Imagine . . .

Dr. Bre

gifted wrote: »

I get knocked down but I get up again....real songwriting there lol lol

But you never gonna keep me down

smellyoldboot

Never trust a hippy.

Arghus

Normal One wrote: »

RIP Dimebag

Yeah, same date, crazy. Also shot by a lunatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-v6vG2Xhs

TheShockmaster

As usual the too cool for school crowd are in there with the same boring cynical soundbites, that everyone has heard before, trying to impress.

I’d like to imagine a world where this sort of boring parroting is gone, but unfortunately it’s getting further and further away.

Church on Tuesday

It's a good song but lets be honest here, Lennon was a bit of a prick.

Hamsterchops

smellyoldboot wrote: »

Never trust a hippy.

Don't Let me Down...

Wibbs

Oink wrote: »

He’s highly respected as a rythm guitar player.

Yeah and a point rarely enough mentioned. He had a distinctive approach, quite aggressive and staccato. One hell of a voice on him too. When he was in the groove he was an incredible songwriter, but the absolute peak of that was largely reached around the White album with some blips of greatness afterwards. Post Beatles he was very much a mixed bag, but then again so was McCartney(he sustained the peak for a little longer).

I read an interview with the director Peter Jackson who is currently going through the many many hours of footage that was shot during the Get Back sessions which was cobbled together for the Let It Be film and album in 1970. He said he expected it to be dour and awful, a glimpse into a band breakup, but apparently the original Let it Be flic was very much edited that way(years later Lennon snuck into a cinema to watch it and apparently was left in floods of tears ). He reckons it's far more complex, with McCartney even defending Lennon having Yoko around because she made him happy and with scary accuracy joking "in 20 years time they'll be saying she broke up the band because she sat on an amp".

One of his takeaways from the footage is the real sense they didn't know where to go next. They had done so much and were often the first to do it. They had done the unreal fame, touring, the massive stadiums, the rock and roll thing, the pop thing, the ballad thing, folk and otherwise, films, "videos", the classical thing, the psychedelic thing, the grunge thing, the experimental etc(only one actual blues song funny enough) Where could they go next? Joke is after those sessions were wrapped up they went into the studio one last time together and made Abbey Road, which turned out to be one of their most popular and acclaimed albums.

It can be hard to see their impact these days. The meh of repetition and the distance in years and the wide range of music we've been exposed to since, but if you were alive back then every record they put out was better than the last and then they started to sound like nothing you ever heard before, or even could have heard before, while always remaining unmistakeably them, The Beatles. And what's truly staggering is they did all of that in just under eight years and before they turned 30.

And John Lennon was a huge and indispensable driving force behind that(all four of them were to one degree or other). Consider just one almost throwaway song of his; Jealous Guy that Hamsterchops mentioned above. Written when he was in the Beatles, but never used, recorded later with new lyrics. Sounds like a pretty basic love type song right? Nothing unusual really. Only it's written in the pentatonic scale. Think Indian music, or the black keys on a piano. It should sound really weird, even discordant to a western ear, but it doesn't, and that's raw talent.

Hamsterchops

Hey Bulldog

Happiness is a Warm Gun.

Strumms

I could never get into his solo records, as bodies of work... certainly some great and good songs splattered around but he seemed like a guy who was taking himself and his art and message a bit too seriously....for the most part anyway.

When you play some of the solo stuff it’s like I dunno, if it wasn’t Lennon.... would you be bothered ? A little heavy on sentiment and light on tunes...

When you look at the three main songwriters in a band as lauded, important and a good as the Beatles... Harrison aside it has been a pretty mixed bag from the other two.

Asdfgh2020

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

J.W.L

Died this day in 1980.
Forty years ago!

What was his last hit....?






















Ans.....’the pavement / sidewalk’..........

I’ll get my coat 🧥

Pasteur.

"Woman" is my favorite

Simple and beautiful ,same as Imagine

Asdfgh2020

Arghus wrote: »

Have to disagree with you there. Plastic Ono Band is one of the greatest albums of all time. As good as anything he did with The Beatles IMO and so much rawer and honest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNkPpq1giU

In your myopic view....!!

