title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: On January 31, 2013, 20th Century Fox held a special tribute to the 25th anniversary of the "Die Hard" series by unveiling a mural of a scene from "Die Hard" (1988) on Sound Stage 8 of the Fox Lot. Afterward, the premiere screening of "A Good Day to Die Hard" was shown. Two additional premieres were held in Europe leading up to the film's commercial release: one in Berlin, Germany on February 4 and the second in London, England on February 7. "A Good Day to Die Hard" was commercially released first in Indonesia on February 6, 2013, and then opened in certain East and Southeast Asian territories on February 7.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: In the United States and Canada, the film was distributed to 2,328 theaters for night showings on February 13. Select theaters also held a one-time special marathon of all "Die Hard" films to lead up to "A Good Day to Die Hard"'s nationwide release, with Bruce Willis making a personal appearance at one of these marathons in New York City to thank fans. The film then expanded to a total of 3,553 theaters, including IMAX theaters, on February 14.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: "A Good Day to Die Hard" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 4, 2013. There is an extended cut that is only available on the Blu-ray version. It features a longer car chase through Moscow and some other slightly extended scenes. It also completely removes Lucy from the film. However, Winstead's name still appears in the end credits despite being cut from this version.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: "A Good Day to Die Hard" grossed $67,349,198 in North America and $237,304,984 in other territories for a worldwide total of $304,654,182.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: In North America, "A Good Day to Die Hard" grossed an estimated $840,000 from its night showings at 2,328 locations on Wednesday, February 13, 2013. The next day, at an additional 1,225 locations, the film managed to accumulate $8,239,116, opening at #2 behind "Safe Haven". However, for the whole 4-day Presidents' Day weekend, "A Good Day to Die Hard" opened in first place with $28,640,657, bringing its total at that point to $36,879,773.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: Overseas, "A Good Day to Die Hard" grossed $10,860,000 in its first weekend. Opening in seven Asian markets at 1,182 locations a week before North America's release (February 6–7) to take advantage of the Chinese New Year holiday, the majority of the film's gross came from South Korea, with the film also setting a Fox record in Indonesia and a series record in Hong Kong.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: "A Good Day to Die Hard" was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 15% based on 231 reviews, with an average rating of 4.00/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""A Good Day to Die Hard" is the weakest entry in a storied franchise, and not even Bruce Willis's smirking demeanor can enliven a clichéd, uninspired script." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 28 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On both websites, the film ranked lowest among the "Die Hard" films. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the lowest score of the franchise.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" described "A Good Day to Die Hard" as "a handful of extended set pieces—each more elaborate and therefore somehow less exciting than the last—linked by a simple-minded plot and a handful of half-clever lines." Though complimenting the special effects, he criticizes the direction of John Moore, the lack of style, and writes that "everything that made the first "Die Hard" memorable—the nuances of character, the political subtext, the cowboy wit—has been dumbed down or scrubbed away entirely." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" expressed similar sentiments, particularly of the direction, for which he says that Moore "has directed these sequences in a way that makes the incidents look so far-fetched and essentially unsurvivable that you can only laugh". Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film a 2/5 and remarked that it lacked "inspiration", and that the onscreen rivalry of Willis and Courtney was "more irritant than enticement." Richard Roeper, standing in for Roger Ebert on Ebert's website, rated the film one and a half stars out of four, criticizing the implausibility of the action sequences, as well as the film's lack of sufficient characterization for McClane and the villains as compared to the other films in the series. He says that "McClane has been stripped of any real traces of an actual three-dimensional character," and that the film "never giv[es] us a chance to get the least bit involved with any of these characters."


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: Among the rare positive reviews, Robbie Collin for "The Daily Telegraph" remarked that "Yet even though the ride finally stalls, "A Good Day To Die Hard" has been thrustingly outrageous enough in its earlier moments to coast to the finish line on momentum." Daniel M. Kimmel, writing for the "New England Movies Weekly", found the film to be better than "Live Free or Die Hard" and states that the car chase scene "is well worth the price of admission." With a 3.5/5 rating, Kimmel summed up his review saying, "it's probably a good day to end the series at last, but it's an action-packed and entertaining finale." Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" criticized the action scenes as being "messy", but concluded his review saying that the film "continues the franchise without undue embarrassment." Peter Howell of "The Toronto Star" remarked that Willis and Courtney made a strong estranged family duo and that the film had a nice drinking game routine going for it with how many times McClane exclaims "I'm on vacation!" during the running time.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: The video game adaptation of the film was developed by Goroid and published by Fox Digital Entertainment. It was released on February 14, 2013 for Android and iOS.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: When the production was formally announced for the fifth film in the series, Bruce Willis expressed his desire to retire the John McClane character in a sixth and final film. By September 2017, director Len Wiseman publicly floated that he was casting for a young version of John McClane for his self-penned origin story called "John McClane", whose plot was rumored to borrow heavily from the "" comic book mini-series. Six months later, the studio enlisted duo Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes to re-write the screenplay after Bruce Willis refused to endorse the previous edition and its actor.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: In July 2018, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura submitted an updated treatment titled "McClane", further confirming that the storyline features elements of McClane's and Holly's characters in the 1970s, intermixed with their present-day counterparts. The following month, Wiseman stated that pre-production on the new film should start "...fairly soon, no dates" once the script has been completed. Tobey Maguire joined the production team late summer 2018. By December 2018, di Bonaventura handed in yet another draft, this time without input from Willis. Production designer Carol Uraneck, who was hired in September 2018, later left the project by the close of the year. In February 2019, the production team made a revision to the writing, insinuating that the project, though supposedly moving forward, is on the studio's backburner, as evidenced by executives not even having read the script yet. Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead said that she would be interested in returning as Lucy Gennero-McClane in a future installment, but later intimated doubt that the film would ever get made. due to scheduling conflicts.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: "Die Hard" was removed from the Fox imprint through at least its 2021 slate, after Disney's acquisition and senior management shake-up, which saw the dismissal of its theatrical distribution executive, Chris Aronson.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: Willis reprised his role as McClane for the final time in 2020 for an advert for the DieHard car battery commercial. Willis later retired from acting in 2022 due to being diagnosed with aphasia, ruling out any future return as McClane.


title: A Good Day to Die Hard

text: In lieu of company-wide reorganization, the media giant is said to be rebooting the property as a streaming series on Hulu.


title: Frank Zappa discography

text: This is a list of albums by Frank Zappa, including all those credited to the Mothers of Invention. During his lifetime, Zappa released 62 albums. Since 1994, the Zappa Family Trust has released 57 posthumous albums as of July 2021, making a total of 119 albums/album sets.


title: Frank Zappa discography

text: In 2012 the distribution of Zappa's recorded output moved to Universal Music Enterprises. In June 2022 the Zappa Trust announced that it had sold Zappa's entire catalog to Universal Music, including master tapes, song copyrights and trademarks.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure () is an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1985, consisting of lead vocalist and songwriter Andy Bell with songwriter, producer and keyboardist Vince Clarke, previously known as co-founder of the band Depeche Mode and a member of synth-pop duo Yazoo. From their fourth single, "Sometimes" (1986), Erasure established themselves on the UK Singles Chart, becoming one of the most successful acts of the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. From 1986 to 2007, the pair achieved 24 consecutive top-40 entries in the UK singles chart. By 2009, 34 of their 37 chart-eligible singles and EPs had made the UK top 40, including 17 climbing into the top 10. At the 1989 Brit Awards, Erasure won the Brit Award for Best British Group. Beyond this mainstream commercial success, Erasure are also popular within the LGBT community, for whom the openly gay singer Andy Bell has become an icon in the UK.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure made their debut with the studio album "Wonderland" in 1986, however it did not perform well chart-wise. With their second release "The Circus" the following year in 1987 came major success, the album skyrocketing to a UK number 6 and spawning four top-20 singles.


