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Post by joshferrell on Mar 15, 2015 13:26:23 GMT -5
I just posted on the McCartney 20 hits thread and it gave me an idea for a Lennon 20 Best of cd idea... so here's mine.(like the McCartney one I want to do one disc for the best of and a second for a fan favs/underrated) Disc 1. 1. Give Peace a Change 2. Cold Turkey 3. Instant Karma 4.Love 5.Imagine 6. Power to the people 7. Woman is the Nigger of the world 8. New York City 9. Mind Games 10.whatever get's you through the night 11. #9 dreams 12. Move over Miss.L 13.Stand by Me 14. Starting Over 15.Woman 16. Watching the wheels 17. Beautiful Boy 18 Nobody Told me 19. Here we go again 20. Real Love (solo version)
Disc #2 (Fan Fav's etc) 1.Working Class hero 2.Well, well, well 3.look at me 4. It's so hard 5.Gimme some truth 6.How do you Sleep? 7.John Sinclair 8.Aisumasen (I'm Sorry 9. Out the Blue 10. Old dirt road 11. Scared 12. Bless you 13.Steel and Glass 14. Slippin and Slidin' 15.I'm losing you 16.Clean up time 17.Dear Yoko 18.I'm Steppin' Out 19. Grow Old with me (with dubbs) 20. Merry Xmas (War is Over)
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Post by Panther on Mar 15, 2015 18:50:24 GMT -5
Can I just say I don't like this 20 best of and 20 favorites format? It reminds me of Wingspan. I'm not really interested in how you would list 20 tracks if you were the record-company executive; I'm only interested in people's real 20 favorites.
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kc
Beatle Freak
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Post by kc on Mar 15, 2015 20:56:37 GMT -5
This is the track list from Lennon Legend. I think it is pretty much definitive for a 1CD set.
Imagine Instant Karma! Mother Jealous Guy Power to The People Cold Turkey Love Mind Games Whatever Gets You Thru The Night #9 Dream Stand By Me (Just Like) Starting Over Woman Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) Watching The Wheels Nobody told Me Borrowed Time Working Class Hero Happy Xmas (War Is Over) Give Peace A Chance
If I had compiled it I would have included Gimme Some Truth, probably at the expense of Borrowed Time, but apart from that I cannot better this. John's body of solo work was so limited in quantity it's hard to come up with an original, but credible track list.
Panther, agreed that the Wingspan format of one disc of hits and another of "history" was an abomination. See my alternate Wingspan track list on the Wings' Greatest thread (I even found room for Hi Hi Hi)!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2015 3:08:27 GMT -5
My John list...
Imagine Instant Karma! How How Do You Sleep Oh My Love Jealous Guy Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out Crippled Inside Mind Games Steel and Glass Whatever Gets You Thru The Night #9 Dream Stand By Me (Just Like) Starting Over Woman Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) Watching The Wheels Nobody Told Me Working Class Hero Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
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Post by vectisfabber on Mar 16, 2015 5:47:13 GMT -5
Here's my list of Lennon's Best Of. All 10 of 'em. Told you I was disappointed in his solo career.
Instant Karma! Love Oh My Love Oh Yoko! Cold Turkey (Lyceum - STINYC disc 2) What You Got Beautiful Boy Woman Dear Yoko Real Love (Imagine soundtrack)
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Post by Panther on Mar 16, 2015 7:43:42 GMT -5
There appear to be some errors here... FabFour has included no tracks from John's best-ever album, while Vectisfabber apparently has only heard 10 John tracks in his lifetime.
