"Imagine" is a utopian song written and performed by John Lennon, which appears on his 1971 album Imagine. While numerous versions have since come to light, the original's haunting piano and solemn vocal continue to receive strong airplay. In the UK, the song is regularly voted at or near the top of polls to find the greatest song or single of all time, as in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Singles (number two being Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and three being The Beatles' Hey Jude). Rolling Stone magazine voted "Imagine" the third greatest song of all time.
Lennon described the song as "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted." Cited in the book Lennon in America by Geoffrey Giuliano.
In the song, Lennon asks us to imagine his view of a utopia where there are "no countries", "no religion", "no possessions", no heaven or hell, and "nothing to kill or die for". There are only people "living for today", "living life in peace", and "sharing all the world".