title: Erasure

text: Their third studio album, "The Innocents" released in 1988, was rendered a number one and was followed the same year by the Christmas EP "Crackers International" peaking at number 2. "The Innocents" set the scene as being the first in a string of albums to place in the top spot, with their next five long-form releases also reaching the pole position of the UK Albums Chart: the albums "Wild!" (1989) and the Mercury Prize nominated "Chorus" (1991), the ABBA tribute EP "Abba-esque" (1992), the compilation "Pop! The First 20 Hits" (1992), then the studio album "I Say I Say I Say" (1994).


title: Erasure

text: Erasure's best-known songs are mainly from albums of this period and include "Oh L'amour", "Sometimes", "Victim of Love", "The Circus", "Ship of Fools", "Chains of Love", "A Little Respect", "Stop!", "Drama!", "Blue Savannah", "Star", "Chorus", "Love to Hate You", "Breath of Life", "Always" and "Run to the Sun".


title: Erasure

text: Erasure's commercial success began to fade from 1995, with the atmospheric self-titled studio album "Erasure" which, despite being a critical success, confused its audience. The mixed reception of the following studio album, "Cowboy" (1997), confirmed a decline in Erasure's popularity until the studio album "Loveboat" (2000), which went almost unnoticed.


title: Erasure

text: In the mid-2000s, however, the duo have managed to make a commercial comeback in some European countries and in the United States, notably thanks to their cover album "Other People's Songs" (2003), followed by the studio album "Nightbird" (2005), which won back fans. This return to favour gave the band their last two commercially successful singles: "Solsbury Hill" (2003) (a Peter Gabriel cover) and "Breathe" (2005). In the late 2000s, Erasure began briefly a new commercial decline with the acoustic album "Union Street" (2006) followed by "Light at the End of the World" (2007) and "Tomorrow's World" (2011), and the Christmas album "Snow Globe" (2013).


title: Erasure

text: Erasure have maintained their return to the top 20 album charts with studio albums "The Violet Flame" (2014), "World Be Gone" (2017) and "The Neon" (2020). Despite the singles from this decade not managing to reach the charts, however, a solid international fanbase enables Erasure to maintain its activity through touring and online sales, as well as the royalties attached to the catalogue of their past successful records.


title: Erasure

text: Achieving mainstream success at home in the UK, Erasure also has a strong following abroad, especially in some European countries—mainly in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Sweden. Surprisingly, Erasure has a broad audience in some South American countries, especially in Argentina, Chile and Peru. In the US, Erasure had three successful singles: "Chains of Love" (1988) at number 12, their biggest chart placing ever in that country, "A Little Respect" (1988) at number 14, and "Always" (1994) at number 20. In Russia, as well as in the former Soviet bloc countries, Erasure is mostly known for the sole song "Love to Hate You" (1991). In France, "Oh L'amour" (1986) was the band's only successful single, peaking at number 14 in the singles top 50 of that country, followed by "Sometimes" (1986) that underperformed at a low number 39 (in February 1987) and still remains to this day Erasure's last entry in the French singles chart.


title: Erasure

text: Overall in their career, Erasure have penned over 200 songs and have sold over 28 million albums worldwide.


title: Erasure

text: As a teenager, Vince Clarke was inspired to make electronic music after hearing Wirral synth band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). He was a founding member of Depeche Mode and the sole writer of their first three singles, including the breakthrough top 10 single "Just Can't Get Enough". After leaving the band in late 1981, Clarke forged a similarly notable career with the duo Yazoo (known as "Yaz" in the United States).


title: Erasure

text: After two successful studio albums in as many years (1982–1983), he split with Yazoo partner Alison Moyet and formed the short-lived project the Assembly with producer Eric Radcliffe. The project spawned a UK number-four single, "Never Never", featuring Feargal Sharkey on lead vocals. Clarke then released another single with vocalist Paul Quinn, "One Day". It flopped, leading Clarke to place an advertisement in "Melody Maker" looking for a vocalist for a new musical project. Peterborough-born Andy Bell phoned and got a call back a few days later. Bell practiced for the audition listening to Alison Moyet, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Communards. It went well, and he was chosen. Clarke had been his hero.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure's first three singles were commercial failures in the UK, although the third, "Oh L'amour", charted well in Australia and a few European countries (especially in France, where it still remains Erasure's only hit to date, and Germany where it was a Top 16 success). Their debut studio album, "Wonderland", was mostly recorded in 1985 and released in June 1986. Although it only made the UK top 75, it made a sizeable mark in Germany, making the top 20.


title: Erasure

text: It was the release of their fourth single, "Sometimes", which finally received recognition in the UK in late 1986. The song peaked at number 2 in the UK and Germany and spent many weeks in the UK top 40, marking the beginning of a long string of major hits for the duo. The single's parent album, "The Circus", was released in March 1987 and reached number 6 and turned platinum in the UK with three additional hit singles: "It Doesn't Have To Be", "Victim of Love", and "The Circus". The album remained on the charts for over a year.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure's third studio album, "The Innocents", was released in April 1988. Preceded by the top 10 single "Ship of Fools", the album hit number one in the UK on its initial release and returned to the summit a year later, eventually going double platinum. It also turned platinum in the U.S., generating two top 20 hits in "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect". "The Innocents" was the first of five consecutive number one albums for Erasure in the UK, including the greatest hits compilation "Pop! The First 20 Hits". In November 1988, the "Crackers International" EP, hit number 2 in the UK. The albums "Wild!" (1989) and "Chorus" (1991) both contained four top 20 singles and were major sellers.


title: Erasure

text: "Crackers International" was bettered in 1992 by another EP, "Abba-esque", (covering 4 ABBA hits), which became Erasure's first (and to-date only) number one on the UK Singles Chart. It featured a video of the duo dressed in ABBA outfits, and was one of the principal drivers of the ABBA revival scene in the 1990s.


title: Erasure

text: Also in 1990, Erasure contributed the song "Too Darn Hot" to the Cole Porter tribute album "Red Hot + Blue" produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1992, a singles compilation, "Pop! The First 20 Hits", also hit number one and went triple platinum, featuring all the band's singles released from 1985 to 1992.


title: Erasure

text: In 1994, Erasure released "I Say I Say I Say", their fifth consecutive number one on the UK Albums Chart. Its first single, "Always", became the band's third top 20 hit in the United States. A second single, "Run to the Sun", was released in July and became their final UK top 10 hit until 2003. "I Love Saturday" was released in November and was the third and final single from the album.


title: Erasure

text: The October 1995 release of the studio album "Erasure" marked a determined shift away from Erasure's signature three-minute synth-pop to a more introspective and experimental sound. Nevertheless, it made the UK top 15 and spawned two UK top 20 singles, "Stay with Me" and "Fingers & Thumbs". A remixed version of "Rock Me Gently" was released only in Germany and the Czech Republic as the third single.


title: Erasure

text: In spite of a return to three-minute pop songs, the 1997 studio album "Cowboy" did not restore the success of their 1986–1994 era. "Cowboy" enjoyed a short-lived success, peaking at number 10 in the UK but lasting only two weeks in the UK top 40. In the U.S. "Billboard" charts though, it was one of their most successful records. The first single "In My Arms" reached number 13 in the UK and entered the top 2 on the U.S. Dance chart. The second single "Don't Say Your Love Is Killing Me" made number 23 in the UK. The third single "Rain" was also only released in Germany and the Czech Republic.


