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Yoko Ono releases new version of John Lennon's Imagine


Newfoundfreedom

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1 minute ago, TheGreek said:

I thought that she was the most hated person on the planet....how does she have 24k subscribers?

I think most people are over that now, certainly those of us who weren't alive when she was supposed to have broken up the Beatles.

Now she's just part of the Beatles mythology and the legend of John Lennon.

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2 hours ago, BassAgent said:

Blimey. That is pretty...uhm...brutal. Even more surprising are the comments. I can't make out if they're all super sarcastic or not.

strange how not one is saying how truly sh*te it is, is there some sort of selection going on or am I in a massive minority?

Edited by skidder652003
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8 hours ago, skidder652003 said:

strange how not one is saying how truly sh*te it is, is there some sort of selection going on or am I in a massive minority?

If you are, there's at least two of us there.

I don't get it. Ok it's a truly amazing song. Ok she co wrote it with John. Ok it was John's birthday yesterday. All things I respect and admire. But still, it's quite possibly the worst version, of not just Imagine, but possibly of any song I've ever heard. 

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"Imagine" may be the worst song John Lennon ever wrote.  Yet here we are still talking about it.  It takes attention away from all the other great songs he wrote.  That includes just about any John Lennon song that isn't "Imagine."  The other John Lennon song I can't stand is "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number."  It's probably even worse than "Imagine" if that is even possible.  I'm somewhat of a Beatles fan, but that doesn't mean I'm delusional.  Yes, Paul, George and Ringo also had some awful songs, especially in their solo careers.  I mostly try to focus on the ones I like, though.  

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In my opinion that OP video is just drivel.

 

Why is 'Imagine' the worst song Lennon ever wrote? Just curious really. 

I think it's a decent tune, although I prefer performances by a couple of others who have recorded it. 

Edited by lowdown
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1 hour ago, lowdown said:

In my opinion that OP video is just drivel.

Why is 'Imagine' the worst song Lennon ever wrote? Just curious really. 

I think it's a decent tune, although I prefer performances by a couple of others who have recorded it. 

What bothers me about the song is that it's supposedly some kind of anthem which some people look at something it isn't.  Its importance is blown up all out of proportion, IMO.  Other ex-Beatles had some bad songs, too, of course, but for the most part they weren't hits.  Hardly anybody knows about them.  But everybody has heard of "Imagine."  George Harrison, for instance, had a song called "Save the World" which in a sense has some of the same themes as "Imagine."  It's probably even worse than "Imagine," but almost no one has heard of it (fortunately.)

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There's an interesting old Lennon interview in Melody Maker about Imagine:

MM: So how did Imagine come about?

JL: Well I'd just flown back from the States and I was sitting at my white grand piano in my country house, looking out of the window at my Rolls Royce and thinking: 'Do I really need all this stuff? Being rich is such a drag'.

MM: How true, how true...

JL: ... and Yoko was in the breakfast room, well, the summer breakfast room that overlooks the lake and she was staring at her grapefruit. I said: 'What's wrong with your grapefruit, Yoko?', thinking maybe it had gone off or she'd put too much sugar on it and she said: 'Imagine there's no grapefruit...' and I thought that was really profound, like.

MM: So what happened next?

JL: Yoko started screaming at the grapefruit in that way she has, y'know, like a Vietnamese woman who's just seen her village burned down by American soldiers so I went upstairs and got really drunk and did some cocaine, some LSD, a few bennies, a handful of Qualudes and a half-pound bag of primo grass. I was lying there on the bed, staring up at the carvings on the ceiling and I thought 'Imagine if there weren't any grapefruits?' (Pauses) The plural of grapefruit is grapefruits, isn't it?

MM: I think it's just grapefruit

JL: So one grapefruit is a grapefruit and and two grapefruits is two grapefruit? That's a bit ... establishment, isn't it? Bob Dylan would probably say 'grapefruits'.

MM: So, Imagine?

JL: Yeah, that's right. So, basically I started thinking imagine if there weren't any grapefruits and then I made a long list of things like streetlights and lawns and helicopters and in the end I came up with about four thusand things then I started narrowing it down and ended up with possessions and religion and war. And all the other stuff I left in. Then I went back to the piano and experimented with some chords but it was difficult to concentrate with Yoko screaming at her grapefruit and I went down to the breakfast room and asked her to keep the noise down because I was composing and she wouldn't give it a rest so I gave her a slap or two which shut her up. Then I went back to the piano and knocked the song out in about ten minutes which was quicker than Paul would have done it. He'd have taken about two or three hours.

MM: And that's how history was made

JL: Yeah, history. 

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That's a very good interview.  Amusing, too.  

I ran across this article several months ago.  It only has one paragraph about "Imagine," but the whole article is informative.  I may only disagree with the statement which is made about Mark Chapman being forgotten now.  I think he will always be remembered in George Harrison''s "All Those Years Ago" when he is referred to as "the devil's best friend."

What I especially agree with in the article, though, is Yoko Ono's assertion that "Imagine" shouldn't be considered an anthem (if I'm interpreting that correctly.)  I definitely agree with John Lennon when he said about "Imagine" that "It was only a bloody song."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/the-beatles/8179356/I-remember-the-real-John-Lennon-not-the-one-airbrushed-by-history.html

 

 

 

 

Edited by Austin7
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