If you still have no idea what Rockstar INXS is, please find out. Or you can not care, that’s fine too.
After browsing through much of the final four weeks – I would have gone on but my ears were starting to hurt from the earphones and I didn’t really wanna watch Rockstar till 5pm no matter how big a fan I was, here is my quick list of must-sees in no particular order, conveniently short so you have no excuse and bearing in mind that I only watched but a sprinkling of the 11 weeks’ worth.
1. “Imagine” by Jordis Unga in Week 8
Sent chills down my spine. More on “Imagine” and John Lennon later.
2. “Live and Let Die” by MiG in Week 8
Watch this if only to see that one note he held for over 40 counts, though I reckon the song was pretty darn good anyways.
3. “Baby I Love Your Way” by MiG in Week 6
The only video I saw from a week earlier than 8. Highly recommended by a colleague who raved endlessly and made me listen to it on her computer previously. I suggest you watch it before listening to it. Watching it has made me a true fan of MiG now. Weirdly enough, his appeal to me stems partly from the fact that he’s married and wore his wedding band throughout the competition. He also plays the piano for this song, which really makes me wonder what is it about a man who plays guitar/drums/piano that makes (most) girls fall in love. I don’t see the same effect on men when girls play musical instruments.
4. “Trees” by Marty Casey in Week 9 and 10
My favourite of the final four’s original compositions. Very catchy. And I like the lyrics.
Back to John Lennon.
What is it about Lennon that drives so many to be cult followers and another to kill him? I don’t really know much about him, and I have never been a real big fan of the Beatles, but there is something about him that stirs something within me. I’ve decided to attribute it to a combination of his song “Imagine” – which I totally love, and the fact that he was assassinated (don’t ask, I don’t know why).
“Imagine” is a beautiful song. It’s sings of so much hope, and that makes it a sad song all the more, because you know his hopes will never come to pass. It is the song of a dreamer, of one who is seeking a better world, and it is sad because you know the world he seeks does not and will not exist.
The lyrics in “Imagine” sound almost communist, so why did a Cold War generation living in fear of communism worship it? Did the fact that he was an Anglo megastar supercede the communist tenets of his song? Perhaps it was because he was one who dared to dream, and in those dreams he carried the hopes of a people living in fear and unrest. He sang of peace, equality and a brotherhood of the human race, of living life without suffering, hunger and fear (the fact that he wanted no wealth and no religion, no countries no heaven and no hell must have escaped the masses). Perhaps they were attracted, not to the ideals of which he sang, but because he had ideals in the first place. I don’t know. But this I do – the John Lennon memorial in Central Park New York is a mosaic bearing only one word – IMAGINE. And that song still stirs something within me every time.
Imagine by John Lennon
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