You silly dudes. Anyway, here's my list:
1. Give Peace a Chance 2. Instant Karma! 3. Mother (single version is fine) 4. Love 5. Working Class Hero 6. Look at Me 7. Imagine 8. Crippled Inside 9. Jealous Guy 10.Oh Yoko! 11.Happy Xmas (War is Over) 12.John Sinclair 13.Mind Games 14.#9 Dream 15.(Just Like) Starting Over 16.Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) 17.Watching The Wheels 18.Woman 19.Nobody Told Me 20.Borrowed Time
There's no getting around the fact that many of John's best tracks don't work that well in compilation-contexts. For example, I've pulled 4 songs from Plastic Ono Band, his best LP, but they're almost the 4 wimpiest songs on an otherwise tough album. But I just can't see "I Found Out" or "God" working on a comp like this. They don't make sense removed from the parent album.
Then, we also usually end up with or two or three albums dominating the list, as is inevitable when we've only a single decade to pull songs from. What a pity we didn't get three more decades of Lennon stuff... Anyway, I super-love "Borrowed Time", which is one of my favorite tracks. I think it's works very as a capper on a comp like this, summarizing as it does John's positive state of mind (in 1980), with a certain tragic poignancy.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2015 8:08:17 GMT -5
I included multiple songs from John's best album Panther, however, we obviously differ on what that album is...
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Post by vectisfabber on Mar 16, 2015 12:13:37 GMT -5
while Vectisfabber apparently has only heard 10 John tracks in his lifetime. Nope. Heard all of 'em. I just don't rate more than 10 highly enough to include in a Best Of. I thought John's solo career was, by and large, not aimed at me at all, which surprised me given that his Fabs career, by and large, was.
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Post by coachbk on Mar 16, 2015 13:43:00 GMT -5
1. Imagine 2. Instant Karma 3. Working Class Hero 4. Beautiful Bou 5. Mind Games 6. Give Me Some Truth 7. (Just Like) Starting Over 8. Watching The Wheels 9. #9 Dream 10. Grow Old With Me 11. Nobody Told Me 12. Oh My Love 13. Jealous Guy 14. God 15. Woman 16. Bring On The Lucie (Freeda People) 17. New York City 18. Remember 19. Love 20. Happy X-Mas (War Is Over)
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Post by Panther on Mar 16, 2015 20:13:33 GMT -5
while Vectisfabber apparently has only heard 10 John tracks in his lifetime. Nope. Heard all of 'em. I just don't rate more than 10 highly enough to include in a Best Of. I thought John's solo career was, by and large, not aimed at me at all, which surprised me given that his Fabs career, by and large, was. Let's get this straight then -- you not only don't think the songs 'Imagine' and 'Beautiful Boy' are good, you also don't think they're as good as 'Cold Turkey' live at the Lyceum?
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Post by vectisfabber on Mar 17, 2015 4:23:50 GMT -5
Beautiful Boy is in my list - a wonderful song. Imagine is trite, naïve and lecturing (like much of Lennon's early 70s output).
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Post by Panther on Mar 17, 2015 10:23:51 GMT -5
Beautiful Boy is in my list - a wonderful song. Sorry, missed it.
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Post by coachbk on Mar 17, 2015 10:42:39 GMT -5
Beautiful Boy is in my list - a wonderful song. Imagine is trite, naïve and lecturing (like much of Lennon's early 70s output). Completely disagree about "lecturing" in "Imagine" because John simply asks us to just "imagine" the various scenarios in the song. He doesn't say we HAVE to live or believe that way. I also don't see the "trite" at all. It is a strong and meaningful lyric. "Naive"? Maybe. I prefer to see it as optimistic or idealistic. Do you also feel negatively about "All You Need Is Love" or "The Word"? I don't see those being much different!
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Post by vectisfabber on Mar 17, 2015 12:20:30 GMT -5
Fair enough.
I personally (and I emphasise that this is just my opinion) saw a similar thing happen in John's music as happened in John's life after Yoko gave him the confidence to say something controversial without the careful regard for the consequences which the Jesus episode had engendered. I felt that he started lecturing me, starting by calling me a f*cking peasant which, thank you very much, I didn't appreciate (accusing me of genocide came later). Give Peace A Chance, Power To The People, Crippled Inside, Imagine, STINYC in its unpleasant entirety - Mr John Lennon, millionaire musician, is lecturing me about wouldn't it be good to have no possessions from the comfort and security of his country estate with its private island. No matter that the sentiment is worthwhile and it's dressed up in a pretty tune, the bloke is wagging his finger at me, and he has no right to do so, any more than I have a right to wag mine at him.
