Culture John Lennon's "Imagine" versus Thrice's Lullaby

The Name of Love

Far Right Nutjob
The spat of critiques of John Lennon's "Imagine" surfacing in light of the ultra-cringy video released by a bunch of celebrities is something that I'd like to contribute to with my own take. I'd like to take the song "Imagine" and compare it to another song "Lullaby."

"Lullaby" was written by the emo/alternative rock singer Thrice. He's known for his use of heavy, distorted-sounding guitars and experimental style. But within the lyrics of his song, one finds much deeper and more spiritually meaningful attack on the song than either Sargon of Akkad or Ben Shapiro makes that I think is worth addressing in full.

So take a look at "Imagine."



Then take a look at "Lullaby."



What becomes apparent is that the lyrics of the latter are very clearly referencing the former. To Lennon's beckoning us to imagine a world where there's "Nothing to kill or die for," Thrice replies "What are we all living for/If nothing's worth dying for tonight?" Where Lennon asks us to "Imagine all the people living life in peace," Thrice replies that such dreams are "not enough" because he needs "comes in so much more." Both Lennon and Thrice call themselves "dreamers," but Thrice says Lennon's dream is "neither good nor true." Ouch.

The core of Thrice's critique of Lennon, I think, comes from his description of Lennon's song as a "lullaby" and a "pallid lie" ("pallid" meaning "dull"). Thrice argues that the world "Imagine" asks us to think of would be "A world where there's no more need to cry/But no joy or passion./It seems like the price is much too high." Eliminating the evils of the world the way Lennon asks would eliminate the good life too, leaving everything becoming lifeless and without purpose. Lennon's "Imagine" is something soothing and "well-intentioned," but that's not good enough for Thrice. What he desires is "love that's worth dying for."

This easily comports with the Thomist critique of modernity in general. The modernist only wants to "live for today," that is to say, only live for the material world, with no reference to transcendent reality. Even modern religious people like Ben Shapiro reject the notion of living for the transcendent; his argument for religion boils down to the idea that living the virtuous life leads to happiness. However, said short-sightedness isn't enough. The transcendent love of God, the "love that's worth dying for," is what moved the great civilizations of the past, and it is the fundamental purpose of man. The Modern West has lost its way. It has conflated reason with physical science, freedom with the satisfaction of desire, and what's true with what's fashionable. It's high time we returned to that and wake up from John Lennon's little nightmare.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Three comments... all of which will do nothing to substantially add to the discussion.

I remember the song from the crash and burn terrific car felony video game simulator Burnout (from which I've gleaned many a song from).

I was thinking of the Shawn Mullins 90's rock song Lullaby upon reading your title and was thinking... Oh you are going to need to write a really big post to make that a counter-response to John Lennon's Imagine.

Some people bring up the Beatles song Revolution as a counter to Imagine but that song lyrically seems to have a message of not wanting to indulge in violent change and the rather wise point of view that 'everything will be alright' which in general seems like a rather mature thing to state among it's other statements of moderation and self improvement.

But yeah Imagine and media like it is essentially the antithesis of meaning and even progress though it somewhat feels like an endgame for some versions of progressivism, especially in regards to 'Green' or 'Eco' style Leftism. It's most overtly emphasized in something like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. But it's not all that dark. The idea of living in a "sustainable" society bereft of such dangerous ideas like religion, ideology, ambition and property is a strong one for people without any anchors in regards to family, faith, patriotism, and well... ambition.

People who would just be happy being simple Brave New World style citizens who live in a world of idle pleasures, soma consumption and the pursuit of pleasure and are brainwashed from early on to just accept their basically meaningless lifestyles... where the only purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure and living in itself. I always felt a song like Imagine and a lot of Utopian style fantasies (especially in the world we live in today) are in pursuit of what I feel is a very left wing utopia dystopia in the vein of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

You combine the cravenness of megacorporations who will sell out anything in order to provide good PR, with media and public sector domination by liberal and increasingly left leaning personalities and ideology and the general decline of traditional values including things like family, faith and patriotism and sliding into the sort of benevolent stagnation and intellectually and emotionally vacant/void world like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World seems far more likely to me in the future. It's a world that seems to align with the values and dreams of John Lennon's Imagine pretty well.

Excellent, I made a huge response (for me anyways) and barely touched on the other song you mentioned. :p
 

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