Jimmy Carter Loves 1 John Lennon Song
President Jimmy Carter was asked to pick his favorite Beatles song, and he chose a song from John Lennon’s solo career. The former president discussed how much the tune in question affected audiences around the globe. John once said some listeners didn’t understand the tune’s message.
President Jimmy Carter likes a John Lennon song that’s against nationalism
During a 2007 interview with The News–Times, Carter was asked to name his favorite Beatles song. The song in question was not actually a Beatles tune, but it fits in with the band’s hippie image. “My favorite is ‘Imagine,'” he said. “When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places, in some of those nations, ‘Imagine’ has become a national anthem. If you go to Havana, for instance, you’ll see a statue of John Lennon.” Carter was referring to Lennon Park in Cuba.
Carter commented on the ubiquity of the song. “When we go to a folk performance or a symphony concert or to modern American music, they always play ‘Imagine,’ and it’s one of my favorites just personally,” he said. “If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll see that it’s against religion, it’s against national boundaries, it’s against nationalism, it’s against jingoism, but the impact it has on people is profound.”
The song was inspired by a prayer book
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked to discuss the origin of “Imagine.” “Dick Gregory gave Yoko and me a little kind of prayer book,” he replied. “It is in the Christian idiom, but you can apply it anywhere. It is the concept of positive prayer. If you want to get a car, get the car keys. Get it? ‘Imagine’ is saying that.”
John was referring to a concept known as manifesting or the law of attraction. John said that if we could imagine a world without religious strife, then it could come into being. Manifesting is a spiritual concept, so it’s odd that it appears in a song that’s essentially about secular communism.
John said another inspiration for the song was Yoko. In her experimental book Grapefruit, Yoko mentions imagination over and over. John said that, if he was comfortable with himself, he would have given Yoko a writing credit for the song. At the time he released “Imagine,” John was worried that he and Yoko were becoming too much of a celebrity package deal a la Sonny & Cher.
John Lennon didn’t make the message of ‘Imagine’ clear
The line in “Imagine” about a world with “no religion” proved to be controversial. The World Church asked John if they could change the line to be about “one religion.” He refused, feeling that The World Church had missed the point of his ballad.
However, The former Beatle revealed he wasn’t advocating for a secular world with “Imagine.” He simply wanted a world without religious sectarianism. If he had been a little more direct with his intentions, “Imagine” never would have caused any controversy! At the end of the day, “Imagine” is less of a call for the end of religion and more of a musical version of one of those “Coexist” bumper stickers.
“Imagine” is brilliant and Carter recognizes that.