title: Erasure

text: In October 2000, Erasure released their ninth studio album "Loveboat", co-produced with Flood, though only peaking at a lowly number 45. The first single was "Freedom", which made a brief entry into the UK top 30. In 2001, they released a limited EP, "Moon & the Sky" containing new versions of the title song, a cover of the Supremes song "Baby Love" and some acoustic versions of "Loveboat" songs.


title: Erasure

text: The 2003 release "Other People's Songs" was a collection of cover versions. Its first single, a cover of Peter Gabriel's song "Solsbury Hill", reached the UK top 10, and Erasure were invited to perform on "Top of the Pops" for the first time since March 1997. The second single from the album was a cover of Steve Harley's "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)", which made number 14 in the UK.


title: Erasure

text: In 2003, a new 'best of' compilation was released, called "Hits! The Very Best of Erasure". Included was a new version of the 1986 song "Oh L'amour" — originally a commercial flop in the UK, this new version charted in the top 15.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure's 2005 studio album "Nightbird"'s first single, "Breathe", reached number 4 in the UK charts (their first top 5 hit in more than a decade) and achieved the number one position on the U.S. Dance chart, 18 years after their first chart-topper.


title: Erasure

text: The next single, "Don't Say You Love Me", which made the UK top 15, enabled purchasers to configure their own remixes of the single through the band's website, with each variant of the song limited to a single download. The third single was a double A-side, featuring new versions of "Here I Go Impossible Again"/"All This Time Still Falling Out of Love".


title: Erasure

text: "Union Street" was a 2006 side-project which featured a collection of previously released album tracks that the band re-interpreted in an acoustic and country & western style. The album was named after the recording studio in Brooklyn where it was recorded.


title: Erasure

text: The duo then released a more 'dance-oriented' album than some of their more recent work. Titled "Light at the End of the World", the album was produced by Gareth Jones and was released on 21 May 2007 in the UK, and in North America the following day. The album was preceded by its first single "I Could Fall in Love with You", which peaked at number 21 in the UK. A second single, "Sunday Girl", was released in June and made number 33 in the UK. The album was supported by the Light at the End of the World Live tour. The "Storm Chaser" EP included an exclusive B-side, "Early Bird", a duet with Cyndi Lauper.


title: Erasure

text: "Total Pop! The First 40 Hits", a collection of Erasure's first 40 hits plus a new remix of "Always" by Jeremy Wheatley, was released on 23 February 2009. The compilation fractionally missed the UK top 20, reaching number 21.


title: Erasure

text: To celebrate 21 years since its release, the album "The Innocents" (1988) was remastered and re-released on 26 October 2009.


title: Erasure

text: In February and March 2010, the song "Always" enjoyed an unexpected peak of popularity among flash-game players for its prominent role as the soundtrack of the Adult Swim game "Robot Unicorn Attack".


title: Erasure

text: Vince Clarke stated in radio interviews that the band wanted to complete the concept album of nursery rhymes that they had been working on for some time.


title: Erasure

text: On 16 December 2010, Erasure's official website announced a new studio album planned for release in summer 2011 to be produced by Frankmusik. Also, a world tour was announced (including the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Florida in March 2011 and the Total Pop! Forest Tour of the UK in June and July 2011) with dates including stops in Europe and South America.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure played a 27-date US and Canada tour, as well as at Estadio Monumental "U" in Lima, Peru on 18 August. The Tomorrow's World Tour began on 31 August 2011 in Tampa, continuing through September, and finished in Seattle on 6 October 2011. The UK and European leg of the Tomorrow's World tour began on 12 October 2011 in Leicester, UK, continuing through to 14 November 2011 in Dresden, Germany.


title: Erasure

text: On 20 June 2011, it was confirmed via their official website that their new studio album was to be called "Tomorrow's World". This album was released on 3 October 2011 (11 October 2011 in the US). The first single from the album was "When I Start To (Break It All Down)". The album reached number 29 in the UK, number 35 in Germany and number 61 in the US. The second single from "Tomorrow's World", "Be with You", peaked in the top 10 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, making it their highest peak since "Breathe" in 2005. The third and final single from the album, "Fill Us with Fire" was released on 12 March 2012.


title: Erasure

text: Erasure toured internationally in 2011; it was one of their longest tours and included visits to some places for the first time, including Russia and Ukraine. They also did a whole South American Tour, including two shows in Buenos Aires, where they last performed in 1997 during the Cowboy Tour.


title: Erasure

text: On 11 November 2013, Erasure released their first Christmas album, "Snow Globe". The first single from the album was a cover of the 1973 Steeleye Span track "Gaudete" which was available as a digital download from 28 October, in advance of the single's full release as a CD and download bundle on 9 December. The track was available in the US on 29 October.


title: Erasure

text: On 27 May 2014, Erasure announced their sixteenth studio album for a September 2014 release, a 10-track record titled "The Violet Flame". Released on 22 September 2014 and produced by Richard X, it entered the UK Albums Chart at number 20, giving the duo their first top 20 album since "Other People's Songs" in 2003.


title: Erasure

text: In October 2015, in order to celebrate their 30 years in the music industry, Erasure released an updated version of "Sometimes" as a single and a new compilation album entitled "". Release dates were 23 October and 30 October 2015.


title: Erasure

text: On 29 July 2016, Erasure announced that they would be continuing their special series of releases to mark their 30th anniversary with the autumn release of an anthology box-set entitled "From Moscow to Mars".


title: Erasure

text: On 23 February 2017, Erasure announced that their seventeenth studio album would be titled "World Be Gone" and would be released via Mute on 19 May 2017. To mark the release, the band would headline three UK shows at Glasgow's O Academy Glasgow on 27 May 2017, Manchester's Albert Hall on 28 May 2017 and London's Roundhouse on 29 May 2017 before embarking on a four-month European tour as special guests of Robbie Williams in June, July, August and September.


title: Erasure

text: In March 2018, the album "World Beyond" was announced, a re-recording of Erasure's previous year's "World Be Gone" in a post-classical garb. It was recorded in ten days by Andy Bell and seven musicians from the Brussels-based ensemble Echo Collective. Erasure's album "World Beyond" then debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard" Classical Albums and Classical Crossover Albums charts dated 24 March 2018.


title: Erasure

text: On 21 August 2020, Erasure released their eighteenth studio album, "The Neon". The album reached number 4 in the UK and was their highest placed album in the UK charts for 26 years. "The Neon" was preceded by the single "Hey Now (Think I Got a Feeling)", which was first heard on BBC Radio 2's "The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show". The band stated that they tried to go back to their original sounds. Clarke used some of his older synthesizers and Bell described the new album as "going back to the beginning".


title: Erasure

text: On 13 May 2021, Erasure announced the release of "Secrets", a new single available as a one-track stream or download ahead of a new album, "The Neon Remixed". The album, a two-disc set of remixes from their eighteenth album, was released on 30 July and also included the single "Secrets". It charted on the UK Albums Chart in August 2021 at number 33, with a sales total of 2,255 units and became Erasure's 23rd hit on the UK Albums Chart. The band played a twelve venue tour of the UK in October 2021.


