A few minutes before the ball came down on Times Square in New York on New Year’s Eve, Paul Anka sang a song that has become a tradition for this event. It was “Imagine,” a 1971 song that John Lennon co-authored with his wife, Yoko Ono.
The song also has become something of a controversy—for the anti-religious point of view it expresses.
“Imagine there’s no heaven,” says the first line of the song.
“It’s easy if you try. No hell below us,” it goes on. “Above us, only sky. Imagine all the people living for today.”
The second stanza calls on listeners to imagine a world with no countries and no religion. “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do,” says this song. “Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too. Imagine all the people living life in peace.”
Lennon then indicates that people may think he is a…
