Does anyone really like Imagine?

My first reaction to the comments above is the predictable "oh come on, the simplicity and idealism is the whole point. maybe this 'facile' hippyshit, but what is so funny bout peace love and understanding anyway?"

Still I don't think the sentiment is smug or faux at all, in fact I think it's a lot easier to be smugly dismissive of the song than it is to consider it seriously. It's when you do think about "Imagine" that the real cracks show - just like any utopian vision. The "no possessions/no religion = peace, maaaaan" equation has been attempted outside of Lennon's imagination and it hasn't worked (hello, cultural revolution and gulags). But the fact that he wrote what is basically a Marxist hymn that America trots out every time they lose a Marine is pretty funny.

If you ever get down on Lennon, check out the Lost Lennon tapes or the box set that came out a few years ago. There is some priceless Phil Spector/John stuff on there.

Imagine the song is good. Imagine the album is fucking amazing. Better than Plastic Ono Band? Maybe.

he had a complicated attitude to cleverness

this seems to be the only real thread about this song. I am perplexed by the song's undiminished capacity to affect me even after years of overexposure ... criticizing it for being facile/simple seems itself facile and simple (its a fucking POP SONG, not a dissertation). The fact that it also conflicts with what a nasty person Lennon often was (not just personally, but on record as well) in a way makes it all the more affecting - here is a fairly messed-up asshole penning the simplest, prettiest, most idealistic pop statement he is capable of.

anyway for some reason I had a dream last night where this song was playing in a library where I was thumbing through books of non-existent writers/artists so its been in my head all morning.

That's an interesting dream, Shakey! Strangely, this song has come into my head a few times in the last week or so myself. Really don't know why. I think I liked it better through the eyes of childhood, though, than I do now.

bet you didnt realize it was a jihadi call to arms

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=d0dd9b01-527d-4903-ac70-f2009880cea6

i still like this song

bet you didnt realize it was a jihadi call to arms

gosh do I feel suckered....

I can't stand this song.

do tell

what if Sabbath did it

ha ha.

i never understood the popularity of this song neither. i don't think it has to do with the fact that i have been overexposed to it like to yesterday for example. it is just a very average song which never really gets going. additionally it is a ballad. and i can't stand ballads. or 95% of them. they are usually too histrionic or something.

lolz this song like the opposite of histrionic

yeah was gonna say, it's a pretty laid back, mellow groove.

i thought this was about the British band. Before realizing it's a)a famous Lennon song b)the band is called Imagination..

People get hung up on the words on this one. I still love those simple piano chords, and the surprising E major he does in the bridge.

I can certainly see not liking this song, but not understanding why people like it? That is some serious alienation from the average person's idea of what makes a nice pop song. It ain't "Crank That (Soulja Boy)".

^^^I love you Neil

Doesn't seem to be any Youtube on that Errol Brown performance for Thatcher, Tebbit et al at the Tory conference.

Hard enough to take in at the time, and I was starting to wonder if I'd imagined it, reassuring to have it confirmed upthread. Sort of.

what a shit song, even neil can't save it.

is it too histrionic for you

A song so overplayed, clichéd and hackneyed at this point that, to me, it's almost unlistenable.

dig Neil's "I wonder ifI can"

is this the lone case of a Beatle writing/recording what would become his best known/most popular/signature tune post-Beatles breakup?

dunno, "My Sweet Lord"? Eh, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" are probably still bigger for Harrison.

yeah I was thinking Macca = Yesterday, Harrison = Something/Here Comes the Sun, Ringo = um well he didn't write much did he

Ringo's biggest song as a writer is probably still "Octopus Garden."

there were only two, right? Octopus & Don't Pass Me By

yeah, i think it's a pretty pessimistic & misanthropic song... he's singing about a dream that is destined to fail, it's an indictment of humanity

people often point out "imagine no possessions" as tone deaf & hypocritical, but i think the chorus is far more sanctimonious and smug:

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

joining john and yoko in imagining a perfect world won't bring it about

incisive commentary there yup

yeah! we're still waiting on "Do", John and Yoko!

seriously, what's the hold up

xps that came out wrong, was just thinking about how no one knocks the chorus...the song is flawless, seriously...

yeah where the fuck is "Do"

well there's this (it's terrible)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/10/JohnLennon-albums-sometimeinnewyorkcity.jpg/220px-JohnLennon-albums-sometimeinnewyorkcity.jpg

probably the worst album w Spector's name on it

raise you

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0002/447/MI0002447117.jpg

Spector's two songs on that are awesome fuiud

but the guy from Starsailor sings on them

eh who cares, he just sounds like a b-grade Richard Ashcroft, which is fine

(I have never heard a single, non-Spector produced note of Starsailor's music fwiw)

sometime in nyc has a couple decent moments imo, "new york city" is fun, but they're outweighed by prob the worst garbage lennon ever wrote

"luck of the irish" alone has probably the worst lyrics of any song associated with any beatle

I've been trying to get Dublin Aiport to adopt "Let's walk over rainbows like leprechauns/
The world would be one big Blarney stone" as their motto for years

The utopia he describes just doesn't sound like humanity at all. The vision of a seriously damaged dude and narcissistic asshole imo.

well humanity sucks p much

let's imagine something better why not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfL6OBFDMAs

Humanity would be great if it was just an undifferentiated mass

"No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world"

yeah, what a narcissistic prick that guy was, how damaged do you have to be to envision such a hellish existence

You know John Lennon wrote the song, right?

a few thanksgivings ago someone tried to get into a friendly argument with me about which beatle's solo work is best (his money was on john) and i just kind of stared into space. the very idea of such a conversation puts me to sleep.

although i do like plastic ono band well enough and i can roll with a few of paul's solo albums, on the whole is there any bigger disappointment than the solo beatles? this pap included.

