Hard to imagine

Spectator, The, Dec 18-Dec 25, 1999 by Henderson, Michael

Michael Henderson disagrees with George Michael about John Lennon's song

Round about now, as Santa loads up his sleigh, the papers tend to get het up about the one really weighty issue of the day: which hit will top the pop charts at Christmas. This year, when everybody is banging on about the millennium, such a signal honour is held to have an additional layer of significance. The song is supposed to tell us what sort of people we are as we enter a new century.

For those who care about these things, and evidently some people think of little else, the hot tip is 'Imagine' by John Lennon, who died 19 years ago this month. In the 28 years since it was written it has become an unofficial anthem for utopians of every stripe. Another, less charitable view is permissible. Apart from 'My Way', which is appalling in an obvious, laugh-outloud sort of way, 'Imagine' is the worst pop song ever written.

If James Joyce was right when he described sentimentality as 'unearned emotion', then 'Imagine' is the most sentimental song of all. It is a cloying, annoying dirge; an emotional hot-water bottle for the feeble-minded; a shameless parade of dishonesty by a man who embroidered fantasies for the credulous; the Me generation's very own Radetzky March. The only surprise is that it has not been adopted by New Labour - yet.

Bernard Levin, who saw through the follies of the Sixties as clearly as anybody, thought that Lennon was a gentle soul with a head full of harmless nonsense. He was being kind. 'Imagine' has done a great deal of harm, by encouraging the belief that the ills of the world can be overcome simply by closing one's eyes and wishing them away, and by urging people to submerge personal responsibility beneath a bundle of generalities.

One shouldn't be too hard on Lennon. After all, he wrote almost half of Rubber Soul and Revolver. This may not quite be like writing the whole of Winterreise or Kindertotenlieder, or even the words for Pal Joey, but it's a good effort. It helped, of course, that Paul McCartney's share was slightly more than half. Only a fool or a knave would deny that the Beatles gave immense pleasure to a grateful world.

When it came out in October 1971 'Imagine' enjoyed a certain reclame. At Foremarke Hall Preparatory School in Derbyshire it was the first record to be discussed by the Progressive Music Society (sec: M.R.P. Henderson, Mountbatten House). The problem is, that is the audience it suits best. There isn't a 12-year-old alive who doesn't feel he stands on the threshold of manhood, and 'Imagine' certainly helped us Common Entrance lads to grow an extra inch or two.

In retrospect it can be seen that 'Imagine' had been clearly signposted for five years. Ever since 'Tomorrow Never Knows', the last song on Revolver, with its absurd refrain of 'playing the game of existence to the end of the beginning', Lennon had been preparing the ground for this execrable lapse of taste. There was also that mawkish singalong, 'All You Need is Love', and, just as bad, 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', which sounds equally daft sober, or after a barrel load of ale.

By the time the Beatles splintered in 1970 Lennon had bequeathed another dreadful song, 'Across The Universe', with its trendy smattering of Hindi and promise of 'limitless, undying love'. Then came the first earnest solo offerings: 'Power To The People' and 'Give Peace A Chance', puffed up by the posturing so dear to well-heeled Sixties radicals, and 'Working Class Hero' (this, from a solidly middle-class lad brought up on cosy Menlove Avenue!).

After writing 'Imagine' Lennon moved to New York, the world capital of schmaltz, and maintained his losing run with 'Mind Games' and 'No. 9 Dream'. Buttressed by money, celebrity, narcotics and the unspeakable Yoko Ono, he had by now exchanged the messy business of real life for the illusion of dreams, though in his case they were never disturbing dreams but the comforting sort that bring to mind fluffy sheep.

So let's look closely at this man-child's never-never land, as he spelt it out.

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us, only sky.

This is nursery stuff, fit only for Jackanory. Whether or not one is religious in a Christian sense (and Lennon, brave chap, was keen to tell everybody he didn't think much of the faith he was brought up in), it isn't easy to imagine a world without a religious dimension, even in this age of unbelief

Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No need for hunger. A brotherhood of man.

Now this is interesting. One chap who certainly couldn't imagine a life without possessions was Jolly Jack Lennon. The same month that 'Imagine' was released he put his Weybridge mansion on the market for 175,000, which was a pretty penny in those days. As for a brotherhood of man well, let's just say that Beethoven put it rather better with his collaborator, that young -groover, Schiller.

Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do.

Nothing to kill or fight for. And no religion, too.