Astonishingly pretentious, preachy nonsense with very little substance. One of the greatest advertisements for the way marketing and presentation can elevate mediocre product. In this case investing a bit of extremely amateurish and hypocritical poetry with a degree of persuasive power and influence it does not warrant by virtue of its, largely nonsensical, message.
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
The first verse is the most dated, parochial and childish. Heaven and hell are
byproducts of the human imagination. It is harder to imagine that they could exist (in any capacity which does not involve invocations supernatural nonsense) than it is to accept the self-evident fact that they do not. Heaven in particular is notoriously difficult to 'imagine,' (there's no shortage of fictional hells, but fictional heavens are generally only invoked in satire because the notion is inherently fatuous) but 'imagining,' why a supposedly loving and forgiving God would consign his 'children,' to eternal torment for any reason is also quite the head-scratcher.
Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Aaa haa
The only way I can imagine this being possible would be in something like the 'Utopian-Dystopia,' of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. A society in which all the big decisions and long-term plans are out of our hands, and we don't care because we're too busy wallowing in consumerism, mindless sex and suppressing any troublesome existential concerns with chemical assistance. Hell I sincerely believe we're well on our way to something like that, and this sort of mindless Utopianism is part of the problem.
Imagine there's no countries
I can't really. I mean yes I can imagine this in the same way I can imaging being a billionaire and having a super-model wife. What I can't imagine is a practical course of action for bringing about such a result. Moreover I'm also aware that the reality need not actually be as Utopian as the fantasy. A global hegemony in the form of a dystopian regime with no external threats to moderate its policies, and from which there is no escape is hardly an unthinkable development, and seems just as credible to be as any Roddenberry-esque fantasy of global harmony and universal uplift.
Of course it's easy to imagine a Utopia. The difficulty is in creating one that we all agree is in fact Utopian without first either silencing or outright liquidating everyone who doesn't.
Nothing to kill or die for
I literally can't actually even imagine this.
The cognitive biases which underlie religion are an ineradicable reality. It is a cause. Not a symptom. In fact one could argue that channeling this irrationality toward largely metaphysical and spiritual concerns - at least in a culture where there is a clear and robust separation of church and state - is potentially safer than the sort of 'secular religions,' which people cleave to in their absence.
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
Yoo hoo
I can imagine a post-scarcity society in which there is no material cause for conflict, but the human capacity for conflict is ineradicable if only because we will always retain the capacity to punch, kick and bite.
You may say I'm a dreamer
I can think of many things to call you.
There has always been an abundance of stupid people.
I hope someday you'll join us
Brain function does decrease with age so I'll get there eventually if I live long enough.
And the world will be as one
I'd rather live in a cohesive plurality.
Now here's probably my biggest beef with this song. What sort of lunatic would actually think the abolition of personal possessions is a good thing? Even Marxists believe people have a right to the products of their labor. In fact the traditional concept of abolishing, 'private property,' in the Marxist sense is, in their view, about protecting that right with private property referring specifically to the means by which those who produce nothing exploit the products of other people's labor.
I wonder if you even know what you're talking about.
No need for greed or hunger
Greed, by
definition, is not a byproduct of need. This is simple 'dictionary definition,' stuff. Moreover there is
already no need for hunger. Ironically that is a byproduct of greed. We produce enough food-stuffs to feed our population. It's simply more profitable to distribute it in a way that permits wide-spread starvation and malnutrition.
Isn't this sexist?
Imagine all the people
Sharin' all the world
Yoo hoo
People are only motivated to sharing in conditions where everyone has something desirable to contribute.
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
We've already been over this.
I must admit there is a certain delicious irony in how a song written by a millionaire which hypocritically extols the abolition of not just private property, but literally all possessions as a condition of Utopia appeals to so many other millionaires. Most of whom produce nothing of real value on a system of 1:1 exchange, and can only be lucrative thanks to massive systems of marketing and distribution which generate them passive income by exploiting and devaluing the labor of those whose hard work and innovations sustains them.