As something of a companion piece in its oppositeness to the theme of “thank u, next,” Ariana Grande’s latest single, “Imagine,” would instead like to offer all the possibility of a new relationship and its potential “perfectness.” Maybe this is precisely why Grande has described the meaning behind the song as “a simple, beautiful love that is now (and forever) unattainable.” Why, ladies and gentlemen? Because love always seems to get tainted.
Some, of course, have taken this explanation for the track to mean that Grande is feeling suddenly remorseful over the way it all ended with now deceased ex Mac Miller (in addition to parading allusions to a song he wrote about her called “Cinderella”–not to mention the fact that Miller had a tattoo that read “Imagine”). While this may be partially true, there is something more generalized about the song than that. One that seems to envision all the ways a relationship could be if only there weren’t so many damned obstacles in the way. Whether it’s coming to find that what Carrie Bradshaw would annoyingly call the zsa zsa zsu doesn’t last past a certain months-long honeymoon period or realizing that another person’s “charming quirks” are really just vexing foibles. In essence, “Imagine” imagines a world in which you are perpetually trapped in the haze and tingle of the initial love bubble.
With an intro that could briefly be mistaken for “Dangerous Woman,” Grande draws on the inspiration of bliss from the beginning of her romance with Miller, who apparently either cooked or ordered her Thai food after banging, which is anyone’s kryptonite. Also referencing every girl’s classic test of whether a man can truly love her or not (though some men pretend to have absolutely no hand in the success of the beauty industry), Grande muses, “Me with no makeup, you in the bathtub.”
It is, indeed, these ruminations on simplicity–the small, seemingly insignificant details–that make “Imagine” an accurate depiction of all that potential in the idealistic froth that divides impending reality from protective fantasy (as secured by the outset of the relationship’s novelty). So perhaps this is what, at times, tinges the song with just a hint of anger and resentment over the fact that it couldn’t work out (largely at the fault of Miller’s other true love, drugs).
So it is that Grande demands, “Imagine a world like that/Why can’t you imagine a world like that?” Well, dear Ari, maybe it’s because the world itself is so often cruel and unusual punishment, with a life sentence of l’amour being dangled at you only to be stripped away at a moment’s notice and for any arbitrary reason (often because consistent emotions are so precarious among the male set).
And yet, just as John Lennon before her did of “peace,” Grande dares, nonetheless, to imagine a utopian milieu where the perfect relationship can stay perfect without any inevitable darkness flowing through the sudden barrage of cracks in the veneer.
