Before starting his solo career, John Lennon was one of the singers and songwriters in the British band The Beatles alongside Paul Mccartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. After the breakup of The Beatles in 1970, John Lennon and his second wife, Yoko Ono, started to write songs about peace. One of the more famous songs that they wrote was “Imagine”, the first song in the album with the same name, which was released in 1971.  

     John Lennon decided to write the song because he wanted us to imagine a place where things that divided us, like religions and possessions, never existed. This song connects to a major problem that is happening in Ukraine because the song states, “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for.” This part of the song means that if there were no countries, then no one would have to leave their families to fight a war or leave due to the destruction of their town. 

     In addition to having one big meaning and impact on an entire country, the song also has very different, personal meanings and impacts on individual people. For example, the song impacts me when it repeats the phrase, “You might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” This phrase shows that there are many people besides me that dream the same ideas in this song. When I listen to this song, I think of what a world would look like if we had no countries, no religion, and how people could come together as one to help one another. I also think about all the other people imagining the same thing. All those other people can come together as a “brotherhood of man”, a phrase in the song that represents how if we all come together as a community, there would be peace among people. If we work together and put aside our differences, we will have peace.