And I haven't liked it any more when McCartney's done it, either - GIBTTI, Wild Life, Meat Free Monday and the like. Yes, lads, you're entitled to your opinions, and I'm entitled to be irritated when you take to inflicting them on me.
AYNIL and The Word - early warnings! In those days I was just listening to the words, I wasn't really listening to what they meant.
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Post by Joe Karlosi on Mar 17, 2015 19:18:34 GMT -5
- Mr John Lennon, millionaire musician, is lecturing me about wouldn't it be good to have no possessions from the comfort and security of his country estate with its private island. No matter that the sentiment is worthwhile and it's dressed up in a pretty tune, the bloke is wagging his finger at me, and he has no right to do so, any more than I have a right to wag mine at him. If I had a nickel for each time I explained the meaning of this song, "I" would be the millionaire here! Look ... the song is called "Imagine". It's John wondering what the world would be like, if we were all "as one", and one example of that is if nobody had any advantages (like possessions). That likely includes John talking rhetorically about himself and his own situation, as well. When he did the song live, sometimes he changed the lyrics after "Imagine no possessions" to: "-- I wonder if WE can...". He admits that even 'imagining' such a thing is not easy. It's people who take these things the wrong way -- like Lennon's killer -- that get it screwed up. Same thing regarding another controversial line: "-- and no religion, too". John explained this in the 1980 RKO interview just hours before his death. He said he meant it as "no denominations"... the idea that we were all one on that, and there was no battling over different types of faiths. But yet here too, some people actually ban this line or change the word "religion" to something else every now and then, when the song is performed!
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Post by Panther on Mar 17, 2015 20:46:49 GMT -5
...the bloke is wagging his finger at me, and he has no right to do so, any more than I have a right to wag mine at him. Of course you're entitled to your opinion and your irritation, but I absolutely disagree that John has no right to say these things. He has every right to say them. I personally think John deserves an enormous amount of credit for saying things as bravely as he did in 1969 through 1972 or so. He was still young and there were certain things he didn't really understand well enough to be appropriating in song or deed (the word "nigger" for example, or the Irish conflict, or Michael X), but the fact that he was so willing to say (what he thought was) the naked truth as the expense of his sales, his media profile, and indeed his popularity is absolutely amazing. I can think of no other popular artist as his level of popularity in those years who has dared to do this. Certainly today's media-coached, preach-to-the-converted artists representing vague, non-specific causes carefully chosen to offend no one could learn a lot from John. They are media profiles, he was an artist. Everyone is going to remember things he sang and said in 100 years; no one will remember today's artists. As for "Imagine", I've been listening to it since childhood -- about 30 years I guess -- and it still surprises and delights me. What a bold move for the gruff, biting Scouser to come up with such a sensitive but uncompromising utopian lyric in a mainstream pop-designed recording. It took some big, hairy ones to do that. The lyric about "no religion" itself almost ensured limited radio play in the US (which John surely expected; the song still made #3). It can be interpreted in various ways of course, but in the utopian context I think we have to understand it as John's desire for humanity to get together and build a 'heaven' here on earth, sans religious conflict and parochialism. A wonderful sentiment, if expressed in provocative terms. And yes, John did like to provoke for the sake of provocation, as much in 1961 as in 1971. This is the guy who, in Hamburg, would go onstage every night and impersonate Hitler, shouting things like "We won the war!" at the Germans; who told Brian to title his book 'Queer Jew'; who impersonated cripples and spastics at every Beatlemania concert; who feigned masturbation at middle-aged Victorian types when forced to meet them (see Clapton's book); who showed his privates in '68 with Yoko on an album sleeve. I don't think there is any doubt that the Beatle media-safety bubble was felt by John as limiting and slightly oppressive, and he responded by being yet more provocative and truth-speaking during 1969 to 1972. If he spoke more loudly than he should have on some issues he didn't fully comprehend, he nevertheless was sincere in expressing what he honestly felt at each stage of his life. Your view of 'preaching' is probably seen by me as 'self expression', which is likely why I rate, for example, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band as one of the 5 or 6 greatest albums I've ever heard, whereas you think it's crap.
