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

'Time' Pink Floyd.

'Like It Is' Yusef Lateef

 

“I Wonder, Do You Think Of Me” - Keith Whitley

 

"Just a human"? Well, just one of the most famous and, as a result, influential humans on the planet. In any case it was all Yoko's fault! He was not exactly the shrinking violet you suggest and had a record of being outspoken e.g. his claim that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus" was made 8 months before he even met Yoko. He may not have been capable of too much in the way of profound thought but I doubt that he didn't have a mind of his own.

 

Anyone who knows about Lennon knows he was extremely insecure. His dad left him at 3 years old, his mom dumped him next, then he built a relationship with her only to have her killed by a drunk driver. His best friend Stu died from a brain injury and then Epstein who he got along with on more of a personal level than the others, died suddenly. His outspoken ways was often a false bravado. He reveals his insecurities in his songs. Help, I'll Cry Instead, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I'm A Loser, You Can't Do That, Nowhere Man, Strawberry Fields, Julia, Don't Let Me Down, Mother, Isolation, Jealous Guy, How, Scared, Nobody Loves You, I Know I Know, I'm Sorry, Woman, I'm Losing You, I Don't Wanna Face It.

 

Anyone that knows about Lennon? That would be you then and by inference not me. I bow to your extensive insights into the workings of his mind. However I had never said he wasn’t insecure, merely that he did have a mind of his own and that portraying him as Yoko’s useful idiot is pretty insulting. I never thought I would find myself jumping to his defence. I have nothing more to add on this subject.

 

Pretty Things' "Baron Saturday" perhaps...
I find it's got a similar vibe as "Baby, you're A Rich Man" but a bit slinky & creepier

 

This Lennon exchange has been somewhat profound

 

I see what you did there.

 

Nothing in imagine is even remotely difficult to fathom or understand. It is the most simple minded song ever written. Raffi is more intellectually challenging. Of all the lines in the definition, "difficult to understand" applies the least. What's difficult to understand is how anybody might think this overly simplistic platitude could be considered deep.

 

Well, since we live in a world of wars, hunger, racism, religion influenced wars, organized religion making people feel guilty, greed and lust for power and it's always been this way and we've been raised since childhood to know all these horrible things, imagining a complete opposite of all of that doesn't mean a passing thought. It means to actually think deeply. Remember one of the definitions also was "characterized by intensity of feeling or quality" Imagine to some has that feeling both lyrically and with it's musical ambience. The OP says "always feels profound to you"

 

''Profound'' is an understatement ..

 

For The Sake Of The Song
To Live Is To Fly
Wichita Lineman
Most Of The Time

...... those are a few that came to mind

 

No, it doesn't take deep thought. Children imagine this.

Lyrically, it is the most opposite of thinking deeply that a song could possibly be.

What takes deep thought is finding a solution. Imagining does nothing. Especially coming from someone who's actions stand in stark contrast to what he's imagining.

Nothing.

Okay, it elicits a "deep" feeling in you. In that sense it "feels" profound to you, despite how inherently lacking in actual profundity it might be.

 

The fab cover by Plan 9 of the very cool garage-fuzz tune It's one thing to say... flips me all the time

 

The boxer by Simon and Garfunkel
From Now on by Supertramp
Divers by Joanna Newsom

Newom's vocals where she sings the lines below make my hair stand on end. It sounds timeless - modern, yet also oddly ancient.

"and in an infinite regress,
tell me why is the pain of birth
lighter borne than the pain of death?
I can claim that I loved you first
but I loved you best"

 

No matter how many times I've heard it since my initial exposure circa 1980 at 12, the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" is still majestic to my ears...

 

Cats in the Cradle- Harry Chapin

 

ooooh, another one:

Longer- Dan Fogelberg

 

I was going to post in this thread, but you've beaten me to it.

This song is a triumph on so many levels. If I had to pick a favorite song from the 1960s, this would probably be it.

Like most great songs, it's a combination of the elements -- lyrics, melody, performance, arrangement, delivery, etc. -- that make it transcendent. It's not just one aspect. But, man, Arthur Lee really got to it with this:

This is the time and life that I am living
And I'll face each day with a smile
For the time that I've been given's such a little while
And the things that I must do consist of more than style
There are places that I am going

This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that's all that lives is gonna die
And there'll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello, there will be goodbye
There'll be time for you to put yourself on

 

Brokedown Palace
Wharf Rat
Standing On The Moon

 

Stardust
Sugar Sugar
Someone to Watch Over Me

 

Bro you're just a hater for real and that is profoundly sad. And don't underestimate the thoughts of children as being shallow.

 

The Beach Boys' "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" has never failed to touch my emotions with its subtle profundity, the track's typically bright and youthful Beach Boy harmonies tempered by the more sophisticated and increasingly contemplative "time marches on" feel of Brian Wilson's electric harpsichord, framing lyrics whose poignancy becomes achingly apparent as the song progresses to its concluding fadeout, the anxieties of adulthood and life's rapid passing called out with each successive age in the backing vocal refrain.

Will I love my wife for the rest of my life
When I grow up to be a man?
What will I be when I grow up to be a man?
Won't last forever
It's kind of sad...

Remarkably thoughtful songwriting from a 22 year-old pop star in 1964.

 

What's sad is you're knee jerk accusation of being a "hater." (so often an intellectually weak fall back position)
If you love the song, that's fine. I'm not looking to take away from anyone's enjoyment of this music.
Whether or not one characterizes a child's thoughts as "shallow" is not the point.... the point is that it doesn't take intellectual depth to say you want peace. There is nothing profound about saying I wish we'd all just get along. It's a beautiful thought. It's a result we should all aspire to. It might just be the most important and relevant thought in the history of humankind! But it doesn't take intellectual depth to arrive at it. It is not hard to fathom or understand.

I will find the thought profound when someone comes up with a way to bring that thought to actual fruition, especially if that way doesn't blindly throw out the baby with the bath water.... that's weak and thoughtless; thoughtlessness being the opposite of profundity.

 

It wasn't a knee jerk reaction. It was after multiple posts by you insisting that Imagine isn't a profound song when even the OP hit like on the original posting of Imagine being someone's example. And again, the definition of profound talks about feeling. Someone suggested What's Going On as profound. Are you gonna go after them too for it merely being a song about everyone just getting along? None of the lyrical content in most of the songs listed on this thread will meet your unique definition of profound. The OP says a song that always feels profound to you. He even uses the word feel and that word is in the definition too. And after all of that, me imagining there is no freakin Heaven or all countries being one takes deep thinking. Much more deep than the OP's Take It To The Limit, no offense @Price.pittsburgh