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imagination
composers
Written by Kerr / Burchill
publisher
℗ JKMC–Bucks Music Group Ltd / Hornall Brothers Music Ltd (2014 - 2017)
℗ BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (2018 - )
background
Originally a demo instrumental called Odyssey.
"Last day of rehearsals - new songs? Sarah,
Charlie,
Andy,
Mel and
Ged getting ready for the
gig on Friday in Montereau, France. Not only classics in the set
list - two brand new songs, Imagination and
Blindfolded, set for live debut. Simple Minds - looking
back - but always moving forward." - Jim, 4th June 2014
"We were all happy with the first gig of the tour last night in Montereau. (Well organised festival,
congrats.) Weather was amazingly good, audience helped us immensely - thank you. New songs felt
good also - Imagination can and will get much better.
Blindfolded had an almost perfect debut. Went
overnight direct to Netherlands in Holland. Met some fans who had travelled some distance
to see us here. Thank you - all of you! We will do our best tonight. Now we have started, we just
want to play." - Jim, 8th June 2014
MH: Track number nine on the vinyl album by Simple Minds,
the Big Music, is Imagination. A Kerr/Burchill
song. I'm sure this track was around for a while. I remember it and always really liked it and you were always
working on it and it's great to see it come to fruitition and end up on this record.
JK: One of the things we did – we played the summer, the past summer, we played a lot of festivals. Obviously
the record wasn't out, in fact it was still in the last flushes of recording, but we decided to start playing some of the songs
and one of the songs we played was Imagination because we just felt confident. When you play
a new song – especially a song people haven't heard – it's got to have something about it that you feel is going to make instant impact.
And in the case of Imagination – apart from the melody, was it's got this great charge to it,
it's got this great energy and we felt confident it would go down well live. And indeed it did.
JK: Charlie had come up – again I struggled to begin with because it
was such a theme. I thought "I wonder if this is an instrumental" it's got such a strong theme. But again one of the things when you
write, people ask "What do you write about?" Your experiences come through you. But you're also stoking up the pool with the things
you read – I've still got a voracious appetite for reading or listening. I'm always looking for a riff, something someone's says
and there'll be something about it and I'll think "That's a picture" or "That has a rhythm to it" or "That's a song title or whatever."
JK: In the case of Imagination I just happened to be reading – it's
such an obvious thing but you don't think about it – one of the great world professors was saying that the greatest quality man has
is imagination. Because we don't know how the animal world uses its imagination but everything around us right now is a process of
human imagination. And when you stop to think about that for a second then it's overwhelming. And I thought "Well, I'm going to write
a song about imagination." We know that John Lennon wrote a song called Imagine and that's one thing. But imagination to
me – everything we've done – Simple Minds, our music – we've had to dream the whole thing up but we imagined the
whole thing up. We imagined it into being. And every night when we go on stage, you look out there and that's all a process of imagination.
That is "If you built it, they will come." And that became the backdrop of the song.
MH: In the lyric there's a great quote and it's like "Money can't buy, no money can't buy" and in all the
moments in this journey – which is still continuing and will go on for quite a bit of time – because your energy – when I see you
live these days and we do get to meet – seldom not as much as I would like – but there's always positive energy there and there's always a
push. And I keep on thinking, one of these days, I'm going to meet you and you're going to go "You know what? I've run out of ideas" but every
time I meet you it's "OK Martin. I've got forty million ideas and help me pick the ones to go forward. These I want to do." And it was never a
case of saying if you had something, you could do something else – you always took what you had and turned it into something special. And even
this song, the movement live when you do this song, it's a big song for you. So this is a great song called
Imagination by Simple Minds from Big Music.
Martin Hanlin
The Real McCoy
KX 93.5
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lyrics
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Once took an adventure,
To somewhere that now seems so lost,
They said I was down with no way back
And that all the straight lines beneath me were cross.
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discography
Live Version (9th June 2014) (3:49)
Recorded: KulturPur Festival, Hilchenbach, Germany
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (11th July 2014) (3:45)
Recorded: Kunst!Rasen, Bonn, Germany
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (24th July 2014) (3:45)
Recorded: Teatro Antico, Taormina, Sicily
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (26th July 2014) (3:46)
Recorded: Banchina San Domenico, Molfetta, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (27th July 2014) (3:47)
Recorded: The Cavea, Rome, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (28th July 2014) (?:??)
Recorded: Piazza Castello, Ferrara, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (29th July 2014) (3:45)
Recorded: Arena Alpe Adria, Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (30th July 2014) (3:46)
Recorded: Gru Village, Turin, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Album Version (3:41)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Clinton Outten AKA Roachie
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downloads
Live Version (9th June 2014) (3:49)
Recorded: KulturPur Festival, Hilchenbach, Germany
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (11th July 2014) (3:45)
Recorded: Kunst!Rasen, Bonn, Germany
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (24th July 2014) (3:45)
Recorded: Teatro Antico, Taormina, Sicily
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (26th July 2014) (3:46)
Recorded: Banchina San Domenico, Molfetta, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (27th July 2014) (3:47)
Recorded: The Cavea, Rome, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (28th July 2014) (?:??)
Recorded: Piazza Castello, Ferrara, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (29th July 2014) (3:45)
Recorded: Arena Alpe Adria, Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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Live Version (30th July 2014) (3:46)
Recorded: Gru Village, Turin, Italy
Mixed By Bleecker Street
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live history
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