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Post by vectisfabber on Mar 18, 2015 4:31:10 GMT -5
I don't think JLPOB is crap at all - I respect it enormously, and think it is a hugely important artistic statement. I just don't like it very much - big difference.
To some extent I'm playing devil's advocate, perhaps overemphasising the negative aspects of my reactions to this stuff. But it remains true that, while I understand that a lot of people find Lennon's outright frankness as something admirable, it began to annoy me even at the time, and I haven't really mellowed towards it over the years.
And, as I said, I didn't react any more positively towards Paul doing the same sort of thing. I sympathise with many of the sentiments, but I can make my own mind up, thank you very much.
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Post by debjorgo on Mar 18, 2015 11:08:45 GMT -5
I've got my list down to 131. Of course a lot of these are just different versions of the same songs. With John, I think you do have to site the best version. Many of the official remixes that came out a few years back, take a song and elevates it to the next level. I tried not to pick unreleased versions, like with the Lost Lennon sessions.
But this may take a while. The George and Ringo 20 Bests should go a lot quicker. (Although Ringo has a lot of songs I really don't know that well. I'd hate to miss a good one.)
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Post by debjorgo on Mar 18, 2015 12:51:22 GMT -5
I've got it down to 58 songs. I've still got two versions of some songs. Some are very different from each other. I may just leave both versions in and try to cut the track count down some other way. Can I have vectus' ten tracks he didn't use?
I'm listening to What You Got from the Acoustic album. I'm not sure I noticed the alternate lyrics before:
You know a shaggy dog, her mother truckin' back to me Don't want to be a drag, underneath the apple tree Don't want to be a drag, no, no, putting me down Everybody got a bag, now I know you don't
Could this be another song about Martha?
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Post by debjorgo on Mar 18, 2015 21:46:04 GMT -5
I had a few songs where I had two versions of a song where I could pick the favorite. That reduced my original count. I got it down to 53 songs. All version are remixed versions.The idea that there are only 10 possible is ridiculous. I'm his audience. I'm not a target on any song.
I'm going to play this live. As random picks them, I'll yeah or nay them. 5 at a time.
Beautiful Boy - Anthology version - As good as the other. I'll pick the "less traveled". I'll do that in most cases here as long as it's as good as the released version. Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him - Milk and Honey (with John singing, much better than the sedate version on Stripped with John and Yoko singing) Steel and Glass - Walls and Bridges version. (Menlove version may pop up too.) Move Over Mrs. L.- Anthology (The Lost Lennon version with the line "pissing in the rain" is better.) Nobody Loves You - Anthology version
I'm the Greatest - Anthology - I have better version on a cassette somewhere. (On the cassette version he sings "Hey, hey , hey , hey, what you say, My momma told me I was great!") Working Class Hero - Plastic Ono Band - I'm a fuckin' working class peasant. I have no argument with that. #9 Dream - John dreams of his last day. He pushes it away and thinks of better times but it comes back. "Something warm, sudden cold. The spirit dance was unfolding." Watchin' the Wheels - Double Fantasy Stripped - close call on the version - with all the Beatle classics, this may be top 5 in my Lennon songs. Whatever Gets You Thru the Night - Walls and Bridges - "Don't need a gun to blow your mind. Don't need a watch to waste your time." Brilliant!