title: Erasure

text: In June 2022, Erasure announced the release of their nineteenth studio album, "Day-Glo (Based on a True Story)", which was stated as being a follow-up to the previous release "The Neon" (2020). It was released on 12 August 2022.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited from Romantics, but are based on observations of real life.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: His most famous work, a book of lyric poetry titled "Les Fleurs du mal" ("The Flowers of Evil"), expresses the changing nature of beauty in the rapidly industrializing Paris during the mid-19th century. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé, among many others. He is credited with coining the term modernity ("modernité") to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility of artistic expression to capture that experience. Marshall Berman has credited Baudelaire as being the first Modernist.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire was born in Paris, France, on 9 April 1821, and baptized two months later at Saint-Sulpice Roman Catholic Church. His father, Joseph-François Baudelaire (1759–1827), a senior civil servant and amateur artist, was 34 years older than Baudelaire's mother, Caroline (née Dufaÿs) (1794–1871). Joseph-François died during Baudelaire's childhood, at rue Hautefeuille, Paris, on 10 February 1827. The following year, Caroline married Lieutenant Colonel , who later became a French ambassador to various noble courts. Baudelaire's biographers have often seen this as a crucial moment, considering that finding himself no longer the sole focus of his mother's affection left him with a trauma, which goes some way to explaining the excesses later apparent in his life. He stated in a letter to her that, "There was in my childhood a period of passionate love for you." Baudelaire regularly begged his mother for money throughout his career, often promising that a lucrative publishing contract or journalistic commission was just around the corner.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire was educated in Lyon, where he boarded. At 14, he was described by a classmate as "much more refined and distinguished than any of our fellow pupils...we are bound to one another...by shared tastes and sympathies, the precocious love of fine works of literature." Baudelaire was erratic in his studies, at times diligent, at other times prone to "idleness". Later, he attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, studying law, a popular course for those not yet decided on any particular career. He began to frequent prostitutes and may have contracted gonorrhea and syphilis during this period. He also began to run up debts, mostly for clothes. Upon gaining his degree in 1839, he told his brother "I don't feel I have a vocation for anything." His stepfather had in mind a career in law or diplomacy, but instead Baudelaire decided to embark upon a literary career. His mother later recalled: "Oh, what grief! If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have been very different...He would not have left a name in literature, it is true, but we should have been happier, all three of us."


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: His stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta, India in 1841 in the hope of ending his dissolute habits. The trip provided strong impressions of the sea, sailing, and exotic ports, that he later employed in his poetry. (Baudelaire later exaggerated his aborted trip to create a legend about his youthful travels and experiences, including "riding on elephants".) On returning to the taverns of Paris, he began to compose some of the poems of "Les Fleurs du Mal". At 21, he received a sizable inheritance but squandered much of it within a few years. His family obtained a decree to place his property in trust, which he resented bitterly, at one point arguing that allowing him to fail financially would have been the one sure way of teaching him to keep his finances in order.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire became known in artistic circles as a dandy and free-spender, going through much of his inheritance and allowance in a short period of time. During this time, Jeanne Duval became his mistress. She was rejected by his family. His mother thought Duval a "Black Venus" who "tortured him in every way" and drained him of money at every opportunity. Baudelaire made a suicide attempt during this period.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: He took part in the Revolutions of 1848 and wrote for a revolutionary newspaper. However, his interest in politics was passing, as he was later to note in his journals.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: In the early 1850s, Baudelaire struggled with poor health, pressing debts, and irregular literary output. He often moved from one lodging to another to escape creditors. He undertook many projects that he was unable to complete, though he did finish translations of stories by Edgar Allan Poe.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Upon the death of his stepfather in 1857, Baudelaire received no mention in the will but he was heartened nonetheless that the division with his mother might now be mended. At 36, he wrote to her: "believe that I belong to you absolutely, and that I belong only to you." His mother died on 16 August 1871, outliving her son by almost four years.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: His first published work, under the pseudonym Baudelaire Dufaÿs, was his art review "Salon of 1845", which attracted immediate attention for its boldness. Many of his critical opinions were novel in their time, including his championing of Delacroix, and some of his views seem remarkably in tune with the future theories of the Impressionist painters.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: In 1846, Baudelaire wrote his second Salon review, gaining additional credibility as an advocate and critic of Romanticism. His continued support of Delacroix as the foremost Romantic artist gained widespread notice. The following year Baudelaire's novella "La Fanfarlo" was published.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire was a slow and very attentive worker. However, he often was sidetracked by indolence, emotional distress and illness, and it was not until 1857 that he published "Les Fleurs du mal" ("The Flowers of Evil"), his first and most famous volume of poems. Some of these poems had already appeared in the "Revue des deux mondes" ("Review of Two Worlds") in 1855, when they were published by Baudelaire's friend Auguste Poulet Malassis. Some of the poems had appeared as "fugitive verse" in various French magazines during the previous decade.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: The poems found a small, yet appreciative audience. However, greater public attention was given to their subject matter. The effect on fellow artists was, as Théodore de Banville stated, "immense, prodigious, unexpected, mingled with admiration and with some indefinable anxious fear". Gustave Flaubert, recently attacked in a similar fashion for "Madame Bovary" (and acquitted), was impressed and wrote to Baudelaire: "You have found a way to rejuvenate Romanticism...You are as unyielding as marble, and as penetrating as an English mist."


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: The principal themes of sex and death were considered scandalous for the period. He also touched on lesbianism, sacred and profane love, metamorphosis, melancholy, the corruption of the city, lost innocence, the oppressiveness of living, and wine. Notable in some poems is Baudelaire's use of imagery of the sense of smell and of fragrances, which is used to evoke feelings of nostalgia and past intimacy.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: The book, however, quickly became a byword for unwholesomeness among mainstream critics of the day. Some critics called a few of the poems "masterpieces of passion, art and poetry," but other poems were deemed to merit no less than legal action to suppress them. J. Habas led the charge against Baudelaire, writing in "Le Figaro": "Everything in it which is not hideous is incomprehensible, everything one understands is putrid." Baudelaire responded to the outcry in a prophetic letter to his mother:


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: "You know that I have always considered that literature and the arts pursue an aim independent of morality. Beauty of conception and style is enough for me. But this book, whose title ("Fleurs du mal") says everything, is clad, as you will see, in a cold and sinister beauty. It was created with rage and patience. Besides, the proof of its positive worth is in all the ill that they speak of it. The book enrages people. Moreover, since I was terrified myself of the horror that I should inspire, I cut out a third from the proofs. They deny me everything, the spirit of invention and even the knowledge of the French language. I don't care a rap about all these imbeciles, and I know that this book, with its virtues and its faults, will make its way in the memory of the lettered public, beside the best poems of V. Hugo, Th. Gautier and even Byron."


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire, his publisher and the printer were successfully prosecuted for creating an offense against public morals. They were fined, but Baudelaire was not imprisoned. Six of the poems were suppressed, but printed later as "Les Épaves" ("The Wrecks") (Brussels, 1866). Another edition of "Les Fleurs du mal", without these poems, but with considerable additions, appeared in 1861. Many notables rallied behind Baudelaire and condemned the sentence. Victor Hugo wrote to him: "Your "fleurs du mal" shine and dazzle like stars...I applaud your vigorous spirit with all my might." Baudelaire did not appeal the judgment, but his fine was reduced. Nearly 100 years later, on 11 May 1949, Baudelaire was vindicated, the judgment officially reversed, and the six banned poems reinstated in France.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: In the poem "Au lecteur" ("To the Reader") that prefaces "Les Fleurs du mal", Baudelaire accuses his readers of hypocrisy and of being as guilty of sins and lies as the poet:


