IMAGINE THERE'S NO YOKO



Imagine there's no Yoko

It's easy if you try

No hell here with us

And Lennon didn't die

Imagine he the person

Living here today



Imagine there's no Yoko

It isn't hard to do

No one to die by

No naked album too

Imagine all the people

living here with John



You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day she'll leave us

And the world still had John



Imagine Yoko's possessions

I wonder if you can

Her greed and wealth

from death of just one man

Imagine all John's people

Sharing him with world



You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day she'll leave us

And the world still had John



~ lyrics adaptation by Jackie Jura

Imagine, lyrics by John Lennon, September 1971

Imagine, John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Live in New York City, Madison Square Garden, August 30, 1972, YouTube

LENNON'S DARK FATE ONO (...At first, she appeared shy and modest. She sat with downcast eyes and mumbled scraps of her poetry....What happened that night can only be left to the imagination....Did Yoko do her hypnotism thing, as some of John's friends thought she had, or did she have a powerful new drug in her arsenal?...)

Yoko and "Imagine" at Opening Ceremonies, Officer Outlook, Feb 11, 2006

The 2006 Winter Olympics opened in the Northern Italian city of Turin Friday night under a nearly full moon. The Olympic theme which is Passion Lives Here, was reflected in the opening ceremony's mixture of pageantry, pyrotechnics, music and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron...The musical highlights of the show included an appearance by the late John Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, and his song "Imagine" sung by Peter Gabriel...

Reader likes the new "Imagine" lyrics

JOHN WINSTON LENNON SMITH

9/11 ADDS UP AGAIN (...I notice as well that 72nd is the same street as the Dakota building is on, which is where John Lennon lived and was shot in another New York dastardly deed. John Lennon would have turned 66 on Monday October 9th, 2006. And the news of his alleged assassin's parole verdict was announced on Wednesday, October 11th, the same day as the airplane crashed into the 72nd Street building....)

NEW YORK NUMBER IS 666

When John Lennon met Yoko Ono (On 9 November 1966 [9/11/1666], after he had just finished filming How I Won the War, Lennon visited an art exhibit of Yoko Ono's at the Indica gallery in Mason's Yard, London. There, John asked if he could be the first to 'interact' with one of her installations by hammering a nail into a blank wooden block. She tells Young she refused because the exhibition had not opened to the public and then relented. John on meeting Yoko: She handed him a card with the word "breathe" on it and I said "you mean (panting)?" She says "That's it, You got it". And I'm thinking "I've got it it!" But I'm all geared up to do something". It was another piece that cemented his feeling for Yoko.)

On December 8th, 2005 - the 25th anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon - the coverage of the event in one of Canada's national newspapers, the National Post, consisted of a two-foot by 1-foot full page picture of Yoko Ono's display of John Lennon's blood-spattered glasses . I was shocked when I turned the page and came across this cruel visage and wondered why the space hadn't been taken up with pictures and stories of John Lennon. Ideally I'd have liked to have seen a chronological list of the Beatles songs, along with photos of them and the albums. That would have been informative, interesting and would also have provided a trip down memory lane for people who experienced Beatlemania. ~ Jackie Jura

Lennon had no desire to be a leader (because, in his words, "leaders get killed"). Roanoke Times, Dec 8, 2005. "I read the news today, oh boy."

Ono joins Dakota vigil for John (murdered there in her presence). CNN, Dec 8, 2005

Ono, dressed in black and wearing large sunglasses...escorted to the memorial by New York City police...spent several minutes looking at flowers and messages placed at the "Imagine" mosaic that is the centerpiece of "Strawberry Fields," a section of Central Park across the street from her apartment building. "That's the first time I've seen her come" said one man who had visited Strawberry Fields every year since Lennon's death....Friends of Lennon remembered the person, not just the legend. "You couldn't approach John at the end, and looking back it was from the moment he met Yoko Ono," former friend and fellow musician Billy Kinsley told Reuters...)

JOHN'S DAKOTA HOME OF ROSEMARY'S BABY The Dakota Building on Manhattan's Upper West Side was renamed The Bramford for the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby . It was on the set of this film that Mia Farrow received divorce papers from then-husband Frank Sinatra. There is a popular rumor that Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey gave technical advice and portrayed Satan in the impregnation scene . This is false - LaVey had no involvement with the film. Directed by Roman Polanski, whose pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was in 1969 murdered by Charles Manson and his followers, who titled their death spree "Helter Skelter" after the 1968 song by The Beatles , whose leader, John Lennon, who would one day live (and in 1980 be murdered) in the Manhattan apartment building called The Dakota - where Rosemary's Baby had been filmed...

Yoko's iron grip on Lennon legacy ('doesn't belong to world any more'). BBC, Dec 8, 2005

Ballad of coolest Beatle. Telegraph, Dec 3, 2005

I decided to major on things that Lennon wrote and recorded while he was still a Beatle. The solo stuff seems less interesting in what it says about John Lennon, either because, as in the case of the ubiquitous Imagine, it feels a bit too Yoko (he wanted to give his wife a credit for her contribution to the lyrics) or because many of the other solo works sound so artlessly personal as hardly to need unpacking in a speech radio programme...

Yoko denies musical hi-jack (the cast were upstaged by the final scene, in which the audience see video footage of Lennon singing Imagine with Ono at his side). London Times, Aug 16, 2005

Yoko chose mistress for John (later married Paul's producer). London Times, July 24, 2005

In Broadway musical about the life of John Lennon "There is too much Yoko telling John, 'I told you so'. It makes you think Yoko really did break up the Beatles."...

LENNON'S DARK FATE ONO and BABY FACE PAUL NOT INNOCENT