Imagination Run

In a few ways, Imagination Run (1988/2020) is a song much like The Hunger (1988), an imperative that urges the listener to “let go” and to explore the creative power of the Unconscious. Like The Hunger, Imagination Run speaks about youth and its implications. Yet unlike The Hunger, Imagination Run extols the power achieved by the Unconscious, now, in the wisdom of its years and experience. In this song’s depiction of youth, the subject is supressed/repressed by youth itself, but “older now,” is liberated by a putting aside of the former self and its “secrets,” and by an embracing of the wisdom of maturity.

There are brief voice samples of self-help mystic Neville Goddard (1905-1972) used ironically in this song. Goddard was considered the 1950s equivalent of Rhonda Byrne, an “imagination” guru.

Imagination Run is a theme conceived by Carruthers in 1988, but not staged as a produced work until 2018.

IMAGINATION RUN
(Carruthers/RE-VO) (2018)

When I was a child, I flew through the sky,
through the fields of fantasy, but I hid the best of me

Best kept under the skin, a hidden place, the emo bank,
where it was never talked about again. No signature, no name.

So come on and let go, someone said to me.
Imagination run down a simple road and wander free.
Easier said than done. No secrets anymore.
Will anybody help me through this psychedelic door.

Older now, I know imagination runs through trees,
through the memories talking back to me. Now, I can be free.

Best to shed your skin, lose the place, break the bank,
from whatever place you think you’re in. The signature’s the same.

So come on and let go, someone said to me.
Imagination run down a simple road and wander free.
Easier said than done. No secrets anymore.
Will anybody help me through this psychedelic door.

Imagination run.
Imagination run.