Call his ideology being far fetched or too unreal for this world, but, without the slightest of doubt, in addition to being one of the most gifted musicians and lyricists to have ever walked on the face of this earth, John Lennon was also a visionary; a man who solemnly believed that mankind was nothing but one single race, a singular nationality and that religions, citizenship and borders were only man made creations to divide the masses.
The Writing of Imagine
And that, in a nutshell, is the answer to why did John Lennon write Imagine. The true inspiration for writing lyrics that captured that message of tranquility & harmony came to Lennon after he read “Grapefruit”; an inscription by his Japanese spouse Yoko Ono in which she speaks of the childhood experiences she had to live through during the course of the Second World War in her homeland of Japan. Almost a decade after he had come out with the single, in the annul of 1980, John Lennon was asked why he had chosen to send out this message and he responded by asking back the interviewer – David Sheff – if he could imagine a world free of religions and countries.
At times people are led to believe that Yoko Ono wrote the lyrics all by herself and John Lennon only came up with the song composition and rhythm; this leads them to wonder why did Yoko Ono write Imagine. But the fact of the matter is that it was a combined effort by the husband and wife and their simple message was to let go off the things that divide the human race and focus & work towards building a world free of any & all kinds of differentiating factors.
