I was preparing a post for one of my other blogs, Yummy Biscuits, when it occurred to me that the man I was writing about was British, a lad from Liverpool. And so it seems this is a more apt place to put this little piece. The post is for Marmelade, whom Yummy Biscuits simply adores like a little puppy dog. His tail starts to wagging (19 to the dozen, of course!) whenever she walks into the room. He's not alone in this happiness, of course; Marmelade makes a lot of boy's tails start to wag when she's around.
There was once a young man from Liverpool who didn't quite fit in. He was a few years older than I, and much more worldly. We lived worlds apart and never met directly, although he was to die much closer to me than he was born. He knew from an early age that what he wanted to do in life was make music. Later in life, he would use that gift of music to draw the world's attention to the injustices and inequalities that he saw going on around him. At the end, when he was killed by a madman in my own country, his music had long become secondary to the causes of justice he espoused.
When I think of John Lennon, whose music I came of age to, listening to it on the radio every 10 minutes, I strangely no longer think automatically of the Beatles. The Beatles were only together for a few years, after all. John outlived—and outgrew—the Beatles by many years. And of all his music, there is one song that I usually associate with him and what he stood for and what he hoped the world might someday become. With this one song, he put into words the dream of my entire generation.
Today, when I was thinking of John, and of this special song, Yummy's mind suddenly became focused on Marmelade. She just seemed to fit easily and naturally into the picture. Her youth and her passion for justice stirred musty memories in Yummy's brain. Memories of when his own generation thought they could and would change the world; memories of things we were willing to die for if necessary. Passion. For a while, Yummy felt truly alive again. Yes, Marmelade is a flower child, Yummy thought, somehow magically transported into the future. Yummy remembers the Summer of Love well. Youth. We'd live forever. We'd fight and never lose.
Marmelade, I think, and others like her who still carry the torch we lit so long ago in the 1960s, is the immortality of our dream. It makes me very happy inside to know that, although the faces of the soldiers have changed, the good fight still goes on. And, as strange as this may seem, although Soldier John and Soldier Marmelade probably never even lived one minute on earth together, I feel he wrote these words for her.
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...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
