Imagine: Music that Can Cure What Ails

I’m thinking about fire on one coast and ice on the other. I’m thinking about my sons home from school since December 20, four straight days of snow-packed roads and a two-hour delay for tomorrow. Our secondary roads are ice rinks.

Some shake their fist at the school system. I blame the works department. I’m reminded that we just don’t have the correct number of plows for an eight inch snow ahead of consecutive days at 20-degree highs. LA doesn’t have the correct number of fire trucks for five wildfires and 100 mph winds.

So it goes, says Kurt Vonnegut.

When life looks like easy street, says J. Garcia, there is danger at your door.

So let’s ring in the New Year with a little mayhem, why don’t we? And let’s look around at what is good.

I like that Jimmy Carter wanted Imagine sung at his funeral. I like those lyrics, and want to share that Ellington High School’s class of 1990 sang them at our commencement. That was a nice moment. It was a bold call: We did not collectively hit that note – Yoo-oo…! But we tried, dammit.

John Lennon and J. Garcia got along. The Dead were devastated, as were so many who heard the news, that Lennon was gunned down in the streets of New York by Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and Sirhan Sirhan and all the assassins to come before. Did you know there are two asses in assassin?

I say Imagine was a bold choice because the class of ’88 got to sing Time Stand Still, by Rush. It had been released that year. It’s a great pick, but contemporary.

Time stand still
I’m not looking back
But I want to look around me now
Time stands still
See more of the people
And the places that surround me now
Time stands still

The class of ’89 sang that Rod Stewart song, also released in their year of graduation. Forever Young. How many other graduates sang the same number that year? Fine.

I’m grateful that our student conductor put Imagine in our mouths, really looked for something meaningful and with a history. I’m grateful that our music director helped us rehearse. Those heady days stay with me now, and I feel great whenever I hear the song.

I wasn’t sad today when they buried Jimmy Carter. I was happy for him, and optimistic about our nation’s chances. Even here, at the start of a tempestuous New Year, with lots of danger at our door.

Well, the first days are the hardest days
Don’t you worry anymore
‘Cause when life looks like Easy Street
There is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Woah, oh, what I want to know
Is are you kind?
It’s a buck dancer’s choice my friend
Better take my advice
You know all the rules by now
And the fire from the ice

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