Gregor Samsa

Wibbs wrote: »

Only it's written in the pentatonic scale. Think Indian music, or the black keys on a piano. It should sound really weird, even discordant to a western ear, but it doesn't, and that's raw talent.

Ah now, that’s taking it a bit far. “Cotton Eyed Joe” by The Rednex is also written in a pentatonic scale. There’s no raw talent there.

It may not be a scale type that most of the general public are familiar with, but there’s loads of popular western songs written in them - Amazing Grace, Auld Lang Syne, nursery rhymes like “rain, rain go away” and “ring a ring a Rosie”as well as tonnes of blues, jazz and rock tunes. There’s no specific skill needed to make a song using a pentatonic scale - good songwriting is good songwriting.

Also Indian music uses an entirely different framework to western music. It’s not just that it uses a pentatonic scale (it can, but uses other scales too) - there’s an awful lot more to it than that.

Also also, the black keys on the piano only make one a pentatonic scale - G Flat. The C Major pentatonic scale is entirely played on white keys, others have a mixture of white and black keys.

Pasteur.

Pasteur. wrote: »

"Woman" is my favorite

Simple and beautiful ,same as Imagine

And has a chorus with as deep a meaning as that amazing Eiffel65 song.

I guarantee if ed Sheeran pit out such meaningless ****e, it would be rightfully discarded as bull****.

Lennon got a pass for all his good Beatles work

Asdfgh2020

Asdfgh2020 wrote: »

In your myopic view....!!

Tubs 🛠is a massive Beatles fan......it’s like grew up in their ‘hay-day’......when in actual fact he missed it by at least two decades......

Can never understand the fuss about the Beatles......especially from guys like tubs who weren’t even born when they were at the height of their career...😡😡

Asdfgh2020

Asdfgh2020 wrote: »

Tubs 🛠is a massive Beatles fan......it’s like grew up in their ‘hay-day’......when in actual fact he missed it by at least two decades......

Can never understand the fuss about the Beatles......especially from guys like tubs who weren’t even born when they were at the height of their career...

Lennon also reminds me of one the IRA ‘hunger strikers’ with his latter day long hair, beard and draping loose gowns etc....could just ‘imagine’ him partaking in the blanket/dirty protest....!!

Arghus

Asdfgh2020 wrote: »

In your myopic view....!!

I don't think I'm being the myopic one to be honest.

It's a fantastic album, which set the template for loads of confessional songwriters to come. Lennon is frank and raw on numerous tracks and puts all his insecurities and fears out there in a way that manages to be both specific and universal. The songs have a beautiful stripped back minimalist quality that means the emotional heaviness of the record never becomes overbearing. The sound of a man unburdening himself after a decade like none of us have ever experienced.

A brilliant record.

Asdfgh2020

Arghus wrote: »

I don't think I'm being the myopic one to be honest.

It's a fantastic album, which set the template for loads of confessional songwriters to come. Lennon is frank and raw on numerous tracks and puts all his insecurities and fears out there in a way that manages to be both specific and universal. The songs have a beautiful stripped back minimalist quality that means the emotional heaviness of the record never becomes overbearing. The sound of a man unburdening himself after a decade like none of us have ever experienced.

A brilliant record.

I’ve read it all now......minimalist quality/emotional heaviness......would ya go have a look in the mirror....how can you be so certain of what Lennon was thinking/had going on in his head...?

Arghus

Asdfgh2020 wrote: »

I’ve read it all now......minimalist quality/emotional heaviness......would ya go have a look in the mirror....how can you be so certain of what Lennon was thinking/had going on in his head...?

It was easy to figure out what was going on in his head because he tended to sing about it.

AMKC

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

One of the worst songs ever recorded. It’s trite, has a plodding chorus, and the world he envisages would be boring at best, and an unmitigated disaster at worst.

I totally disagree with you on everyone of those points. That is the type of World we should be aiming for. A world with no greed. Where everyone has everything they need and where no one wants for anything. I think he would have loved Star Trek TNGs vision of the future.