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire next worked on a translation and adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater". Other works in the years that followed included "Petits Poèmes en prose" ("Small Prose poems"); a series of art reviews published in the "Pays, Exposition universelle" ("Country, World Fair"); studies on Gustave Flaubert (in "L'Artiste", 18 October 1857); on Théophile Gautier ("Revue contemporaine", September 1858); various articles contributed to Eugène Crépet's "Poètes français"; "Les Paradis artificiels: opium et haschisch" ("French poets; Artificial Paradises: opium and hashish") (1860); and "Un Dernier Chapitre de l'histoire des oeuvres de Balzac" ("A Final Chapter of the history of works of Balzac") (1880), originally an article "Comment on paye ses dettes quand on a du génie" ("How one pays one's debts when one has genius"), in which his criticism turns against his friends Honoré de Balzac, Théophile Gautier, and Gérard de Nerval.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: By 1859, his illnesses, his long-term use of laudanum, his life of stress, and his poverty had taken a toll and Baudelaire had aged noticeably. But at last, his mother relented and agreed to let him live with her for a while at Honfleur. Baudelaire was productive and at peace in the seaside town, his poem "Le Voyage" being one example of his efforts during that time. In 1860, he became an ardent supporter of Richard Wagner.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: His financial difficulties increased again, however, particularly after his publisher Poulet Malassis went bankrupt in 1861. In 1864, he left Paris for Belgium, partly in the hope of selling the rights to his works and to give lectures. His long-standing relationship with Jeanne Duval continued on-and-off, and he helped her to the end of his life. Baudelaire's relationships with actress Marie Daubrun and with courtesan Apollonie Sabatier, though the source of much inspiration, never produced any lasting satisfaction. He smoked opium, and in Brussels he began to drink to excess. Baudelaire suffered a massive stroke in 1866 and paralysis followed. After more than a year of aphasia, he received the last rites of the Catholic Church. The last two years of his life were spent in a semi-paralyzed state in various "maisons de santé" in Brussels and in Paris, where he died on 31 August 1867. Baudelaire is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Many of Baudelaire's works were published posthumously. After his death, his mother paid off his substantial debts, and she found some comfort in Baudelaire's emerging fame. "I see that my son, for all his faults, has his place in literature." She lived another four years.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire is one of the major innovators in French literature. His poetry is influenced by the French romantic poets of the earlier 19th century, although its attention to the formal features of verse connects it more closely to the work of the contemporary "Parnassians". As for theme and tone, in his works we see the rejection of the belief in the supremacy of nature and the fundamental goodness of man as typically espoused by the romantics and expressed by them in rhetorical, effusive and public voice in favor of a new urban sensibility, an awareness of individual moral complexity, an interest in vice (linked with decadence) and refined sensual and aesthetic pleasures, and the use of urban subject matter, such as the city, the crowd, individual passers-by, all expressed in highly ordered verse, sometimes through a cynical and ironic voice. Formally, the use of sound to create atmosphere, and of "symbols" (images that take on an expanded function within the poem), betray a move towards considering the poem as a self-referential object, an idea further developed by the Symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé, who acknowledge Baudelaire as a pioneer in this regard.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Beyond his innovations in versification and the theories of symbolism and "correspondences", an awareness of which is essential to any appreciation of the literary value of his work, aspects of his work that regularly receive much critical discussion include the role of women, the theological direction of his work and his alleged advocacy of "satanism", his experience of drug-induced states of mind, the figure of the dandy, his stance regarding democracy and its implications for the individual, his response to the spiritual uncertainties of the time, his criticisms of the bourgeois, and his advocacy of modern music and painting (e.g., Wagner, Delacroix). He made Paris the subject of modern poetry. He brought the city's details to life in the eyes and hearts of his readers.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire was an active participant in the artistic life of his times. As critic and essayist, he wrote extensively and perceptively about the luminaries and themes of French culture. He was frank with friends and enemies, rarely took the diplomatic approach and sometimes responded violently verbally, that often undermined his cause. His associations were numerous, including Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Félicien Rops, Franz Liszt, Champfleury, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, and Balzac.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: In 1847, Baudelaire became acquainted with the works of Poe, in which he found tales and poems that had, he claimed, long existed in his own brain but never taken shape. Baudelaire saw in Poe a precursor and tried to be his French contemporary counterpart. From this time until 1865, he was largely occupied with translating Poe's works; his translations were widely praised. Baudelaire was not the first French translator of Poe, but his "scrupulous translations" were considered among the best. These were published as "Histoires extraordinaires" ("Extraordinary stories") (1856), "Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires" ("New extraordinary stories") (1857), "Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym", "", and "Histoires grotesques et sérieuses" ("Grotesque and serious stories") (1865). Two essays on Poe are to be found in his "Œuvres complètes" ("Complete works") (vols. v. and vi.).


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: A strong supporter of the Romantic painter Delacroix, Baudelaire called him "a poet in painting". Baudelaire also absorbed much of Delacroix's aesthetic ideas as expressed in his journals. As Baudelaire elaborated in his "Salon of 1846", "As one contemplates his series of pictures, one seems to be attending the celebration of some grievous mystery...This grave and lofty melancholy shines with a dull light.. plaintive and profound like a melody by Weber." Delacroix, though appreciative, kept his distance from Baudelaire, particularly after the scandal of "Les Fleurs du mal". In private correspondence, Delacroix stated that Baudelaire "really gets on my nerves" and he expressed his unhappiness with Baudelaire's persistent comments about "melancholy" and "feverishness".


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire had no formal musical training, and knew little of composers beyond Beethoven and Weber. Weber was in some ways Wagner's precursor, using the leitmotif and conceiving the idea of the "total art work" ("Gesamtkunstwerk"), both of which gained Baudelaire's admiration. Before even hearing Wagner's music, Baudelaire studied reviews and essays about him, and formulated his impressions. Later, Baudelaire put them into his non-technical analysis of Wagner, which was highly regarded, particularly his essay "Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris". Baudelaire's reaction to music was passionate and psychological. "Music engulfs (possesses) me like the sea." After attending three Wagner concerts in Paris in 1860, Baudelaire wrote to the composer: "I had a feeling of pride and joy in understanding, in being possessed, in being overwhelmed, a truly sensual pleasure like that of rising in the air." Baudelaire's writings contributed to the elevation of Wagner and to the cult of Wagnerism that swept Europe in the following decades.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Gautier, writer and poet, earned Baudelaire's respect for his perfection of form and his mastery of language, though Baudelaire thought he lacked deeper emotion and spirituality. Both strove to express the artist's inner vision, which Heinrich Heine earlier stated: "In artistic matters, I am a supernaturalist. I believe that the artist can not find all his forms in nature, but that the most remarkable are revealed to him in his soul." Gautier's frequent meditations on death and the horror of life are themes which influenced Baudelaire's writings. In gratitude for their friendship and commonality of vision, Baudelaire dedicated "Les Fleurs du mal" to Gautier.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Manet and Baudelaire became constant companions from around 1855. In the early 1860s, Baudelaire accompanied Manet on daily sketching trips and often met him socially. Manet also lent Baudelaire money and looked after his affairs, particularly when Baudelaire went to Belgium. Baudelaire encouraged Manet to strike out on his own path and not succumb to criticism. "Manet has great talent, a talent which will stand the test of time. But he has a weak character. He seems to me crushed and stunned by shock." In his painting "Music in the Tuileries", Manet includes portraits of his friends Théophile Gautier, Jacques Offenbach, and Baudelaire. While it's difficult to differentiate who influenced whom, both Manet and Baudelaire discussed and expressed some common themes through their respective arts. Baudelaire praised the modernity of Manet's subject matter: "almost all our originality comes from the stamp that 'time' imprints upon our feelings." When Manet's famous "Olympia" (1865), a portrait of a nude prostitute, provoked a scandal for its blatant realism mixed with an imitation of Renaissance motifs, Baudelaire worked privately to support his friend, though he offered no public defense (he was, however, ill at the time). When Baudelaire returned from Belgium after his stroke, Manet and his wife were frequent visitors at the nursing home and she played passages from Wagner for Baudelaire on the piano.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Nadar (Félix Tournachon) was a noted caricaturist, scientist and important early photographer. Baudelaire admired Nadar, one of his close friends, and wrote: "Nadar is the most amazing manifestation of vitality." They moved in similar circles and Baudelaire made many social connections through him. Nadar's ex-mistress Jeanne Duval became Baudelaire's mistress around 1842. Baudelaire became interested in photography in the 1850s, and denouncing it as an art form, advocated its return to "its real purpose, which is that of being the servant to the sciences and arts". Photography should not, according to Baudelaire, encroach upon "the domain of the impalpable and the imaginary". Nadar remained a stalwart friend right to Baudelaire's last days and wrote his obituary notice in "Le Figaro".