Only You - Anthology - panther says we can pick covers. Instant Karma (We All Shine On) - I'm listening to the Signature Box version, same as Shaved Fish. Real Love - Acoustic - Not the version the Beatles used, not as good as the Beatle's version, but I can't skip it. I Know, (I Know) - Mind Games - Peters out at the end but the first half is epic. Too bad my tracks here don't go to You Are Here and Meat City next. Meat City - Mind Games - (Remix version, although it doesn't have the complete "Who is that and why are they doing those strange things" line.)
Cleanup Time - Double Fantasy Stripped - Love the Cry Baby Cry revisit. Tight A$ - Mind Games - I always liked this one. Borrowed Time - Milk and Honey - "How close do I have to get?" The best trill ever. Paul , you're challenged. "Alright, you can get out now." What You Got - Acoustic - "I know you heard this one before. Mother truckin' back to me!" What You Got - Wall and Bridges - Hey, they both popped up in my 53 best. Maybe another thread might have us picking top 20 John songs, including the Beatles. Here's another one that might make my list.
My vectis 10. panther or joshferrell may have to rule on this but I think I caught a tech.
Jealous Guy - Imagine - A great one to plead my case with. Only ten songs? Ridiculous. I Don't Won't to be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die - Signature Box - I didn't then and I don't want to now. You got to do what you have to do. If it comes down to freedom, we may all have to pick up arms yet. If this version had been on Imagine, I may have been a Lennon Loony instead of a Macca Maniac. And it has the haunting "Why must I die?" line. Oh My Love - Anthology - Jimminy! A much better version. How? - Imagine - love it! Beef Jerky - Walls and Bridges - Perfect! Paul totally stole that guitar lick from this two years earlier.
Forgive Me My Little Flower Princess - Milk and Honey - I love it. Hell, I might put this in my top twenty Lennon songs just to spite the people who don't like it. Crippled Inside - Imagine - "No, honey. He's not making fun of you. He's making fun of the mentally challenge people who just don't get it." (It's All da-Da Down to) Goodnight Vienna - Anthology I Don't Want to Face It - Milk and Honey - I forgot how much I loved this. Walking on Thin Ice - Double Fantasy
Deleted Gimme Some Truth - sounded a little muddled. Excellent song though. Deleted I'm Losing You - I picked the Cheap Trick version from Anthology. Now I'm thinking the regular version may have had a better shot. Deleted Old DIrt Road - how could that happen? My thinking may be questionable. Deleted the FerBeaT remix Just Like Starting Over because it's cheating, it rocks too much. Deleted I'm Steppin' Out - I like it a lot, I just don't have room here. "I'm steppin' out, boogie! Deleted Rock and Roll People - a good song, just no room here. Deleted New York City (2005 Remix) - The US Versus John Lennon - this is the best version, but it still don't quite rate. The Beatles could had rocked this one serious. Deleted (It's All da-Da Down to) Goodnight Vienna - well no I didn't
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Post by debjorgo on Mar 19, 2015 0:07:44 GMT -5
thebowmanbody didn't make any picks. I'll take his.
Nobody Told Me - Milk and Honey - definitely the Milk version. "Roll" Since My Baby Left Me - Menlove Ave. - A rare oldie remake by John I love. Steel and Glass - Menlove Ave. - Or as I call it, Steal and Laugh. Isn't that what he is saying in this version? Scared - Anthology - I may be in illegal territory here anyway. What time is it in Japan? This may be the better version, though. Bless You - Walls and Bridges - "Still, we're deep in each other's heart."
It's getting late. And I'd better wait for a ruling on how many bonus tracks I have.
Ten picks - ridiculous.
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Post by Panther on Mar 19, 2015 1:53:55 GMT -5
Debjorgo, it's supposed to be 20, not 10.
I just can't bring myself to enjoy Mind Games, Walls & Bridges, or Rock'n'Roll.
