“Imagine all the people living life in peace. 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”
As well as being a founder of the Beatles, John Lennon’s individual skill was his ability to combine technological, instrumental and lyrical experiments (and his experiments with musical form) into recordings that were successful artistically and commercially.
“My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.”
John Lennon had this ability to transform what was personal into something universal (and vice versa), “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” (Beautiful Boy) .......can apply to us all. The essence of his songs are simultaneously humanistic and transcendent and that is why they endure 40 years after his death.
Throughout John Lennon’s music, there is an emphasis on living in peace and in the present moment, “Imagine all the people living for today” (Imagine)
“Now I am older, The more that I see the less that I know for sure, Now I am older, The future is brighter and now is the hour” (Borrowed Time)
It is hard to chose one over another to feature but to finish off the festive season, here is So this is Christmas (with French subtitles and images) and Imagine in French and the original language version in English Imagine
“Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away”.