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Many of Baudelaire's philosophical proclamations were considered scandalous and intentionally provocative in his time. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, drawing criticism and outrage from many quarters. Along with Poe, Baudelaire named the arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre as his "maître à penser" and adopted increasingly aristocratic views. In his journals, he wrote "There is no form of rational and assured government save an aristocracy. […] There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise what they call professions."


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Baudelaire's influence on the direction of modern French (and English) language literature was considerable. The most significant French writers to come after him were generous with tributes; four years after his death, Arthur Rimbaud praised him in a letter as 'the king of poets, a true God'. In 1895, Stéphane Mallarmé published "Le Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire", a sonnet in Baudelaire's memory. Marcel Proust, in an essay published in 1922, stated that along with Alfred de Vigny, Baudelaire was "the greatest poet of the nineteenth century".


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: In the English-speaking world, Edmund Wilson credited Baudelaire as providing an initial impetus for the Symbolist movement by virtue of his translations of Poe. In 1930, T.S. Eliot, while asserting that Baudelaire had not yet received a "just appreciation" even in France, claimed that the poet had "great genius" and asserted that his "technical mastery which can hardly be overpraised...has made his verse an inexhaustible study for later poets, not only in his own language". In a lecture delivered in French on "Edgar Allan Poe and France" (Edgar Poe et la France) in Aix-en-Provence in April 1948, Eliot stated that "I am an English poet of American origin who learnt his art under the aegis of Baudelaire and the Baudelairian lineage of poets." Eliot also alluded to Baudelaire's poetry directly in his own poetry. For example, he quoted the last line of Baudelaire's "Au Lecteur" in the last line of Section I of "The Waste Land".


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: At the same time that Eliot was affirming Baudelaire's importance from a broadly conservative and explicitly Christian viewpoint, left-wing critics such as Wilson and Walter Benjamin were able to do so from a dramatically different perspective. Benjamin translated Baudelaire's "Tableaux Parisiens" into German and published a major essay on translation as the foreword.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: In the late 1930s, Benjamin used Baudelaire as a starting point and focus for "Das Passagenwerk", his monumental attempt at a materialist assessment of 19th-century culture. For Benjamin, Baudelaire's importance lay in his anatomies of the crowd, of the city and of modernity. He says that, in "Les Fleurs du mal", "the specific devaluation of the world of things, as manifested in the commodity, is the foundation of Baudelaire's allegorical intention."


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: François Porche published a poetry collection called "Charles Baudelaire: Poetry Collection" in memory of Baudelaire.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: The novel "A Singular Conspiracy" (1974) by Barry Perowne is a fictional treatment of the unaccounted period in Edgar Allan Poe's life from January to May 1844, in which (among other things) Poe becomes involved with a young Baudelaire in a plot to expose Baudelaires' stepfather to blackmail, to free up Baudelaires' patrimony.


title: Charles Baudelaire

text: Vanderbilt University has "assembled one of the world's most comprehensive research collections on...Baudelaire". "Les Fleurs du mal" has a number of scholarly references.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) is a ranking of the competitiveness of financial centres based on over 29,000 financial centre assessments from an online questionnaire together with over 100 indices from organisations such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The first index was published in March 2007. It has been jointly published twice per year by Z/Yen Group in London and the China Development Institute in Shenzhen since 2015, and is widely quoted as a top source for ranking financial centres.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The thirty-first edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 31) was published on 24 March 2022. GFCI 31 provides evaluations of future competitiveness and rankings for 119 financial centres around the world. Rankings are based on surveys and 150 factors, with quantitative measures from the World Bank, The Economist Intelligence Unit, the OECD and United Nations. The 2022 report ranks New York at the top position followed by London and Hong Kong.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: N.B. Atlanta, Lugano and Ho Chi Minh City are the latest new entries, having not been included in the GFCI 30 ranking.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The ranking is an aggregate of indices from five key areas: "business environment", "financial sector development", "infrastructure factors", "human capital", "reputation and general factors". As of September 24, 2021, the top centres worldwide are:


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: This report ranked 116 international financial centers into the following matrix, as of 24 September 2021:


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: This is run for five separate areas of competitiveness to assess how financial centres perform in each of the areas GFCI 25 (2021 March).


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: This creates separate sub-indices: banking, investment management, insurance, professional services, and government and regulatory sectors for GFCI 25 (2019 March) .


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The "human capital" factors summarize the availability of a skilled workforce, the flexibility of the labour market, the quality of the business education and the skill-set of the workforce, and quality of life.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The "business environment" factors aggregate and value the regulation, tax rates, levels of corruption, economic freedom and how difficult in general it is to do business. To measure regulation an online questionnaire has been used.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The "financial sector development" factors assess the volume and value of trading in capital markets and other financial markets, the cluster effect of the number of different financial service companies at the location, and employment and economic output indicators.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The "infrastructure" factors account for the price and availability of office space at the location, as well as public transport.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: "Reputation and general" considers more subjective aspects such as innovation, brand appeal, cultural diversity and competitive positioning.


