Comparing John Lennon's Imagine to a Perfect Circles Cover.

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Song writing is a very special form of poetry, there are so many elements to each presentation of a song that can change the overall message received by a listener. The way in which a singer stresses the lyrics or plays the instrument can all change the feeling of a song even if the words and actual sheet music are exactly the same. Also a lot is left up to the person listening to the song. So many different literary devices and plays on words are used in songwriting that you can usually take the meanings to be very different depending on which way you look at the song. You can even just listen to it for some four minutes of just listening pleasure if you so please, but I think most songwriters have some sort of message in mind that they are attempting to communicate through their music. A Perfect Circle’s version of “Imagine” is a good example of this ability to change the implications of a song. Maynard Keenan uses a combination of altering the music and using visual media to repackage the song in a way that fits current times more appropriately. When John Lennon wrote “Imagine” in 1971 it was a time of optimism for the anti-war movement. The Vietnam War was drawing to an end and American troops were finally beginning to come home, which added a little more hope to idea of giving peace a chance. “Imagine” didn’t sound gloomy or depressing, it sounded bright and hopeful. People for years used this song as a sort of anthem for the advocation of world peace, and many view it to be one of the more powerful songs of our generation. Maynard Keenan is covering this song some forty years after John released it, and as we can all probably agree, we are no nearer achieving world peace then we were in the 1970’s. Much further away from that it would even seem. A Perfect Circle gives the song a new depressing quality by slowing down the tempo and changing the chord

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