7. Imagine, John Lennon

You can consider this the coda to “The Sixties” (it came out in 1971), or you can consider it timeless, perhaps depending upon whether you are a realist or a hopeless optimist (there’s a trick of the English language Lennon might have appreciated). As for me, this is the final song I want played at my funeral. Like a Buddha, Lennon has captured the most profound thoughts in simple words and a simple tune. There is nothing tricky to the two-note lone piano riff that starts the song, or the naked drum that enters midway through the first verse and builds the intensity before soaring strings fill out the orchestration. And Lennon’s voice, which we all know can be biting and sarcastic, comes through with a sincerity that would be naiveté if it weren’t, well, Lennon. In three short minutes Lennon decries religion, nationalism and materialism as causes of conflict in the world. What was true in 1971 is just as true – think 9/11, think Iraq – today. Is it still possible to dream, to imagine, or was that just a delusion?

B Side: The Beatles

When someone asked, how could I choose out of all the Beatles songs, I answered, I wasn’t, I didn’t like the Beatles. When “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” et al., arrived in America, they were too “pop” for my taste. I preferred the harder edge of the Rolling Stones and the Who. Plus, they kept my then-favorite group, the Four Seasons, out of the number one spot. I think “Dawn” was #2 for about 17 straight weeks – or maybe it was #3 if the Beatles had two songs out. Then there were all sorts of old farts who had never acknowledged rock’n’roll, like Leonard Bernstein, who pronounced themselves Beatles fans – interloping shamelessly on my territory. The undifferentiated success of all Beatles recordings was another turn-off: they could put out a nursery rhyme (Yellow Submarine), or a song with no melody(Get Back), and it would race to the top of the charts. In the end, there are probably as many Beatles songs I like as those I don’t, and I could easily compile a whole album that would be a minor classic. But they filled the airwaves for so long with so many dogs – Twist and Shout, Ticket to Ride, Paperback Writer, Lady Madonna, etc. – that I never became a fan.