For my 20-track comp (above), I pull from these "Mind Games" and #9 Dream". That's it. (And of those, "Mind Games" was a melody John wrote in 1969, while "#9 Dream" was based on the instrumental break in a Nilsson song John produced). There are a couple of other good melodies on Mind Games, such as "Bring on the Lucie (Freeda People)", and Walls & Bridges is a decent mediocre-Lennon listen (I do sometimes like "Out The Blue" and "Old Dirt Road", even though the latter is crying out for a McCartney middle-eight). But overall not much on these albums is enjoyable for me. And Rock'n'Roll -- botched and delayed though its execution was -- is, I think, a dreadful record. Listening to John sing rock classics onstage in Hamburg? 100% quality. Listening to John sing over-produced 70s' horn-arrangements on Rock'n'roll? 0% quality. The songwriting is very mediocre by John's standards, and whatever quality there is is sunk under the weight of the crappy mid-70s arrangements. The best example of this is "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out", a fine song in its solo-acoustic demo, but an almost unlistenable mess on the album. Basically, I tend to agree with John's flippant remark that these albums were "dogshit".
Of the two studio sets, I find Walls & Bridges the better album slightly, as John at least seems really focused. (Mind Games, to me, sounds like product for the sake of product, just uninspired.) But what's curious about John's music in 1973 and 1974 is how weak it is melodically, compared to nearly everything he did before, and particularly compared to his 1980 recordings, which (though also weakened by emerging 80s' production values) are really, really melodically strong, on par at times with his best Beatles' stuff.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2015 3:37:37 GMT -5
Have you made up your mind yet debjorgo on your "20" Lennon tracks ?
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Post by Joe Karlosi on Mar 19, 2015 6:35:31 GMT -5
My list of Current 20 "Favorite" John Lennon Songs (In No Order):
01. Instant Karma 02. Happy Xmas 03. Power To The People 04. Hold On 05. Look At Me 06. Imagine 07. Oh Yoko 08. Gimme Some Truth 09. Woman Is The Nigger Of the World 10. New York City 11. Mind Games 12. Tight A$ 13. Aisumasen 14. Steel And Glass 15. #9 Dream 16. What You Got 17. I Know I Know 18. Beautiful Boy 19. Watching The Wheels 20. I Don't Wanna Face It
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Post by Panther on Mar 19, 2015 10:13:47 GMT -5
I've often wondered what happened with that title. It should be "ai-su mimasen" (formal 'I'm sorry') in Japanese. Which nobody really ever says because it's too formal. (Conventional "I'm sorry" is usually "gomennasai".) To actually say "ai-sumimasen", John have done something really bad. Which is okay for its use, but then why didn't Yoko correct him on the (quite incorrect) romanized (romaji) spelling of the song-title? Weird.
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Post by debjorgo on Mar 20, 2015 23:45:52 GMT -5
Have you made up your mind yet debjorgo on your "20" Lennon tracks ? Hey, I cheated fair and square. Hand up, other one on heart.
