ahead of myself).
I honestly don’t know if I hate it more just for its lyrics, or for the fact that its tune is so hauntingly, achingly beautiful that you overlook the words the first few times you hear it (which I guess comes back to the lyrics in any event). John Lennon was a brilliant musician and poet, yes, but when you think about this song, it’s just appalling (apologies, Sir Paul – for what it’s worth, the pun isn’t entirely intentional) that this song has become so popular, to the point of becoming a cultural wish for any given new year.
Heck, the song has even been sung in churches, for crying out loud – and you know I speak the truth, as you and I were down visiting your folks when their church had a visiting singer (from Romania, if I remember correctly – although he might have been there to study music at Western, despite it not exactly being known for its music program, as I recall) who performed the song. I’m pretty sure I asked you (and them) about it, as it struck me as singularly inappropriate for the setting, even as I acknowledged the beauty of the tune itself.
To be sure, I was already well acquainted with the song before hearing it at your folks’ church; indeed, I recognized it from the first few notes even then. Before he opened his mouth to sing, I was already thinking “He can’t be planning to sing that song, can he?” But sure enough, he was.
Look, I get that there are some parts of Lennon’s dream that sound downright noble. The elimination of war and greed and hunger could all be considered worthy goals for humanity to reach one day. But the way he spells out how it should be done absolutely spoils it for me. Right from the first line, he establishes who he thinks the villain of existence truly is: religion (which begs the question; why would you ever play such a song in a church? Don’t you realize that the lyrics describe you believers as the enemy, the ones standing in the way of his glorious utopia?). There’s no heaven or hell, and it’s silly to think otherwise. Get rid of religions, he claims, with their arguments over minutia that aren’t real to begin with (and let’s not get started on the concept of ‘jihad’ and the like), and we could eliminate almost all the wars of history – and the future. It all sounds so simple.
But as H. L. Mencken once put it, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple… and wrong.”
Set aside the wholesale dismissal of a Deity or afterlife (and the despair I should be feeling with regard to you, for example, if I believed like him), and move on to the second stanza. “Nothing to kill or die for…” that sounds appealing, doesn’t it? Get rid of any reason to do so, and killing (and apparently, death itself) will be a thing of the past, right? Well, let’s consider; I’ll go along with the “nothing to kill for” part of the dream, but “nothing to die for”? I don’t know; if you have nothing you believe in strongly enough to stake your life on, what do you have? “Nothing to die for” can just as easily be seen as “nothing to live for.” This ersatz “utopia” essentially eliminates purpose.
Sure, you could argue that a lot of us don’t find our purpose anyway – in which case, what have they lost between real life and the dream of possibilities Lennon envisions? The irony is that, in his vision, no one has any purpose, while as we are, many of us find ours… in the same religion that he so disdains. In a choice between the impossible and the possible, why would anyone choose the life that offers no chance at a fulfilling life? Even an irreligious man – if he’s a betting one (thank you, Blaise Pascal!) – will place his money on the world in which the idea of God, and the worship of Him, exists, because there’s the possibility of an infinite payoff (and no real loss in being wrong, as his fate in a godless cosmos would be no different than the nonbeliever, but he would have spent his days at least thinking he had meaning in his life, while the atheist would not have. There is literally no advantage to being right in that scenario, once both were overcome by the Ultimate Meaninglessness of eternity).
I’m sorry, John, this dream of yours isn’t just unrealistic; it’s a nightmare. And please, don’t deign to lecture us about having no possessions, either: “I wonder if you can,” you sang, as you plunked those lovely notes on a million-dollar piano. What a smug, arrogant jerk.
At least, the fellow you and I watched so many New Years ago, honey, had the self-awareness to rewrite that line ever so slightly as to read “I wonder if I can,” thereby acknowledging that he was as incapable of letting go of his stuff as any of his listeners. It was a refreshing touch of honesty amid all the unctuous fantasizing inherent in the rest of the song’s lyrics – and by adding that slight adjustment to Lennon’s words, the singer made it seem more genuine, like he really meant what he said there, since it was a deliberate choice on his part to put things as he did.
This year, there was no such modification to the original lyrics that I noticed. I did notice it being sung by an old man who, as it turns out, is only a few years younger than my dad – take that how you will. Certainly not this year’s fresh face of pop music (although, let’s acknowledge that those folks, making thousands of dollars per ticket at various arena venues as they are, would consider performing in Times Square to be both beneath them and a cut in pay. They’re relevant enough without having to bother with something like this for the sake of publicity), or any year in recent memory. Then again, he is a year younger than Lennon would be, if not for Mark Chapman – as it is, he gets to be forever young in the popular imagination, not unlike yourself, although I doubt he walks among the stars that you do.
Either way, I wonder how much time he has to imagine the possibility of such a world, and whether he would want to live in it. Odds are, he’s not considered the ramifications of such a world, any more than the typical revelers on the streets below. Of course, the chances of it coming to fruition are as remote as they ever were, which even John admitted back in the day. For my part, I rather hope they stay that way.
Anyway, I’ve got to get on with my real life for now, honey. Keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 