Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something.

Lennon is articulating a double bind he felt as a wealthy celebrity preaching peace: first, the discomfort or “guilt” of privilege amid social suffering; second, the suspicion that moral witness is only validated through martyrdom—“you have to go and get shot or something.” The line critiques a culture that prizes dramatic sacrifice over sustained, ordinary commitments to love and nonviolence, and it also exposes Lennon’s own anxiety about whether his message could be dismissed as naïve or hypocritical because of his fame and fortune. The quote’s power lies in its self-scrutiny: it frames activism not as pure righteousness but as a psychologically complicated negotiation between conscience, public expectation, and personal safety.