Song Lyrics With errors and/or Impossible Statements

Cafe Society
161

That couldn’t be farther from the point of the song. Lennon is picturing a world without poverty, without haves and have-nots, without class distinctions and without the divide between wealthy and famous pop stars and “commonfolk.” Is that so unrealistic? Yes, of course it is. That’s why we have to imagine it.

And what “commonfolk” are those, anyway? I don’t know about you, but while I’m by no means wealthy, I have plenty of possessions, and while they may not be Rolls Royces and Berkshire mansions, I’m quite attached to them. Yet you’d say that simply because Lennon had more stuff than I do, I “can’t possibly share [his] position/perspective.” The divide between Lennon and his audience wasn’t that sharp. He wasn’t a millionaire singing to the destitute; he was a man with possessions singing to other people with possessions–including stereos to play their John Lennon records on. Why do I need to share Lennon’s level of privilege to relate to his message? Is commentary involving levels of privilege only valid between people on identical levels? Would the song be better if it were sung by your economic peer and went “Imagine that rich bastard up on the hill had no possessions”?

162

She’s combining punk and hippie imagery and mentioning years associated with those “revolutions”: hippies wore flowers in their hair (supposedly) in 1969 and punk blew up pretty big in 1977. She could also have said, “I wish I was a hippie with a safetypin through my nose” and had the same meaning. These lyrics make perfect sense. They’re a little bit lame, though.

163

From Meat Loaf, the repeated phrase which is also the title of the song: “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are”.

This is wrong in several ways from the actual phrase on automobile mirrors: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”

  1. The message is printed on the side-view, not rear-view, mirrors; a rear-view mirror is the one inside the car in the middle of the windshield.

  2. The images in the mirror look further away that the real objects actually are.

  3. The image/depth-distortion always occurs, not “may appear”.

164

Not to mention “a poor little schoolboy who said, ‘We don’t need no lessons.’” Elvis would love this thread.

165

It always surprises me how some people seem to feel personally judged by this song. I don’t think I ever encountered this before I came to the SDMB. Lennon is not criticizing anyone for having possessions or telling anyone to give them up. He’s perhaps suggesting it’d be a better world if we didn’t need things and if we didn’t divide ourselves along lines of nationality or religion. I’ve heard plenty of people who aren’t rich say the same thing. It’s a common sentiment. You can criticize him for being simplistic and naive but the hypocrisy argument doesn’t work.

166

Can I inerest you in my latest smash hit "I wish I was a goth girl breakdancing and tagging graffiti? :stuck_out_tongue:

167

Yes, but isn’t that the point?

168

Yes. But they are still “impossible statements”.

169

Anybody who isn’t John Lennon is the implication.

No, I’m saying the opposite - he can’t seem to share the perspective of those less well off. At least I get that impression. After all, how much did Lennon give to charity in his lifetime?

I’m reasonably well-off now (well, not poor anyway) but I come from poor working class roots. I went to bed hungry many times in my childhood. OK, so did Lennon but he got his nose into the trough pretty quickly and kept it there even while preaching socialism and equality to his listeners. As I said in an earlier post, I think I’d respect the 'message of Imagine more if he had written …“I wonder if I can”. Or perhaps not. Frankly I find the whole song irritatingly preachy and sanctimonious. :dubious:

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree…

170

More than I’ll ever see, I’m sure. He supported UNICEF; the few concerts he did after the Beatles stopped touring were mostly benefits, and Yoko stated in the 1980 Playboy interview that they donated 10% of their income to the needy.

171

Gotta love those people who think socialism is a “really bad thing”… but then, they probably were against healthcare, too.

172

Actually, I don’t think anyone in this thread is saying that. They’re saying that Lennon was a phony or wannabe socialist. Lennon would probably agree with them.

173

Which makes it no less irritating when someone who is rich does say it.

Biffy changed my mind on that point. Simplistic, naive, and irritating, yes; Hypocritical, nah.

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174

Close enough. Those of us who aren’t as wealthy and famous as JL is what I meant.

Or if he had divested himself of his filthy lucre and then suggested we “join him in imagining.”

And that’s where I’m leaving it too. Biffy has raised many interesting questions which made me think a lot harder than I would have preferred, but hasn’t changed my mind (except for downgrading my opinion of John from “hypocite” to “naive”). Looks to me like no other minds are going to be changed either.

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175

I’ve watched Biffy be right on this long enough.

Lennon is not talking about the virtues of poverty. He is asking people to imagine a world – one which did not exist at the time of his song and riches – in which things which cause strife, disharmony and inequality, in other words.

In other words, imagine a world better than the one we’re in right now, even though the one we’re in now has allowed him to accumulate many riches. Asking that does not make him naive, hypocritical or require him to to give away all he has for having the nerve to imagine something as being better.

You’re suggesting that people who write songs about how finding love has made them happy and because there are people whom it has not made happy, they’re hypocrites or naive.

