Another day, another fatuous list. Today, it's Smooth FM (formerly Jazz FM, who you could take seriously) and their list of songs the over-50s like.
Yawn! Number one is Imagine. I think this song is so overrated. in fact, I think John Lennon is generally overrated too. As far as the solo Beatles go, for me it's Paul with Wings, Ringo, George, then John. Imagine is so insipid and really quite unrepresentitive of Lennon's work. People imagine he's this drippy hippy who writes nothing but dirges while wearing a white smock. There is of course, so truth in this, but by the mid-70s he was being much more exciting, if you like that kind of thing.
I remember when John Lennon was shot, hearing coming from the radio in my parents' room, and them being shocked by it. I was 15. I had heard of him, but I didn't know much about him or his songs. At the time, he just happened to have a new single out, (Just Like) Starting Over, which no one had taken much notice of and which was plummetting down the hit parade. Following Lennon's death, it shot to number one, followed by Imagine, Woman and other fare which wasn't doing it for me. I liked The Police, The Specials and BA Robertson.
Since then, I always think of the glut of Lennon songs cluttering up the charts and find him of no interest to me. The Ballad Of John And Yoko is the best I can do, and that's a Beatles song.
Anyway, this list is super-dull. Stairway To Heaven, Stand By Me, Lady In Red (!), Closest Thing To Crazy and, bizarrely, Crazy by Gnarls Berkeley making up the Top Ten. Who actually fills in these polls? You know me, I like bland, but there's bland and bland. This list is like being stuck in a lift at Wandsworth Town Hall with Ben Shephard.
The general public have zero imagination. That's why best film ever polls of five years ago had Titanic at the top of the pile, and today it'll be The Departed, or whatever has been a big hit. Titanic won't even be in the top 30.
Polls are dull, useless and unnecessary. Enough already.
6 comments:
I agree with your general sentiment about lazy poll results and perceived reputations. I can never see why people get so excited about The Who or Bob Dylan. I won't really accept that argument about the Beatles, though, but yes they were less than the sum of their parts individually. (In my view, especially Paul McCartney)
I'd love to pull together a list of Lennon songs which might rehabilitate him with you though.
Please try me, Crowded Trousers, I'm always open for things like that.
I hate Imagine too. I always find it rather galling that he sings "imagine no possessions', when, at the time, he owned huge tracts of American agricultural land.
In my favourite of his songs, The Other Side of Summer, Elvis Costello sings 'Wasn't it a millionaire who sang "imagine no possessions"?'. Spot-on, Declan.
Incidentally, my current favourite record is Stay The Night by The Ghosts, so please, someone, put that on your list of 41-year-olds top choons. Or not.
I couldn't agree more with you about these polls.
Every magazine seems to have one these days - man of the year, best dressed women, sexiest this and that, best soap storyline featuring a hamster, etc. They are, as you say, utterly fatuous.
Everybody should wise up to the fact that they're just a cynical attempt by the mag/tv channel/pr company to get some cheap press coverage.
What proof do we ever have that they bear any relation to any real votes cast? Has anyone ever actually seen evidence from the people who run these things to back up the results? They never tell you how many people voted, for example.
It's all just made up, I tell you.
I'll pull something together Mr Centres.
PS - Rich. Yours is a point that gets made a lot, but surely the point is he's singing 'Imagine' not 'Do. It's a utopian song, not some sort of commandment, although Lennon didn't help himself in later life by setting himself up as some kind of people's poet.
If you read about Lennon's life though (and whatever you think of his music he was a fascinating bloke) he was full of contradictions and idealism, but he was also weak, and flawed, and he knew it.
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