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Post by joeyself on Mar 27, 2015 14:39:17 GMT -5
Beautiful Boy is in my list - a wonderful song. Imagine is trite, naïve and lecturing (like much of Lennon's early 70s output). Completely disagree about "lecturing" in "Imagine" because John simply asks us to just "imagine" the various scenarios in the song. He doesn't say we HAVE to live or believe that way. I also don't see the "trite" at all. It is a strong and meaningful lyric. "Naive"? Maybe. I prefer to see it as optimistic or idealistic. Do you also feel negatively about "All You Need Is Love" or "The Word"? I don't see those being much different! (Understanding you weren't talking to me, but Vectis and I share an opinion on "Imagine," but from much different theological perspectives.) Taking the last point first, no, I don't feel negatively toward those two, because they are less vapid than the lyrics of "Imagine." I find "Imagine" to be shallow because he hadn't thought past the first level of his sloganeering. Compared to some of the great political thinkers of our time (Pat Moynihan on the left, Thomas Sowell on the right, just to name a couple), Lennon comes off like the guy that read the dust cover of a book and thinks he knows the contents. I see the core substance of the message of that song as no God to answer to but ourselves, no individual rights to property, no nations. Save the first one, Lennon was perhaps inadvertently describing the Christian view of heaven, where the inhabitants are spiritually minded (in fact, spirits themselves) and unconcerned with borders and things of a material nature. I can imagine such a realm--I yearn for it--but I know it's not of this world, and never can be. Efforts to impose it by force have proven to be failures, and Lennon rejected the clearest way of getting volunteers to do it now--religion. Bottom line for me: Lennon invited us to "imagine all these things." So, when I imagine how good life could be if all mankind acted out of selfless love for one another, I make the leap to the next level--"how do we do this?" It's at the second level that I find Lennon's philosophy here to be shallow--he hadn't thought that far in advance to know it can't work. A brief daydream is far different that a philosophy. JcS
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Post by joeyself on Mar 27, 2015 14:55:35 GMT -5
I've often wondered what happened with that title. It should be "ai-su mimasen" (formal 'I'm sorry') in Japanese. Which nobody really ever says because it's too formal. (Conventional "I'm sorry" is usually "gomennasai".) To actually say "ai-sumimasen", John have done something really bad. Which is okay for its use, but then why didn't Yoko correct him on the (quite incorrect) romanized (romaji) spelling of the song-title? Weird. I'd have to look to be sure, but when the album was recorded, or at least released, weren't John and Yoko separated? It may be that she didn't see the mistake until it was already released. JcS
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Post by joeyself on Mar 27, 2015 15:11:19 GMT -5
Oh, and like Vectis, I have trouble picked 20 of the solo songs I REALLY enjoy. I just started jotting down titles off the top of my head and came up with a baker's dozen, a few of which are on my MP3 player now:
Instant Karma Remember Love Jealous Guy Oh Yoko New York City Mind Games Isolation Whatever Gets You Through The Night Number 9 Dream Just Because Beautiful Boy Nobody Told Me
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Post by coachbk on Mar 27, 2015 22:39:26 GMT -5
Completely disagree about "lecturing" in "Imagine" because John simply asks us to just "imagine" the various scenarios in the song. He doesn't say we HAVE to live or believe that way. I also don't see the "trite" at all. It is a strong and meaningful lyric. "Naive"? Maybe. I prefer to see it as optimistic or idealistic. Do you also feel negatively about "All You Need Is Love" or "The Word"? I don't see those being much different! (Understanding you weren't talking to me, but Vectis and I share an opinion on "Imagine," but from much different theological perspectives.) Taking the last point first, no, I don't feel negatively toward those two, because they are less vapid than the lyrics of "Imagine." I find "Imagine" to be shallow because he hadn't thought past the first level of his sloganeering. Compared to some of the great political thinkers of our time (Pat Moynihan on the left, Thomas Sowell on the right, just to name a couple), Lennon comes off like the guy that read the dust cover of a book and thinks he knows the contents. I see the core substance of the message of that song as no God to answer to but ourselves, no individual rights to property, no nations. Save the first one, Lennon was perhaps inadvertently describing the Christian view of heaven, where the inhabitants are spiritually minded (in fact, spirits themselves) and unconcerned with borders and things of a material nature. I can imagine such a realm--I yearn for it--but I know it's not of this world, and never can be. Efforts to impose it by force have proven to be failures, and Lennon rejected the clearest way of getting volunteers to do it now--religion. Bottom line for me: Lennon invited us to "imagine all these things." So, when I imagine how good life could be if all mankind acted out of selfless love for one another, I make the leap to the next level--"how do we do this?" It's at the second level that I find Lennon's philosophy here to be shallow--he hadn't thought that far in advance to know it can't work. A brief daydream is far different that a philosophy. JcS Your asking way more of this song than what you would ask about any other pop song. At the very least it is a beautiful melody, that is well sung, with some thought provoking lyrics. (for example it provokes you to think about the "next level"!)
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