A song that always feels profound to you no matter how often you've heard it?

Dion - Abraham, Martin and John:



Nothing else comes close.

 

Skynyrd- Simple Man
Pearl Jam- Black + Release
Gordon Lightfoot- If you could read my mind

 

Profound: (of a state, quality, or emotion) very great or intense.

 

I was going to mention the acoustic live version of 'The River'- very powerful intro, love it..

 

Perfect Circle by R.E.M. (Murmur)

I didn’t really understand the meaning of the lyrics in 1983, and I’m no closer to understanding them now, but I find it to be profoundly moving nonetheless...

 

The intro with the story about his dad? So good!

 

Perhaps a little cliche, but still:
Pink Floyd: Time
and also Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here

 

Ticking - Elton

Bob

 

City And Colour "Sleeping Sickness"

 

Die, Die My Darling by The Misfits

 

And here is the rest of the definition I shared.

difficult to fathom or understand
extending far below the surface
coming from, reaching to, or situated at a depth, deep seated, a profound sigh
characterized by intensity of feeling or quality
all encompassing.

None of the songs being mentioned here are going to live up to all of that but they are no more profound by theses examples than Imagine. The difficult to fathom or understand would certainly apply to Imagine and since the lyrics are asking a lot so would the all encompassing.

 

"Whatever's Written In Your Heart", Gerry Rafferty

 

John Brown-Bob Dylan

 

U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name

But I make sure I don't play it very often so that it don't loose it's profanity to me...
(Same goes with DSOTM btw...)

 

bob mould sinners and their repentance

 

McGoohan’s Blues by Roy Harper

 

Art Pepper playing ballads, any ballad really whether he wrote it or not. Sept. Song, Over the Rainbow, Goodbye, Patricia, Diane, etc.

 

I apologise for the misquotation but it doesn’t alter my view about the hypocrisy and dishonesty on display. The lyrics imply that he at least could imagine it so what did he do about it? At the time of his murder he remained one of the wealthiest entertainers in the world; it seems he had done very little to rid himself of his own possessions let alone the rest of the world’s. Perhaps the empty room (apart from the grand piano) in his palatial Surrey mansion where the video of the song was filmed was meant to show he had made a start. I fully sympathise with the aspiration for the world he conceives but this thread is supposedly about profundity and merely to imagine a better world is on its own pretty banal.​

 

I agree totally but let me single out the performance of Goodbye from Thursday Night At The Village Vanguard. One of my greatest memories is seeing him play Over The Rainbow totally unaccompanied at the London Jazz Festival in 1980; it was literally breathtaking.

 

Unsatisfied - The Replacements

 

I honestly don't think any musician, politician or religious figure ever does all they claim they want others to do as if applies to peace and love. I never thought Lennon in his lyrics was asking the individual to part with their worldly possessions as much as he was wanting us to imagine all of coming together and sharing. As he says Imagine all the people sharing all the world. In the bridge he says I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live s one. He recognizes it's not happening in the near future because it's going to take a collective effort by everyone to get it done. To me the song isn't so literal as it is pie in the sky idealism, do the best you can everyday kind of thing. It's profound because he is asking us to think about a world that doesn't exist. In order to do that it will take some deep thinking.

 

I should have thought that 'pie in the sky idealism' (your words) is the very antithesis of profound thought. As a child I'd been made to write school essays about my ideal world but I doubt my thoughts could have been considered profound. As one of the world's most famous people he could have used his enormous influence and offered some positive steps for the rest of us mere mortals to take to bring about this utopia other than just dreaming about it. I suspect that those of a like mind had already imagined the things he mentions and the rest would probably not have been swayed one jot, able to dismiss it as 'pie in the sky idealism'. The best it seemed Lennon could come up with to change the world were self-promoting empty gestures like staying in bed for a couple of weeks or insubstantial songs asking us to to use our imagination.

 

Great thread!
Most of my choices have already been picked, but I’ll add this one.

Ramshackle Day Parade - Joe Strummer

 

New Model Army - Green and Grey

 

Pretty much lol, I mean the guy was filled with insecurities so he probably didn't really believe deep down that he was gonna make some major change. John was just a human who got caught up in the protest movement like many others, but having Yoko in his ear probably made him a bit more outspoken than he would have been otherwise. Ultimately, he was against the war in Vietnam. Had that never taken place, then I doubt the rest of his "For the people" image ever manifests.