Wibbs

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Ah now, that’s taking it a bit far. “Cotton Eyed Joe” by The Rednex is also written in the pentatonic scale. It may not be a scale that most of the general public are familiar with, but there’s loads of popular western songs written in it - Amazing Grace, Auld Lang Syne, nursery rhymes like “rain, rain go away” and “ring a ring a Rosie”as well as tonnes of blues, jazz and rock tunes. There’s no specific skill needed to make a song using a pentatonic scale - good songwriting is good songwriting.

Well I'll ignore jazz cos that's wittering bilge for the most part.... *runs*

And yes I agree with you there are lots of songs written in the scale, mostly older folk songs and hymns, in pop music not nearly so much. Certainly back then. Actually that was another thing noted of the Beatles output, they used a load of older styles, music hall and church type stuff rather than the usual fare of pop music at the time. That though they went mad for and were influenced by blues, rock and roll and popular music they didn't reproduce it that often in their own material.

That's what's odd if you listen to their studio tapes. They'll be roughly jamming away in rough R&B stuff, like a bad garage band and then they'll start an actual song and it's like a whole other vibe kicks off.

And then there was Lennon's oddball use of rhythm, which gave Ringo no end of trouble. EG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjb9AxDkwAQ

It's all over the bloody place. Apparently Lennon once brought a record into the studio, jazz IIRC and said to Ringo "I want it like that". Ringo pointed out there were two drummers on the track. Lennon came back with "Don't worry Richie, you'll be grand".

Wibbs

Arghus wrote: »

It was easy to figure out what was going on in his head because he tended to sing about it.

True, though others did similar. Dylan the obvious one, though more poetically even with a little more artifice than Lennon. I think that's why Paul's stuff was for so long considered somehow more "lightweight" because we came to see the singer songwriter as being more from the heart, more subjective, about themselves, but McCartney tended to speak from the objective, more universal from characters he wrote. He came across more as an observer rather than the soul revealed. Eleanor Rigby and the like. Though IMHO that's just as hard a trick to pull off, if not harder, because it's still about the self. Lennon could do that too, but more rarely.

RobbingBandit

Imagine there was no Yoko maybe John might be alive
He'd still be a hipster though

Wibbs

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Hey Bulldog.

Interestingly, or not, they shot a promo film for that when a film crew visited the recording, but it was used instead for Lady Madonna, cos reasons. Not so long ago this was spotted and now we have the originalish edit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vbJQ-MrKo

Gregor Samsa

Wibbs wrote: »

Well I'll ignore jazz cos that's wittering bilge for the most part.... *runs*

You get 6 thanks from me for that comment alone.

Arghus

Wibbs wrote: »

True, though others did similar. Dylan the obvious one, though more poetically even with a little more artifice than Lennon. I think that's why Paul's stuff was for so long considered somehow more "lightweight" because we came to see the singer songwriter as being more from the heart, more subjective, about themselves, but McCartney tended to speak from the objective, more universal from characters he wrote. He came across more as an observer rather than the soul revealed. Eleanor Rigby and the like. Though IMHO that's just as hard a trick to pull off, if not harder, because it's still about the self. Lennon could do that too, but more rarely.

I think Lennon's directness is unmatched. That's partially why his songs resonate with people so much. He was often honest to a fault, even to the point where he'd contradict himself. And I think he was often motivated by getting his point across first and foremost and often just baldly stated what was on his mind.

Dylan.. I agree and I disagree. Blood on The Tracks Dylan, yes, but I wouldn't say that was his mode for 80% of his career. He can be famously gnomic - some of the final meaning of several of his most famous songs are still being debated. Dylan is definitely a more accomplished lyricist - by far - but he doesn't hit in the gut like Lennon does, for me.

Wibbs

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

You get 6 thanks from me for that comment alone.

:D:D:D:D:D and

bodhrandude

Imagine I'm a great big eye from Outer Space.

McGinniesta

I may be the only living human that believes the beatles were grossly overrated.

To me they are a glorified boy band.

Arghus

McGinniesta wrote: »

I may be the only living human that believes the beatles were grossly overrated.

To me they are a glorified boy band.

The only thing they have in common with a boy band is that they were guys.