"Imagine There's No Heaven....It's Easy If You Try"

Preface: I was sitting at a bar....drinking a Coke....and watching the Dolphins and the Patriots on Monday Night Football. It was December 8, 1980. Howard Cosell broke the news on John Lennon's death. This morning I finally listened to what is billed as....the Beatles last song....Now And Then. I won't be purchasing it for any reason but it would be interesting in that almost sixty years earlier to the day I purchased the Beatles song mentioned in the post below....sixty years! The 'new' song was typical John Lennon in his later days and would have fit in well on his Double Fantasy album. Oh my....what technology can give us....and do to us....and this record is just a smidgeon of what is being done. It is more than a culmination of an anthology of Beatles records....meant to be somewhat of a eulogy of a culture....it is more the last song in the cabaret before night cometh. President Kennedy's gravesite was probably still new grass when I bought that first record. Sixteen years later....the same time of the year....my father would be buried a few hundred yards from the Eternal Flame at Arlington National Cemetery. On the day that my father died....November 4, 1979....Iranian students took 52 hostages in Tehran and would hold them for 444 days until Ronald Reagan took office as president...and the world would begin to change again. Reagan was elected president exactly one year later....November 4, 1980....30 days before Lennon's death.

                

               I wore the famous....collarless....grey Beatles suit....at my confirmation....as an eighth grader.....in 1964. My mother and I took a bus to downtown Pittsburgh for Christmas shopping....this in December of 1963....and it was snowing as we made the rounds from Kaufmann's to Horne's to Gimbals. I was able to get the two presents that I wanted the most. We returned home by cab because the one present was a 110 lb weight set....that not only do I still have...but I may be using the 25 lb barbell later this afternoon. The second present was the 45...current Beatles hit....She Loves You. The Fab Four were wearing those suits on the cover of the single.
               Lennon completed his album....Double Fantasy....just before his death in December of 1980. We subsequently bought the album....and listened to it quite a bit as I remember. I had just started a new job....that by God's unfathomable grace....I remained in for thirty-seven years until I retired. I was as lost as lost can be that winter of 1980.
               This post is not just a trip down memory lane. It is serious stuff. The Beatles ushered us through the 1960s....and as they morphed downward....so did we. John Lennon released Imagine in October of 1971. You can argue the meaning of the lyrics to make a case....and even use comments by Lennon....but I'm not pointing to the effect that the song had on all of us....but rather that the song described where we already were. The Jesus Revolution was in full swing at the time....(by the way I highly recommend the recent movie of that title)....and it had been five years since the infamous Time Magazine cover....Is God Dead? There was a battle going on in the heavens.
                To this day I cannot listen to George Harrison's....My Sweet Lord....released in 1970. It was one of the most captivating melodies of the period....as was Andrew Lloyd Webber's entire album....Jesus Christ Superstar....which also captivated me while in Vietnam....and of which also I cannot listen to anymore because of the lyrics and the message.
                All the above....to bring this up....which you will probably hear plenty of in the next few weeks. John Lennon wrote a song in 1979 and recorded it on a demo....which Yoko eventually gave to Paul....and of which they tried to do something with over the decades. It wasn't until artificial intelligence.....AI....enabled John's voice to be perfectly extracted from the demo....that Paul and Ringo were able to produce what they firmly stand behind as....the Beatles last song.....to be released in a few days....how coincidental!
                I commented in an earlier post about Benjamin Netanyahu's September 22 speech to the United Nations General Assembly. There were a couple things in it that were odd....and one was the Israeli Prime Minister's  comments on AI...."The AI revolution is progressing at lightning speed....we may have but a few years to adapt to the AI revolution." He mentions...."AI driven wars"....and gives a warning on AI....but also stated that...."We have so much to gain."
                It was here that he mentioned John Lennon's song....Imagine....for as he imagined the wonderful future benefits of AI utopia…he warned of a possible dystopia. So his reference to Lennon was brief...."I know this sounds like a John Lennon song. But it could all happen."

                Yes....It does sound like a John Lennon song....of which neither the captivating melody nor the blasphemous lyrics....portends anything good.