Society
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January 10, 2025
The late president celebrated the impact and influence of the song, which decries war, nationalism, and the excesses of capitalism.
The body of the late former United States president James Earl Carter Jr. is taken from the United States Capitol after lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda on January 9, 2025, in Washington, DC.
(Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post)
No American president, or post-president, thought more profoundly than did Jimmy Carter about the causes of war—and about the prospects for peace. So it should not have come as a surprise that the most compelling musical performance of the 39th president’s funeral on Thursday was a quiet rendering of a radical challenge to militarism, nationalism, capitalism, and the exploitation of religious differences for political purposes.
When country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang John Lennon and Yoko One’s “Imagine” to the remarkable assemblage of domestic and international leaders that came together to honor Carter inside the National Cathedral on Thursday, the recital of the lyrics touched on the hope for a world without war that energized and inspired Carter during his presidency and in the 44 years that followed it.
The funeral service’s rich tapestry of devotional and secular music and soaring rhetoric highlighted Carter’s prophetic legacy as a uniquely engaged leader who, in the moving words of former US ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young’s homily, dedicated his public service to seeking
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Carter was not alone in his nuanced understanding of the song, which Lennon said was inspired and influenced by Ono, his wife and musical partner. (In 2017, based on interviews the former Beatle gave before his death in 1980, Ono received credit as a cowriter of the track.) Rolling Stone once described “Imagine” as Lennon’s “greatest musical gift to the world,” while David Fricke, one of the magazine’s most insightful writers, observed, “‘Imagine’ is a subtly contentious song, Lennon’s greatest combined achievement as a balladeer and agitator.”
The politics of the song sparked its share of controversy over the years, especially for lyrics that invited listeners to: “Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try / No hell below us / Above us, only sky / Imagine all the people / Living for today,” and “Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for