176

I’m coming down somewhere in the middle of the “Imagine” debate.

I don’t go all mushy inside when I hear it, but neither do I hate it.

I agree that John Lennon has had sainthood conferred upon him by many, and that it’s not justified. He was a flawed individual, and was indeed capable of rather horrific cruelty towards others at many points in his life…though I believe he admitted to this in his later years and regretted it.

Did his and Yoko’s very public clowning for peace have much practical effect? Maybe not, but I also don’t see that it did great harm, either. We need someone to define the outer limits of a given issue in either direction. I’m certainly not prepared to say that their motives were insincere.
Back somewhat to the subject of the thread. Songwriters are in the imagination business. While some great songs have been directly inspired by the composer’s personal experience, some equally great ones have no real-world inspiration whatsoever, and are totally products of the songwriter’s imagination.

As I hinted in an earlier post, I’m not prepared to say to a John Lennon (or anyone else) “Because you have been incredibly successful in the music business and have made tons of money, there are now certain subjects you’re not allowed to turn your imagination to. Don’t even think about writing about certain subjects.”

Then too, this whole debate rolls around at some point to the issue of how directly you link an artist’s personal life to his or her art. I wonder if Lennon’s harshest critics here also disdain Wagner’s works on similar grounds.

In other words, is it possible to evaluate “Imagine” on its own merits, without regard to its composer’s personal life? Doesn’t seem as if there has been much of that in this thread.

177

Take this John Lennon shit elsewhere.

178

Brian Wilson/Beach Boys, “Cool, Cool Water”:
“In an ocean or in a glass,
cool water is such a gas.”

(Yes, I know how he meant it. But still.)
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179

Skinny Puppy get this fairly often for a line from their song about the democracy movement in China “Tin Omen”…

…even though they say “wrong date” a bit later…

180

I really like the song, but he has factual errors in nearly every line!

In May of 1941 the war had just begun
20 months earlier is hardly “just begun”, like InWinnipeg mentioned.

The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns
No, there were lots of bigger ships – the liner Queen Mary was quite a bit bigger, as were a lot of cargo vessels. Even if we limit it to battleships, Japan had a bigger one.

The Bismarck was the fastest ship that ever sailed the sea
No, again the Queen Mary was faster (30.9 knots to the Bismarks 30.1) as was the Normandie. And those were recorded speed records, while the Bismark’s was not.

On her decks were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees
Obviously reversed here (to make the rhyme work).

Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood
It wasn’t night, it was 6am. And being between Greenland & Iceland, obviously cold, but there isn’t much fog at those temperatures. It was the ship Prince of Wales that came out first, the Hood was behind.

The Hood found the Bismarck and on that fatal day
No, the British ships HMS Suffolk and Norfolk had found Bismark the evening before, and had been following her ever since.

The Bismarck started firing fifteen miles away
The Hood started firing first, when they were about 12.5 miles apart. Bismark didn’t fire until 2 minutes later, when they were only 11 miles apart.

We gotta sink the Bismarck was the battle sound
But when the smoke had cleared away the mighty Hood went down
The Hood was hit, exploded, and sank all within 3 minutes – hardly time for the smoke to have cleared. In fact, it was the smoke that enabled Prince of Wales to escape from the battle.
*
For six long days and weary nights they tried to find her trail*
HMS Suffolk was fitted with the new radar, so was able to continue shadowing Bismark most of this time. It was only the last couple of days when Bismark managed to get away. Even then, radio monitoring gave the British a fair idea of where Bismark was.

Churchill told the people put every ship asail
Why he told the people instead of the Navy is curious. And would you really send sailboats into the North Atlantic? But in fact, only a limited number of British ships were sent after the Bismark – most were busy and could not be spared. Many of the ones sent were old, obsolete ships, like the carrier Ark Royal that was sent from the Mediterranean.

Cause somewhere on that ocean I know she’s gotta be
Well, at least this line has no factual errors (but not much info, either).

The fog was gone the seventh day and they saw the morning sun
Ten hours away from homeland the Bismarck made its run
Bismark was going toward the coast of France, hardly her homeland. And it wasn’t much of a run, since an airplane bomb the evening before had jammed her steering, so she was only able to cruise in a circle.

The British guns were aimed and the shells were coming fast
The first shell hit the Bismarck they knew she couldn’t last
Not aimed very well – only about 1 in 7 of the shells fired hit the Bismark, and most of them just bounced off her armor. And she wasn’t sunk by gunfire, nobody claims that. The British battleships were nearly out of shells and had been sent home before the Bismark sank. She was hit by torpedoes just before sinking, but at the same time survivors have said they were ordered to open valves and scuttle the ship, to prevent her capture. Recent examination of the underwater wreckage seems to confirm the scuttling theory – none of the shell hits below the waterline actually penetrated the Bismark’s armor.