When I was just a wee lass, Grandpa Costolo used to bounce me on his knee and say "Son, wretched are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, and yet they go around quietly sulking". This was all a bit too ironic for the 6 year old Dick Costolo, as Grandpa was himself meek, and would shyly slink about our house, speaking only in a whisper and ending every question with "...please don't hurt me." I mention this story, because I wonder if it's the reason that I can't stand the song "Imagine", by John Lennon.
When I say I can't stand this song, I don't mean that I dislike the song, I mean that, for me, hearing "Imagine" is like fingernails on a chalkboard. I have a violent and to-the-bone physical revulsion to it. When I hear it, everything else fades into darkness, and my rat brain takes over: "find the source of this music and kill it...if it cant be eliminated, flee!" I would rather hear "Celebration" by kool and the gang, "99 Luft Balloons" or whatever that damn german song from the 80's was, or any other song ever written in the universe since the dawn of time.
As a grown man, feeling that self-reflection is the creamy filling in the hostess cupcake of my soul, I thought it would be a good idea to examine why i hate the song "imagine" so very very much. Here is what i have concluded:
1. I hate hippies. I define hippy as "a person with money that acts like they have no money and further acts like they don't care about money while knowing they will never really have to worry about money.....who also has a beard or doesn't bathe regularly". Through the transitive property of hating the people who love this song, i hate this song. maybe that's not the transitive property. maybe i don't care.
2. I hate the beatles. people who like the beatles are the jehovas witnesses of music. "you don't like the beatles?!!". no, i hate the beatles, and don't knock on my door again.
3. I hate yoko ono. I don't like her name, i don't like her art or her face or her clothes, and I hate that i had to see that picture of her and that hippy john lennon naked in bed or in the park or wherever when i was a kid growing up.
4. With the exception of "War, what is it good for" and "killing in the name of", anti-war songs suck. "imagine" is the anti-war song poster child. Therefore, by the associative property of hating anti-war songs, i hate "imagine". by the way, please write me and tell me that i'm using transitive and associative incorrectly. That would be SO funny if you did that, I'm sure i would laugh for hours.
5. I like "fun", and "Imagine" is not "fun". rather, it "sucks". This particular reasoning is recursive, but i'm a recursive kind of guy, which i've learned through intense self-reflection.
Posted by Dick at January 24, 2004 02:44 PM | TrackBack