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'Imagine': John's and Yoko's Hymn to Progressive Utopia
americanthinker.com ^ | 7/22/2017 | Bruce W. Davidson

Posted on 07/22/2017 6:06:48 AM PDT by rktman

For the last 15 years, I have been making good educational use of Lennon's famous song "Imagine." In one of my classes, analyzing the song helps Japanese students think critically about song lyrics. The song is very well known and popular in Japan, in part because Lennon's wife was Japanese. Yoko Ono's leftist beliefs also left their mark on the content of the song, a fact that will probably soon receive official recognition by the National Music Publishers Association.

The song's doubtful assumptions and internal contradictions make it an instructive instance of the sloppy, shallow thinking we often find in the world of mass entertainment, which unfortunately then goes unfiltered into the minds of countless consumers. Eventually, my students do an assignment in which they critique songs of their own choosing in short presentations. Not long ago, one student offered us her own critique of a Japanese pop song titled "World Peace," which calls for the extermination of the human race in order to achieve true peace on planet Earth in view of humanity's crimes against the environment. The student remarked on the strange notion of a peaceful world with no humans around to enjoy it. She had evidently not yet heard of some strains of extreme environmentalism.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: beatles; johnlennon; music; utopia
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To: rktman

If only he’s imagined a bulletproof vest.


21 posted on 07/22/2017 6:52:30 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult
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To: Freestate316

nah that would be the Internationale


22 posted on 07/22/2017 7:05:05 AM PDT by xp38
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To: rktman
“Imagine no possessions” from a guy who left an estate of $1 billion...back when a billion was a lot of money.
23 posted on 07/22/2017 7:06:25 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Comey = The Swamp Fighting Back)
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To: a fool in paradise
Yoko got her start in a ‘roughie’ feature sex film in the 60s called Satan’s Bed

I can't imagine ever being so desperate for "company" that I'd want to get with 500 yards of *that*!

24 posted on 07/22/2017 7:08:57 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Comey = The Swamp Fighting Back)
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To: Gay State Conservative

You are mistaken. Paul is dead. Have you ever listened to a Wings album?


25 posted on 07/22/2017 7:10:00 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET (urope. Why do they put up with this.)
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult
If only he’s imagined a bulletproof vest.

If only he had imagined obeying any one of the scores of deportation orders the INS issued against him....

Yup,he was a wetback...

26 posted on 07/22/2017 7:11:24 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Comey = The Swamp Fighting Back)
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To: Jeff Chandler

Yes. He displays a low IQ in his lyrics. I’ve always called McCartney a tune-ster.


27 posted on 07/22/2017 7:16:54 AM PDT by Yaelle (We have a Crisis of Information in this country. Our enemies hold the megaphone.)
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To: exDemMom

Exactly. There are those that understand music and appreciate a good composition, and those that only care about the meaning of the words in the song. You can’t look at music that way. If you focus solely on the meaning behind the words, you would find yourself listening to nothing but instrumentals.


28 posted on 07/22/2017 7:18:10 AM PDT by PJBankard
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To: PJBankard
I don’t care for the meaning of the song words, but from a musical standpoint its a good tune. If I cared about or following the meaning of most songs, I would have a very short list of music to listen to. While I do enjoy Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and others from the Classical and Baroque periods, I will generally listen to most music. However there is some noise that I won’t listen to.

I agree with you that musically, "Imagine" is a good tune.

As a formally trained and formerly professional musician, I (like you) tend not to care much about lyrics, or even notice them.

Nevertheless, I have always found the lyrics to "Imagine" to be particularly obnoxious. Maybe it's because in 1970 when that tune came out, I was a sophomore in college and had only just discovered conservatism (initially through reading Ayn Rand).

So given my then newly discovered passion for conservative political philosophy -- especially in the face of the suddenly ubiquitous New Left (and SDS in particular) -- I did listen to Lennon's lyrics, and found them disgustingly offensive and hypocritical. They offended my life-long love of America, my growing dedication to the principles of liberty and free markets, and my outrage at watching my peers (and professors) run around praising Che Guevera and quoting endlessly from Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book."

So my loathing of the "Imagine" lyrics has always over-shadowed my appreciation for the underlying melody and chord changes.

29 posted on 07/22/2017 7:19:29 AM PDT by Maceman (Let's ban Muslims temporarily -- just until non-Muslims can freely practice their religions in Mecca)
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To: PJBankard
I don’t care for the meaning of the song words, but from a musical standpoint its a good tune.

"From a musical standpoint" it's an utter POS.

Two chords played over and over, with two other chords thrown in from time to time.

30 posted on 07/22/2017 7:20:57 AM PDT by AAABEST (Got Traditional Catholicism? - Angelqueen.org)
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To: rktman
I remember reading a review on Lennon's Double Fantasy album when it came out. The author stated that Ono's voice "sounds like a eagle being goosed."
31 posted on 07/22/2017 7:23:48 AM PDT by 4yearlurker (Government can make you feel so small and mean.-John Steinbeck)
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To: rktman
"Imagine there's no heaven......"


32 posted on 07/22/2017 7:24:29 AM PDT by MuttTheHoople (Yes, Liberals, I question your patriotism)
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To: AAABEST

Most lyrical music is just a repeat of a few chords. It isn’t just the chords, its how the song is sung to the chords to form the melodies and harmonies. The meaning of the words are crap, but how they are sung with the chords make a good tune.


33 posted on 07/22/2017 7:26:23 AM PDT by PJBankard
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To: PJBankard
I don’t care for the meaning of the song words, but from a musical standpoint its a good tune.

Don't care for the needle prick, but everything else is good . . .

34 posted on 07/22/2017 7:34:19 AM PDT by aspasia
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To: rktman
I wrote my own, and far better lyrics after I heard the song. Very pretty music, too bad about the dumbass words....

Imagine there's no nothing....
Even if you could....
Nothing to enjoy or plan for.....
Nothing anywhere at all.....
Imagine all the (stupid) people......living life with nothing.....

Oo, ooh, ooohooh

35 posted on 07/22/2017 7:35:38 AM PDT by Lakeshark (Trump. He stands for the great issues of the day. Stay the course!)
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To: Maceman
or even notice them

They like it just that way. Well-packaged propaganda.

36 posted on 07/22/2017 7:36:17 AM PDT by aspasia
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To: Nea Wood

If Lennon thought “no possessions” were such a good thing, why didn’t he give away his own possessions?

...

Probably because Imagine is just a song and most people, including the author only care what it sounds like. The words are little more than sounds that go along in harmony with the sounds of the instruments. I recently read that when “Imagine” was music only, Lennon was excited because he thought he’d written a melody equal to McCartney’s “Yesterday,” which was called “scrambled eggs” before McCartney came up with the actual lyrics.


37 posted on 07/22/2017 7:39:27 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Make America Great Again!)
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To: Dr. Sivana

And the song Revolution.


38 posted on 07/22/2017 7:41:01 AM PDT by shotgun
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To: Moonman62
most people, including the author only care what it sounds like

Most people, the masses, do not care. This is a problem, don't you think? Entertainment has the overall effect of weakening a people, the most of them.

39 posted on 07/22/2017 7:42:29 AM PDT by aspasia
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To: rktman
No imagination required.

"We're conservative { uhh } but progressive"
--Banksteress Poodle Herder/Archeeetect

 


Been there, heard that... got the Bike Jersey.
"I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits....
Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king
of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters?
If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell,
it is this society of Loyola’s.
Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration
to offer them an asylum."
--John Adams to Thomas Jefferson; May, 1816
Yep.

 

40 posted on 07/22/2017 7:45:44 AM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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