[Vision2020] Forty-eight years ago today (October 11, 1971)

[Tom Hansen]



Courtesy of History at:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-lennon-yoko-ono-imagine-released?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2019-1011-10112019&om_rid=5b2de1b62cf02ee03360af7fdb18f191bd4d6e9c5ea1abaf4247b3b6d1a52533&om_mid=769705923&kx_EmailCampaignID=36642&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2019-1011-10112019&kx_EmailRecipientID=5b2de1b62cf02ee03360af7fdb18f191bd4d6e9c5ea1abaf4247b3b6d1a52533

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1971 
October 11 
John Lennon’s "Imagine" is released
October 11, 1971 sees the release of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” one of the most influential songs of the 20 century.
 
Lennon began writing the song while still a member of the Beatles, at a time when the band had achieved unprecedented popularity but struggled to cope with their new reality. The song’s idealistic, utopian lyrics were heavily influenced by Lennon’s wife, conceptual artist Yoko Ono. He would later assert that the “lyric and concept” were “straight out of Grapefruit,” a book of poetry by Ono, and she officially received a joint writing credit in 2017.
 
A little over a year after the Beatles broke up, Lennon recorded “Imagine” in a single session at his and Ono’s country estate, Tittenhurst Park, with producer Phil Spector. Unlike other Lennon releases from that era, such as “Give Peace a Chance,” “Power to the People,” and “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” the song did not contain an overt political message. Nonetheless, lines such as “Imagine all the people/ sharing all the world” embodied a radical utopian vision as well as the desire of Lennon and many others for an end to the Vietnam War and a return to the optimistic humanism that had defined much of the previous decade.
 
The song and its eponymous album were a massive success, ultimately the most commercially and critically successful of Lennon’s solo catalogue. Particularly in light of Lennon’s assassination in 1980, “Imagine” has become associated with both idealism and struggle. Since 2006, it has been played immediately before the dropping of the Times Square Ball on New Year’s Eve in New York City, and it was included in the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics as well as the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. The word “Imagine” is the only text to appear on the Strawberry Fields memorial to Lennon in Central Park, and Liverpool’s John Lennon International Airport uses as its motto a lyric from the song, “Above us, only sky.”

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“Imagine” by John Lennon
http://www.tomandrodna.com/MoscowCares/Songs/John_Lennon/Imagine.mp3

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... Aha-ah...
 
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...
 
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
 
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...
 
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 live as one.

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho


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