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`Don’t look back in anger`

Posted February. 24, 2014 07:44,   

한국어

I was unusually absorbed in sport competitions over night for the past few days. It was because of the Olympic figure skating event. As I knew this Olympics would be the last international competition where Kim Yu-na performs, it felt like that I should not miss the drama with some great expectation.

Because I am a music maniac, my attention was naturally directed to the players’ choice of music. Many chose classical pieces, but there were some players who selected rock music played by Queen or Rolling Stones. But even in those cases, delicate versions featuring string sections were mostly used probably to accentuate the sophistication of players’ performances. Given these tendencies, the gala performance of Japanese figure skater Datsuki Machida who skated to the original version of “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen really hit the spot. The gala performance of Mao Asada to “Smile – What a Wonderful World” by Canadian singer Ima was also touching because of the lyrics that goes “You`ll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.” Asada burst into tears after finishing the long program.

Kim Yu-na skated to Avril Lavigne’s version of “Imagine” (a song originally sung by John Lennon). The song is from an album of John Lennon’s songs remade and sung by world-class singers and produced by Amnesty International in 2007 as part of its campaign for displaced people in Darfur. The song harmonized with her skating so perfectly that it sounded like Kim was actually singing the song.

“Imagine there`s no heaven…No hell below us…Imagine all the people living for today…Imagine there`s no countries…Nothing to kill or die for and no religion, too.” Unlike the gentle melody, the message in the song is radical. Unless the dispensation of justice both to services and crimes is guaranteed, good people may just pursue practical brotherhood at this moment.

John Lennon’s “Imagine” is in C major and its melody of “sol-si-ra” and “ra-ra#-si” leave a strong impression. British rock band Oasis is notorious for its we-are-the-best kind of attitude, and even they paid tribute to Beatles. The band adopted the piano intro of “Imagine” in its hit song “Don’t look back in anger,” which was titled by twisting the film title “Look back in anger.”

The drama is over now. But it doesn’t mean that Kim Yu-na will disappear into thin air upon the closing of the Olympics. The last line of Sally in the song by Oasis kept resonating in my mind, overlapping the piano melody of “Imagine.”

“Don’t look back in anger. Don’t look back in anger…It’s not today.” (from “Don’t look back in anger”)