Can someone tell John Lennon why not?!?

wonder if lennon was beating his wife when he wrote this song /unfair

it's funny how ppl burned albert goldman's books and sent him death threats when pretty much everyone seems to take his version of lennon as the gospel truth now

This is a good Lennon song, though I never listen to it anymore due to overexposure. The B-section chords/melody/lyrics ("you may say...") are CLASSIC Lennon, and though I don't know of a term to describe that, if anyone is teaching a Beatles songwriting course (and I'm sure they are), I hope they're using it as part of the Lennon section of the course.

I've always thought it was weird that you'd hear this song after national tragedies because of how much it seems to contradict what, say, a typical national politician would spout, especially regarding religion, possessions. It's like the powers-that-be heard the music, but ever so slightly missed the *real* message. Still, in that, they succeeded in validating the song, and Lennon's pretty wide-eyed naiveté (or willing ignorance) about how much change is reasonable to expect from the (Western) world. The only real way to hate on this is to know a lot about Lennon's personal life and history, and (IMO correctly) question his insight into the power of having no possessions/power...

It's the curse of overexposure. It's a nice little song, simple churning chord sequences like Sexy Sadie, idealistic lyrics; the hatred seems misplaced to me. A lot of it seems to focus on the idea that Lennon was a hypocrite, a fact he was probably aware of. And it's become canonised, an anthem sung by kids choirs in cathedrals when it's anti-religion, and too many syrupy cover versions. I'm sure a lot of people are sick of Lou Reed's Perfect Day for the same reasons.

it's funny how ppl burned albert goldman's books and sent him death threats when pretty much everyone seems to take his version of lennon as the gospel truth now

They don't, I mean, how many people actually think Lennon did kill a sailor (not to mention Stu Sutcliffe) back in those crazy crazy days in Hamburg.

next national tragedy everyone should quote "layla" or "my girl"

Or that Yoko is literally a witch etc etc.

(xp) Maybe pass on "Perfect Day" though

it's funny how ppl burned albert goldman's books and sent him death threats when pretty much everyone seems to take his version of lennon as the gospel truth now

They don't, I mean, how many people actually think Lennon did kill a sailor (not to mention Stu Sutcliffe) back in those crazy crazy days in Hamburg.

― Otago Imago (Tom D.), Thursday, December 3, 2015 7:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Keep in mind that Goldman's book was 800 pages. Some of it is unsubstantiated, but "John Lennon was a wife beater, who also btw made fun of disabled people on stage once" is very much gospel, at least for people under 30. I mean, he fucking sang about it on "Getting Better"! John Lennon is shorthand for hypocrite & abuser, just as Cosby is shorthand for serial rapist. I have no idea why Lindsey Buckingham hasn't been defamed and raked over the coals for what he did to Carol Ann Harris. No one paid attention to her book but I implore anyone that dismisses Lennon and fawns over Rumours & Tusk to check it out. It's called Storms. No idea why it didn't get any attention. Maybe because Fleetwood Mac is hip again, and The Beatles are, at the moment, passé

In the distant past I never liked this song. That's not to say I disliked it strongly; I just didn't like the music much and wasn't interested in what the lyrics were saying. Now, I really like the sentiment of the lyrics but I still don't like the music.

dud

Song is pretty good. Over exposed to hell. In the current social outrage world it's probably at its complete historical nadir cos everyone loves to point out how he was a horrible person and a hypocrite. As if people can't hold multiple conflicting viewpoints during their lives.

fwiw Yoko Ono stayed with him, and i don't think she would put up w that shit if he was really as bad as everyone makes him out to be.

oh dear

Tell that to May Pang.

I thought May Pang was involved on Ono's suggestion.

So Albert Goldman said.

So she said in an interview

Lennon’s affair with Pang – his “lost weekend”, as he would eventually call it – began in 1973 and ended 18 months later. Pang, who set up home with Lennon in Los Angeles, has always maintained that the relationship happened with Ono’s permission, leading to the assumption that it was all her idea. She certainly felt the need to escape. “The affair was something that was not hurtful to me,” she says. “I needed a rest. I needed space. Can you imagine every day of getting this vibration from people of hate? You want to get out of that. Also, we were so close John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself. ‘I will come with you’ he would say. And this would be in public places like the EMI recording studios.

“I started to notice that he became a little restless on top of that, so I thought it’s better to give him a rest and me a rest. May Pang was a very intelligent, attractive woman and extremely efficient. I thought they’d be OK.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/9160041/Yoko-Ono-Johns-affair-wasnt-hurtful-to-me.-I-needed-a-rest.-I-needed-space.html

I mean he certainly sounds weird and possessive but Yoko's agency in the whole thing seems real.

Ha, there you go!

John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself
John didn’t even want me to go to the bathroom by myself

dingdingdingdingdingdingdingding! *alarm bells*

Although, this is the guy that wrote 'Run For Your Life', 'You Can't Do That' and 'Jealous Guy' ...

lyrics are sub-fedora, music is syrupy schmaltz

Always thought this was a cool little story about a (now) Rhode Island guy, Kevin Sullivan, who somehow became a middle man during John and Yoko's separation. A little bit of it is in Goldman's book. There has been speculation that Yoko chose this guy to make the delivery because he was young and good looking and she wanted to make John jealous. Currently, he's a member of a Beatles tribute band.
http://www.eastbayri.com/news/a-christmas-eve-delivery-to-john-lennon/

I also think it reads more vague anarchist rather than Marxist as someone upthread called it.

An atheist, stateless, property-less utopia is compatible with both, I would think?

marx was certainly not a utopian

he features in a song by Bros, though.