title: Global Financial Centres Index

text: The index provides sub-rankings in the main areas of financial services – banking, investment management, insurance, professional services, government and regulation.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The counties of Ireland (Irish: ) are historic administrative divisions of the island into thirty-two units. They began as Norman structures, and as the powers exercised by the Cambro-Norman barons and the Old English nobility waned over time, new offices of political control came to be established at a county level.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Upon the partition of Ireland in 1921, six of the traditional counties became part of Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, counties ceased to be longer used for local government in 1973; districts are instead used. In the Republic of Ireland, some counties have been split resulting in the creation of new counties: there are currently 26 counties, 3 cities and 2 cities and counties that demarcate areas of local government in the Republic.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The word "county" has come to be used in different senses for different purposes. In common usage, it can mean the 32 counties that existed prior to 1838 – the so-called traditional counties, 26 of which are in the Republic of Ireland. However, the Local Government Acts define counties to include separate counties within the traditional county of Dublin.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: In Ireland, the word "county" nearly always precedes the county name; thus ""County" Roscommon" in Ireland as opposed to "Roscommon "County"" in Michigan, United States. The former "King's County" and "Queen's County" were exceptions; however, these are now County Offaly and County Laois, respectively. The abbreviation Co. is used, as in "Co. Roscommon". The counties in Dublin created in 1994 often drop the word "county" entirely, or use it after the name; thus, for example, internet search engines show many more uses (on Irish sites) of "Fingal" than of either "County Fingal" or "Fingal County". Although official guidance does not use the term county as part of its name, the local council uses all three forms. In informal use, the word "county" is often dropped except where necessary to distinguish between county and town or city; thus "Offaly" rather than "County Offaly", but "County Antrim" to distinguish it from Antrim town. The synonym "shire" is not used for Irish counties, although the Marquessate of Downshire was named in 1789 after County Down.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Parts of some towns and cities were exempt from the jurisdiction of the counties that surrounded them. These towns and cities had the status of a county corporate, often granted by Royal Charter, which had all the judicial, administrative and revenue-raising powers of the regular counties.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The political geography of Ireland can be traced with some accuracy from the 6th century. At that time Ireland was divided into a patchwork of petty kingdoms with a fluid political hierarchy which, in general, had three traditional grades of king. The lowest level of political control existed at the level of the (pl. ). A was an autonomous group of people of independent political jurisdiction under a rí túaithe, that is, a local petty king. About 150 such units of government existed. Each "rí túaithe" was in turn subject to a regional or "over-king" (). There may have been as many as 20 genuine ruiri in Ireland at any time.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: A "king of over-kings" () was often a provincial () or semi-provincial king to whom several ruiri were subordinate. No more than six genuine rí ruirech were ever contemporary. Usually, only five such "king of over-kings" existed contemporaneously and so are described in the Irish annals as "fifths" (). The areas under the control of these kings were: Ulster (), Leinster (), Connacht (), Munster () and Mide (). Later record-makers dubbed them "provinces", in imitation of Roman provinces. In the Norman period, the historic fifths of Leinster and Meath gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled both, thereby forming the present-day province of Leinster.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The use of provinces as divisions of political power was supplanted by the system of counties after the Norman invasion. In modern times clusters of counties have been attributed to certain provinces but these clusters have no legal status. They are today seen mainly in a sporting context, as Ireland's four professional rugby teams play under the names of the provinces, and the Gaelic Athletic Association has separate Provincial councils and Provincial championships.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: With the arrival of Cambro-Norman knights in 1169, the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland commenced. This was followed in 1172 by the invasion of King Henry II of England, commencing English royal involvement.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: After his intervention in Ireland, Henry II effectively divided the English colony into liberties also known as lordships. These were effectively palatine counties and differed from ordinary counties in that they were disjoined from the crown and that whoever they were granted to essentially had the same authority as the king and that the king's writ had no effect except a writ of error. This covered all land within the county that was not church land. The reason for the creation of such powerful entities in Ireland was due to the lack of authority the English crown had there. The same process occurred after the Norman conquest of England where despite there being a strong central government, county palatines were needed in border areas with Wales and Scotland. In Ireland this meant that the land was divided and granted to Richard de Clare and his followers who became lords (and sometimes called earls), with the only land which the English crown had any direct control over being the sea-coast towns and territories immediately adjacent.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Of Henry II's grants, at least three of them—Leinster to Richard de Clare; Meath to Walter de Lacy; Ulster to John de Courcy—were equivalent to palatine counties in their bestowing of royal jurisdiction to the grantees. Other grants include the liberties of Connaught and Tipperary.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: These initial lordships were later subdivided into smaller "liberties", which appear to have enjoyed the same privileges as their predecessors. The division of Leinster and Munster into smaller counties is commonly attributed to King John, mostly due to a lack of prior documentary evidence, which has been destroyed. However, they may have had an earlier origin. These counties were: in Leinster: Carlow (also known as Catherlogh), Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Louth (also known as Uriel), Meath, Wexford, Waterford; in Munster: Cork, Limerick, Kerry and Tipperary. It is thought that these counties did not have the administrative purpose later attached to them until late in the reign of King John and that no new counties were created until the Tudor dynasty.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The most important office in those that were palatine was that of seneschal. In those liberties that came under Crown control this office was held by a sheriff. The sovereign could and did appoint sheriffs in palatines; however, their power was confined to the church lands, and they became known as sheriffs of a County of the Cross, of which there seem to have been as many in Ireland as there were counties palatine.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The exact boundaries of the liberties and shrievalties appear to have been in constant flux throughout the Plantagenet period, seemingly in line with the extent of English control. For example, in 1297 it is recorded that Kildare had extended to include the lands that now comprise the modern-day counties of Offaly, Laois (Leix) and Wicklow (Arklow). Some attempts had also been made to extend the county system to Ulster.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: However the Bruce Invasion of Ireland in 1315 resulted in the collapse of effective English rule in Ireland, with the land controlled by the crown continually shrinking to encompass Dublin, and parts of Meath, Louth and Kildare. Throughout the rest of Ireland, English rule was upheld by the earls of Desmond, Ormond, and Kildare (all created in the 14th-century), with the extension of the county system all but impossible. During the reign of Edward III (1327–77) all franchises, grants and liberties had been temporarily revoked with power passed to the king's sheriffs over the seneschals. This may have been due to the disorganisation caused by the Bruce invasion as well as the renouncing of the Connaught Burkes of their allegiance to the crown.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The Earls of Ulster divided their territory up into counties; however, these are not considered part of the Crown's shiring of Ireland. In 1333, the Earldom of Ulster is recorded as consisting of seven counties: Antrim, Blathewyc, Cragferus, Coulrath, del Art, Dun (also known as Ladcathel), and Twescard.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: With the passing of liberties to the Crown, the number of Counties of the Cross declined, and only one, Tipperary, survived into the Stuart era; the others had ceased to exist by the reign of Henry VIII.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: It was not until the Tudors, specifically the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47), that crown control started to once again extend throughout Ireland. Having declared himself King of Ireland in 1541, Henry VIII went about converting Irish chiefs into feudal subjects of the crown with land divided into districts, which were eventually amalgamated into the modern counties. County boundaries were still ill-defined; however, in 1543 Meath was split into Meath and Westmeath. Around 1545, the Byrnes and O'Tooles, both native septs who had constantly been a pain for the English administration of the Pale, petitioned the Lord Deputy of Ireland to turn their district into its own county, Wicklow. However, this was ignored.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: During the reigns of the last two Tudor monarchs, Mary I (1553–58) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603), the majority of the work for the foundation of the modern counties was carried out under the auspices of three Lord Deputies: Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, Sir Henry Sydney, and Sir John Perrot.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Mary's reign saw the first addition of actual new counties since the reign of King John. Radclyffe had conquered the districts of Glenmaliry, Irry, Leix, Offaly, and Slewmargy from the O'Moores and O'Connors, and in 1556 a statute decreed that Offaly and part of Glenmaliry would be made into the county of King's County, whilst the rest of Glenmarliry along with Irry, Leix and Slewmargy was formed into Queen's County. Radclyffe brought forth legislation to shire all land as yet unshired throughout Ireland and sought to divide the island into six parts—Connaught, Leinster, Meath, Nether Munster, Ulster, and Upper Munster. However, his administrative reign in Ireland was cut short, and it was not until the reign of Mary's successor, Elizabeth, that this legislation was re-adopted. Under Elizabeth, Radclyffe was brought back to implement it.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Sydney during his three tenures as Lord Deputy created two presidencies to administer Connaught and Munster. He shired Connaught into the counties of Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo. In 1565 the territory of the O'Rourkes within Roscommon was made into the county of Leitrim. In an attempt to reduce the importance of the province of Munster, Sydney, using the River Shannon as a natural boundary took the former kingdom of Thomond (North Munster) and made it into the county of Clare as part of the presidency of Connaught in 1569. In 1569 the Irish Parliament passed "An Act for turning of Countries that be not yet Shire Grounds into Shire Grounds". A commission headed by Perrot and others in 1571 declared that the territory of Desmond in Munster was to be made a county of itself, and it had its own sheriff appointed, however in 1606 it was merged with the county of Kerry. In 1575 Sydney made an expedition to Ulster to plan its shiring. However, nothing came to bear.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: In 1578 the go-ahead was given for turning the districts of the Byrnes and O'Tooles into the county of Wicklow. However, with the outbreak of war in Munster and then Ulster, they resumed their independence. Sydney also sought to split Wexford into two smaller counties, the northern half of which was to be called Ferns, but the matter was dropped as it was considered impossible to properly administer. The territory of the O'Farrells of Annaly, however, which was in Westmeath, in 1583 was formed into the county of Longford and transferred to Connaught. The Desmond rebellion (1579–83) that was taking place in Munster stopped Sydney's work and by the time it had been defeated Sir John Perrot was now Lord Deputy, being appointed in 1584.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Perrot would be most remembered for shiring the only province of Ireland that remained effectively outside of English control, that of Ulster. Prior to his tenancy the only proper county in Ulster was Louth, which had been part of the Pale. There were two other long recognised entities north of Louth—Antrim and Down—that had at one time been "counties" of the Earldom of Ulster and were regarded as apart from the unreformed parts of the province. The date Antrim and Down became constituted is unknown. Perrot was recalled in 1588 and the shiring of Ulster would for two decades basically exist on paper as the territory affected remained firmly outside of English control until the defeat of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone in the Nine Years' War. These counties were: Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh, Monaghan, and Tyrone. Cavan was formed from the territory of the O'Reilly's of East Breifne in 1584 and had been transferred from Connaught to Ulster. After O'Neill and his allies fled Ireland in 1607 in the Flight of the Earls, their lands became escheated to the Crown and the county divisions designed by Perrot were used as the basis for the grants of the subsequent Plantation of Ulster effected by King James I, which officially started in 1609.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Around 1600 near the end of Elizabeth's reign, Clare was made an entirely distinct presidency of its own under the Earls of Thomond and would not return to being part of Munster until after the Restoration in 1660.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: It was not until the subjugation of the Byrnes and O'Tooles by Lord Deputy Sir Arthur Chichester that in 1606 Wicklow was finally shired. This county was one of the last to be created, yet was the closest to the centre of English power in Ireland.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: County Londonderry was incorporated in 1613 by the merger of County Coleraine with the barony of Loughinsholin (in County Tyrone), the North West Liberties of Londonderry (in County Donegal), and the North East Liberties of Coleraine (in County Antrim).


