Pendulumophobia is cool

There are many many songs that many many people find great that kill me with boredom, I get the feeling. But then, I don't think that Imagine is exciting or a helluva ride; those lyrics onto that soft-rock (yet beautifully simple) music make it subversive enough to call it rock'n'roll. Maybe that's exactly why some people hate it - it's so overtly against their values that it annoys them.
Of course, it's easier to call this song "shitty" or to say that Lennon didn't practice what he preached than attacking the actual lyrics. Or people are really assholes, I don't know.

I received mine today in PA.

Received my single today too

I struggle to think of a song I dislike more than "Imagine," a bland song proposing that doing away with all prescribed value systems will immediately result in everyone agreeing on a new value system and carrying on conflict-free from here to eternity. That a bunch of hippie-dippie buffoons prefer this oversimplified nonsense to the complexities of reality should not serve as a measure of the song's success as a piece of art -- though the fact that Eddie Vedder is one of these people should surprise no one at this point.

Heh hippie dippie buffoons.

x 2

Olympic Platium
Pry To
Turning Mist
Hitchhiker
Don't Gimme No Lip
Ole
Stupid Mop
I'm Still Here
Sweet Lew
Whale Song
4/20/02
The Fixer
Amongst the Waves

First, I'm not a hippie nor a buffoon. Thank you very much.
Second, he's not saying "Do this", he's saying "Imagine this".
Thirdly, our beloved value system may in fact work for you and most of us but its direct consequences in other parts of the world or lower classes are not less barbaric than so-called communism or other political systems the "western" world stands proudly against. It's not because we like to sweep the uglinesses of capitalism under the rug that it isn't ugly.
Four, this is oversimplified, yes, this is a pop song for chrissakes!
Fifthly , how do most of us handle the true complexities of reality? By ignoring them. Or playing games pretending we care but ultimately being unfair to others for our own profit. Consuming junk. And posting on RM.

I dislike the song, but imagine is an exercise in radical imagination (hence the title), not a set of policy prescriptions

Putting the lyrics and sentiment aside for a second, I just think it's a really boring, really flat melody, with a lifeless performance to go along with it (I'm talking about the original version here). I really don't have any philosophical objections to the lyrical content, but the song is very unappealing to me on a compositional level.

Have you heard a perfect circle's cover?

I'm not a piano player at all but I learned it from memory a while ago and I think that the piano track is the song's trump card (besides all the clichés associated with the tune afterwards).
Otherwise, I agree that the performance is lifeless, the production is on sedative too, it's not Lennon's best melody either but it works for me. I don't think that it's in the top 10 solo Lennon songs but it certainly achieved to reach an enviable place in the collective consciousness. Or inconsciousness if you like.

x

I didn't mean to lump you in with the dips, Masta -- and I realize the song ultimately means well. But I don't feel bad about taking a message song to task for the inconsistency of its message, which is basically that a world with no religion or possessions and where everyone "lives for today" is a world where everyone lives together forever in perfect peace and harmony. I realize it's not a call to action, per se, and I realize a lot of protest music (as it is) can only work by putting across an aggressively simple version of its message and hoping people will retain enough of the sentiment of it to make a small difference, and that's fine -- I am sure somewhere someone has heard this song on the radio and then immediately felt compelled to turn around and take the homeless man on the corner a quarter pounder, and that's enough to justify the song's existence. But to me this is not a song that spurs on "radical imagination," as Stip says; if anything, as a ruminative middle-of-the-road piano ballad, I would say that what it encourages is precisely the type of casual contemplation that causes its message to crumble. This song doesn't even require overthinking; it cannot withstand even regular thinking.

I would feel a lot more conflicted about feeling this way if I was in any way moved by it as a piece of music -- but Jorge has that covered.

fair enough :patchouliscentedhug:

I wish people everywhere would take Imagine's lyrics to heart and come together in peace and harmony, so I could conquer the shit out of their hippy asses.

Exactly. It's boring crap. Had anyone else written it, we wouldn't even be discussing it.

Seconded.