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It's widely considered to be lyrically facile, musically boring and one of the prime examples of John Lennon's late-career hippy excesses

zwkrt 8y ago
Widely considered by who? I've never heard of this consensus before
- azeotropic 8y ago
  The fact that Hidalgo's student mistook Imagine for a Coldplay song is pretty damning evidence.
- kochikame 8y ago
  https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2012/12/06/imagine-jim-borghesani https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2012/12/06/imagine-jim-borg... I mean, some people like it and some people even love it, but lots of people also think it's bloody awful, and awful on many different levels too.
  - jerf 8y ago
    I like it OK as a song. It's not spectacular, but it's adequate, and "adequate" is a modestly high bar from me. It wouldn't stand up to being elaborated on much more than it is, but there's a place for such simplicity. However, philosophically, the lyrics of the song boils down to "What if we could all just get along?", which is an even weaker message than "Why can't we all just get along?", which is already a sentiment so childish that I never deploy it as anything other than an example of something so hopelessly naive that it can't be taken seriously by any adult.
    - kochikame 8y ago
      "Imagine there's no countries", said every armchair revolutionary ever, before going back to getting high and thinking of other things to say to appear deep and radical to impress girls
    - Ma8ee 8y ago
      It's not that simplistic. More like, if we realized that god is a fantasy and there's no afterlife or other mystical values to strive for, and the life we have on earth right now is all there is, the world would actually be a better place.
- hnToughGuy 8y ago
  People on HN who hate Apple also hate The Beatles, because to them, Steve Jobs is the John Lennon of computers, and they’re glad both are dead.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  I wonder how much of this 'consensus' is driven by the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex' desire to write John Lennon out of history for all his talk of peace being within our grasp, and of war not being necessary, and that we should stop being led around by war-mongers whose only real desire is profit from the death and destruction wrought by it all. I mean, a lot of todays Western culture is derived from ideals promoted and promulgated by said military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex. A lot of peoples livelihoods depend on the export of death and destruction to the world. It follows that Lennon would be being written out of history by such culture ... and that there would be an effort to replace his ideals with those more aligned with the very real social goals of the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex running the West...
  - rusk 8y ago
    Amen Brother
  - ripDimebag 8y ago
    How does this logic apply to Dimebag Darrel?
  - kochikame 8y ago
    ON the contrary, John Lennon was a useful relieve of peaceful expression that never had a single chance of actually bringing about any change in the world. He was a useful idiot, allowing the masses to feel that there was a real movement for peace and that their desire for peace was being reflected back at them, but he never even came close (or indeed even really tried to come close) to doing anything about the military-industrial complex. He is fading because his late music wasn't very good and the generation that loved him is dying. The deep state, powers-that-be are the ones who will mourn him, because as an impotent fantasist, he was no threat to them at all while playing the perfect appearance of one.
x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
My first encounter with the song was A Perfect Circle's version in a minor key: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rakape74oNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rakape74oNY I still prefer it to the original, but do you think it's as boring or facile as the original?
- indigochill 8y ago
  IMO, APC's sinister-sounding cover was the perfect response to the original. Because however one would go about trying to implement that dream, it would be far worse than anything we have now. If you doubt it, just think about how a human-run government would enforce those ideals, particularly on people who felt differently.

zwkrt 8y ago

Widely considered by who? I've never heard of this consensus before

azeotropic 8y ago
The fact that Hidalgo's student mistook Imagine for a Coldplay song is pretty damning evidence.
kochikame 8y ago
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2012/12/06/imagine-jim-borghesani https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2012/12/06/imagine-jim-borg... I mean, some people like it and some people even love it, but lots of people also think it's bloody awful, and awful on many different levels too.
- jerf 8y ago
  I like it OK as a song. It's not spectacular, but it's adequate, and "adequate" is a modestly high bar from me. It wouldn't stand up to being elaborated on much more than it is, but there's a place for such simplicity. However, philosophically, the lyrics of the song boils down to "What if we could all just get along?", which is an even weaker message than "Why can't we all just get along?", which is already a sentiment so childish that I never deploy it as anything other than an example of something so hopelessly naive that it can't be taken seriously by any adult.
  - kochikame 8y ago
    "Imagine there's no countries", said every armchair revolutionary ever, before going back to getting high and thinking of other things to say to appear deep and radical to impress girls
  - Ma8ee 8y ago
    It's not that simplistic. More like, if we realized that god is a fantasy and there's no afterlife or other mystical values to strive for, and the life we have on earth right now is all there is, the world would actually be a better place.
hnToughGuy 8y ago
People on HN who hate Apple also hate The Beatles, because to them, Steve Jobs is the John Lennon of computers, and they’re glad both are dead.
mmjaa 8y ago
I wonder how much of this 'consensus' is driven by the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex' desire to write John Lennon out of history for all his talk of peace being within our grasp, and of war not being necessary, and that we should stop being led around by war-mongers whose only real desire is profit from the death and destruction wrought by it all. I mean, a lot of todays Western culture is derived from ideals promoted and promulgated by said military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex. A lot of peoples livelihoods depend on the export of death and destruction to the world. It follows that Lennon would be being written out of history by such culture ... and that there would be an effort to replace his ideals with those more aligned with the very real social goals of the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex running the West...
- rusk 8y ago
  Amen Brother
- ripDimebag 8y ago
  How does this logic apply to Dimebag Darrel?
- kochikame 8y ago
  ON the contrary, John Lennon was a useful relieve of peaceful expression that never had a single chance of actually bringing about any change in the world. He was a useful idiot, allowing the masses to feel that there was a real movement for peace and that their desire for peace was being reflected back at them, but he never even came close (or indeed even really tried to come close) to doing anything about the military-industrial complex. He is fading because his late music wasn't very good and the generation that loved him is dying. The deep state, powers-that-be are the ones who will mourn him, because as an impotent fantasist, he was no threat to them at all while playing the perfect appearance of one.

x3n0ph3n3 8y ago

My first encounter with the song was A Perfect Circle's version in a minor key: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rakape74oNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rakape74oNY I still prefer it to the original, but do you think it's as boring or facile as the original?

indigochill 8y ago
IMO, APC's sinister-sounding cover was the perfect response to the original. Because however one would go about trying to implement that dream, it would be far worse than anything we have now. If you doubt it, just think about how a human-run government would enforce those ideals, particularly on people who felt differently.