“Let’s Imagine” – Aaron Koenig
There’s something really timeless about a song that actually goes on to imagine a better world. “Let’s Imagine” is a new song in the spirit of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and takes that very same idea of a better world and runs with it in a very contemporary way. Built around an acoustic guitar, warm piano, some very expressive drums and bass and lots of sweeping strings the song very gradually becomes an anthem.
The acoustic gives it that intimate, personal feel and the piano and strings provide the emotional depth and grandeur. It’s the sort of arrangement you start off with just listening to carefully and then find yourself wanting to sing along as it unfolds. But the real essence of “Let’s Imagine” is in the message. It’s all about imagining a world without governments, a world in which people simply choose to work together and where the advent of decentralised technology enables entirely new forms of freedom. It’s a very different take on the utopian ideal in that it doesn’t necessarily assume that a better world has to be created from the top down.
Rather than a political lecture in any sense of the word, it’s using the language of music to ask a very big question: what if people could organise their lives through voluntary cooperation rather than through some centralised authority? You may or may not agree with that vision but it does give the song something to say and something to think about after the music has stopped. Of course we’re inheriting a very big legacy with “Imagine”. That song became such a huge thing because of its simplicity, its tune and the fact that it was a song about an impossible dream which you could actually believe in. “Let’s Imagine” is in the same tradition of that kind of idealistic songwriting, just looking at a freer world from a slightly different angle. What really makes the track stand out is the blend of a very personal acoustic sound with an increasingly widescreen, anthemic arrangement.
The piano is quite tender and the strings really lift it into something much bigger, more communal. It’s the sort of song that you can quite easily imagine going from being just background music to becoming something that you’re all singing along to. That sense of connection has already been there in the live shows, with the audience waving their phones in the air as the song played. Very much the sign that “Let’s Imagine” is capable of generating the kind of emotional response you’d normally get from a concert ballad or a crowd singing anthem. “Let’s Imagine” is a song about the power of imagining alternatives. It’s a song which asks you to question the status quo, to think beyond the normal political arrangements and to consider whether a freer society might be possible. It’s an ambitious song, it has a soaring arrangement and it’s absolutely the kind of song that embodies the idea of doing it differently.
It might not have all the answers, but it does get one thing absolutely right about music: the first step to changing the world is often simply getting people to imagine that change is possible. An earnest, melodic and genuinely feel-good anthem which combines the acoustic warmth with a more expansive, singalong quality. “Let’s Imagine” is the very essence of the classic protest song of the past with a very modern take on the issues of freedom, technology and voluntary cooperation. It’s going to make you think, it’s going to make you disagree, it’s going to make you sing along and it gives you a reason to listen.
English