One of the things that raised some eyebrows at former President Jimmy Carter’s Funeral was Garth Brooks’s and Trisha Yearwood’s performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” I’m part of that group who (at least initially) side-eyed the musical selection. To be clear, my issue wasn’t so much about how overexposed, trite, and cringy that song is/has culturally become. Like a lot of other folks, I felt there was a disconnection between the song’s explicitly atheist lyrics and the Former President’s deep connection to Christianity. Here’s Fox News writing more about the reaction:
The late former President Jimmy Carter reportedly held the 1971 John Lennon hit “Imagine” as his favorite tune. But its use as a song at his state funeral ceremony has set a firestorm on social media from critics saying it wasn’t fit for use in what in a memorial service in a Christian church…Social media lit up later Thursday, calling into question the performance of the song, given its lyrical rejection of religion.
“Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us, only sky,” the first line goes.
A prominent member of the Catholic clergy also chimed in on X, saying he was “appalled” by the performance.
“Under the soaring vault of what I think is still a Christian church, they reverently intoned, ‘Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try” and “imagine there’s no country; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.’ — Vested ministers sat patiently while a hymn to atheistic humanism was sung,” said Bishop Robert Barron, prelate of the Catholic Archdiocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.
“This was not only an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian but also an indicator of the spinelessness of too much of established religion in our country,” the bishop said.
If you’re just working from the song’s lyrics, there’s a lot of logic to Bishop Barron’s statement. I think many of us can easily imagine how the well-meaning, granola-crunching, electric car-driving libs* who planned the funeral thought this was the perfect non-offensive and non-religious song to use at Carter’s funeral.
However, unpacking real life shouldn’t be reduced to just analyzing lyrics and projecting motivations on others. Human beings are complex. So before I joined Bishop Barron and others in snarking on social media, I thought, “Hey, I wonder if Jimmy Carter ever expressed any opinion on “Imagine” and/or The Beatles.” So, in a rare moment of checking myself, I decided to check with Dr. Google.
It turns out Carter did have opinions on “Imagine.” In 2007, he had this to say when asked at a film festival about his favorite Beatles song:
“My favorite is ‘Imagine.’ When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places, in some of those nations, ‘Imagine’ has become a national anthem. If you go to Havana, for instance, you’ll see a statue of John Lennon. … When we go to a folk performance or a symphony concert or to modern American music, they always play ‘Imagine,’ and it’s one of my favorites just personally. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll see that it’s against religion, it’s against national boundaries, it’s against nationalism, it’s against jingoism, but the impact it has on people is profound.”
Leaving aside Carter’s incorrectly calling “Imagine” a Beatles song (there are no words to express my disgust, President Carter), it’s clear that, despite its atheist lyrics, this is a song that meant a lot to the former President. So much so that it was also sung at his wife’s funeral last year…
By the exact same people….
In front of, checks notes, Jimmy Carter.
It turns out that Brooks and Yearwood are both longtime supporters of Habitat for Humanity and had many interactions with the former first couple. The Carters personally requested that they perform that song at their funerals. This is all easily available via google.
Sing along with me, kids: Imagine if you first checked Google; it’s easy if you try…
Put in the broader context of all the things going on in the world, this little bit of social media outrage isn’t even a tempest in a teacup (let alone a teapot). And it remains a great example of why it’s always a good idea to do some googling and reflection before firing off a hot take (or just commenting on a post). I’m happy I did. If nothing else, it saved me from some “Instant Karma*.”
Addendum: If you’ve gotten this point and are thinking, “Nah, Matt… no need to interrupt my red hot takes with facts and context,” then at least have the decency to do what Jim Geraghty of the National Review did and come up with a novel hot take. Again from Fox News:
The National Review’s Jim Geraghty said the fact “Imagine” asks the listener to imagine the absence of heaven is a “de facto concession” that it exists, in an apparent defense of the rendition.
“Otherwise, there would be no need to ask us to envision otherwise,” Geraghty said.
All I can say is:
[Update] In the comments below @Jay L Gischer points out that this line of thinking was previously brought up on the seminal TV program WKRP in Cincinnati:
In https://archive.org/details/wkrp-in-cincinnati-season-03-episode-22-clean-up-radio-everywhere of WKRP in Cincinnati, the same argument is made to a moral-majority type preacher/politician who is trying to “clean up radio”. Carlsen, not known for his courage, takes the lyrics to “Imagine” and reads them out to the preacher, (apparently they didn’t get the rights). The preacher objects.
But, it’s just “imagine” he says to the preacher. Imagine. Not real.
That was a seriously great show.
That scene happens to be on YouTube (the entire episode is also available):
* – For the record, if those staw-libs actually programmed the funeral, the song they would have used is, of course, the equally culturally-over-exposed-through-no-fault-of-its-creator Hallelujah. RIP Leonard Cohen.
** – Instant Karma is a far superior song. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on (metaphorically).
And Harrison, not Lennon or McCartney, had the best post-Beatles creative-musical career.*** I will battle over that (again, metaphorically).
*** – Ringo, of course, had the best acting career (and possibly the most fun post-Beatles musical career).
