One of the Greatest Songs I've Ever Heard

There are times when you hear a song and just know that it's one of the greatest songs that you've ever heard. It doesn't happen to often but when it does the feeling is indescribable. That's what happened the first time I heard John Lennon's God. I knew instantly that this song would always be one of the greatest songs in the world to me. It was like magic on my ears.




I was in Massachusetts visiting my cousins for a long weekend (maybe it was a two visit I don't remember), and we went to the mall. I picked up the soundtrack to the documentary Imagine (which if you haven't seen is absolutely incredible and recommend it to anyone). It was a nice mix of Beatles songs and solo Lennon stuff. This was right in the midst of my transition from Beatles to John Lennon as a solo artist so I thought this would help in the transition phase. I couldn't have been more right.

The moment I heard God it was blown away. I was recently talking with a friend of mine on Facebook about people who sing with raw emotion (and for this particular argument I cited Kurt Cobain in Where Did You Sleep Last Night?) and as soon as I heard God today I knew this was one of the rawest vocal performances ever.

What makes God such an amazing song is the fact that it takes all these things that people hold dear and dismissing belief in them. I don't think it's because Lennon doesn't actually believe in these things I think it's about tearing down these beliefs or ideas that people hold high above and breaking them down and bringing it back to the individual. Almost saying these things don't matter as long as you believe in you. What a tremendous message. You can list all these things to worship or look up to but they don't matter at all if you don't believe in yourself. In many ways this song is Lennon stripping himself in front of his audience.Saying "this is my folks, for better or worse this is me".

Then there's the fact that this is one of the only songs by Lennon I can think of where he actually addresses the fact that he was apart of the Beatles. Another thing that people worshiped and believed in. Lennon takes the world's most known band and says "the dream is over". I love that whole piece- "I was the dream weaver but now I'm reborn/ I was the Walrus but now I'm just John/ And so dear friends we'll just have to carry on/ The dream is over" Oh my god it's heartbreaking. It's listening to Lennon come to terms with the magnitude of the Beatles and the fact that it's done and it'll never happen again. He can just go back to being himself and in a lot of ways that's all that matters. Yes the fame and the love and the admiration are great but lets come to terms here. When things are said and done he's still just a person like the rest of us, and just because the Beatles don't exist any more doesn't mean that John Lennon has to stop existing.

I've listened to God more times then I can remember and each time it moves me, sometimes to tears and others times it makes me sad and there are times where it makes me feel alright inside. It's okay to dismiss all the things that rule our lives to find ourselves. I would put God in the top ten greatest songs I've ever heard, and it's one of those songs I'm thankful to have heard. It's almost like the song was written and recorded so I could find it during a long weekend in Massachusetts with my cousins. To me it's better than Imagine, to me this is John Lennon at his absolute greatest.