It's not just you. In my World History class, last year, my teacher actually used it to compare with the Communist Manifesto, and we had to write an essay on whteher we thought it was a coincidence or was it written that way intentionally.

Communists by definition were not lonely

I never thought about it, but it makes sense.

I do believe he was a Marxist to a degree, it seems to vary depending on who you talk to.

I viewed the lyrics and could not see a correlation to the Manifesto. In those days he was heavily influenced by East Indian mysticism and find that this is what the song was talking about.

It is. He was the ultimate Beatnik.

Apparently it does to some people, but I see it more from a Zen POV. Just like the world can't be wrapped up by imaginary lines of longitude and latitude, Lennon talks of countries without imaginary lines dividing them. No religions too, etc. He could have been referring to the oneness of us all. Thinking that what we really are is, first of all, the whole of our body. And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment. Obviously a body requires air, and the air must be within a certain temperature range. The body also requires certain kinds of nutrition. So in order to occur the body must be on a mild and nutritive planet with just enough oxygen in the atmosphere spinning regularly around in a harmonious and rhythmical way near a certain kind of warm star. That arrangement is just as essential to the existence of my body as my heart, my lungs, and my brain. So to describe myself in a scientific way, I must also describe my surroundings, which is a clumsy way getting around to the realization that you are the entire universe. However we do not normally feel that way because we have constructed in thought an abstract idea of our self. Imagine if you will, that we really are just ONE...

I never thought of it, but there could be a link. I know I will get up the nose of many, but I have to say I never liked the song (I am a muso and singer myself). The lyrics are banal. If you want a good "peace" song, go back to the great songs of the Protest Era eg The Strangest Dream, made famous by Joan Baez, but sung below by John Denver at a protest rally in 1971. Or take "Universal Soldier" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. Now that is a peace song, with a real challenge, not just to "imagine" but to act for peace The protest singers sang a similar message, but they weren't armchair philosophers like Lennon. While he sat snorting coke in his luxury apartment, they were going to prison for their beliefs. That's what makes their lyrics believable. Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream words and music by Ed McCurdy Last night I had the strangest dream I'd ever dreamed before I dreamed the world had all agreed To put an end to war I dreamed I saw a mighty room Filled with women and men And the paper they were signing said They'd never fight again And when the paper was all signed And a million copies made They all joined hands and bowed their heads And grateful pray'rs were prayed And the people in the streets below Were dancing 'round and 'round While swords and guns and uniforms Were scattered on the ground Last night I had the strangest dream I'd never dreamed before I dreamed the world had all agreed To put an end to war. TRO-©1950,1951 & 1955 Almanac Music, Inc. New York, N.Y. Copyrights renewed Used by permission Universal Soldier by Buffy Sainte-Marie He’s 5 foot 2 and he’s 6 feet 4 And he fights with missiles and with spears He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17. And he’s been a soldier for a thousand years He’s a catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew. And he knows he shouldn’t kill And he knows he always will kill you for me my friend and me for you He’s fighting for Canada. He’s fighting for France. He’s fighting for the USA. And he’s fighting for the Russians. And he’s fighting for Japan And he thinks we’ll brought an end to war this way. He’s fighting for democracy, he’s fighting for the reds He says it’s for the peace of all. He’s the one, who must decide, who’s to live and who’s to die. And he never sees the writing on the walls. But without him, how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau? Without him Caesar would have stood alone He’s the one who gives his body as a weapon to the war. And without him all this killing can’t go on He’s the universal soldier And he really is the blame But his orders comes from far away no more. They come from him. And you and me. Oh, brothers can’t you see. This is not the way we put an end to war

It is just the traditional hippy-style "wouldn't it be nice if everybody was nice" philosophy. Which is present in just about every would-be saviour of the world's basic thinking: I would say it coincided pretty closely with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, for example. Where thing matter is the action pan for bringing this soppy perfect world into existence. Other than taking mind-altering drugs, John Lennon had no such plan. The Communists, on the other hand, had a detailed plan. Unfortunately, it was also a really truly crap plan, whuch could not possible work with human beings (or any other Darwinianly-evolved species). So yes, there is a fundamental do-goody-ness that that they, most religions, and most left or centre politicians share. But in term,s of actual planning, rather than pious hopes for a better world, they share nothing.

It is not you, it is John Lennon himself: "In the book Lennon in America, written by Geoffrey Giuliano, Lennon commented that the song was "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted." Lennon also described it as "virtually the Communist Manifesto"." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(song) "Lennon himself described "Imagine" as "virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I am not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement. . . . But because it is sugar-coated, it is accepted." Released as a single in the U.S. in the fall of '71, "Imagine" went to Number Three on Billboard's Top 100 chart. "Now I understand what you have to do," Lennon noted. "Put your political message across with a little honey." " Source and further information: http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/johnlennon/articles/story/5920167/imagine