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Throughout the Elizabethan era and the reign of her successor James I, the exact boundaries of the provinces and the counties they consisted of remained uncertain. In 1598 Meath is considered a province in Hayne's "Description of Ireland", and included the counties of Cavan, East Meath, Longford, and Westmeath. This contrasts to George Carew's 1602 survey where there were only four provinces with Longford part of Connaught and Cavan not mentioned at all with only three counties mentioned for Ulster. During Perrot's tenure as Lord President of Munster before he became Lord Deputy, Munster contained as many as eight counties rather than the six it later consisted of. These eight counties were: the five English counties of Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary, and Waterford; and the three Irish counties of Desmond, Ormond, and Thomond.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Perrot's divisions in Ulster were for the main confirmed by a series of inquisitions between 1606 and 1610 that settled the demarcation of the counties of Connaught and Ulster. John Speed's "Description of the Kingdom of Ireland" in 1610 showed that there was still a vagueness over what counties constituted the provinces, however, Meath was no longer reckoned a province. By 1616 when the Attorney General for Ireland Sir John Davies departed Ireland, almost all counties had been delimited. The only exception was the county of Tipperary, which still belonged to the palatinate of Ormond.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Tipperary would remain an anomaly being in effect two counties, one palatine, the other of the Cross until 1715 during the reign of King George I when an act abolished the "royalties and liberties of the County of Tipperary" and "that whatsoever hath been denominated or called Tipperary or Cross Tipperary, shall henceforth be and remain one county forever, under the name of the County of Tipperary." Between 1838 and 2014, County Tipperary was divided into two ridings/counties, North Tipperary and South Tipperary.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: To correspond with the subdivisions of the English shires into honours or baronies, Irish counties were granted out to the Anglo-Norman noblemen in cantreds, later known as baronies, which in turn were subdivided, as in England, into parishes. Parishes were composed of townlands. However, in many cases, these divisions correspond to earlier, pre-Norman, divisions. While there are 331 baronies in Ireland, and more than a thousand civil parishes, there are around sixty thousand townlands that range in size from one to several thousand hectares. Townlands were often traditionally divided into smaller units called "quarters", but these subdivisions are not legally defined.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The only entirely new counties created in 1898 were the county boroughs of Londonderry and Belfast. Carrickfergus, Drogheda and Kilkenny were abolished; Galway was also abolished, but recreated in 1986.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Regional presidencies of Connacht and Munster remained in existence until 1672, with special powers over their subsidiary counties. Tipperary remained a county palatine until the passing of the County Palatine of Tipperary Act 1715, with different officials and procedures from other counties. At the same time, Dublin, until the 19th century, had ecclesiastical liberties with rules outside those applying to the rest of Dublin city and county. Exclaves of the county of Dublin existed in counties Kildare and Wicklow. At least eight other enclaves of one county inside another, or between two others, existed. The various enclaves and exclaves were merged into neighbouring and surrounding counties, primarily in the mid-19th century under a series of Orders in Council.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The Church of Ireland exercised functions at the level of a civil parish that would later be exercised by county authorities. Vestigial feudal power structures of major old estates remained well into the 18th century. Urban corporations operated individual royal charters. Management of counties came to be exercised by grand juries. Members of grand juries were the local payers of rates who historically held judicial functions, taking maintenance roles in regard to roads and bridges, and the collection of "county cess" taxes. They were usually composed of wealthy "country gentlemen" (i.e. landowners, farmers and merchants):A country gentleman as a member of a Grand Jury...levied the local taxes, appointed the nephews of his old friends to collect them, and spent them when they were gathered in. He controlled the boards of guardians and appointed the dispensary doctors, regulated the diet of paupers, inflicted fines and administered the law at petty sessions. The counties were initially used for judicial purposes, but began to take on some governmental functions in the 17th century, notably with grand juries.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: In 1836, the use of counties as local government units was further developed, with grand-jury powers extended under the Grand Jury (Ireland) Act 1836. The traditional county of Tipperary was split into two judicial counties (or ridings) following the establishment of assize courts in 1838. Also in that year, local poor law boards, with a mix of magistrates and elected "guardians" took over the health and social welfare functions of the grand juries.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Sixty years later, a more radical reorganisation of local government took place with the passage of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. This Act established a county council for each of the thirty-three Irish administrative counties. Elected county councils took over the powers of the grand juries. The boundaries of the traditional counties changed on a number of occasions. The 1898 Act changed the boundaries of Counties Galway, Clare, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Waterford, Kilkenny, Meath and Louth, and others. County Tipperary was divided into two regions: North Riding and South Riding. Areas of the cities of Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Derry and Waterford were carved from their surrounding counties to become county boroughs in their own right and given powers equivalent to those of administrative counties.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the island was partitioned between Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland. For the purposes of the Act, ... Northern Ireland shall consist of the parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, and the parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, and Southern Ireland shall consist of so much of Ireland as is not comprised within the said parliamentary counties and boroughs.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The county and county borough borders were thus used to determine the line of partition. Southern Ireland shortly afterwards became the Irish Free State. This partition was entrenched in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was ratified in 1922, by which the Irish Free State left the United Kingdom with Northern Ireland making the decision to not separate two days later.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Areas that were shired by 1607 and continued as counties until the local government reforms of 1836, 1898 and 2001 are sometimes referred to as "traditional" or "historic" counties. These were distinct from the counties corporate that existed in some of the larger towns and cities, although linked to the county at large for other purposes. From 1898 to 2001, areas with county councils were known as administrative counties, while the counties corporate were designated as county boroughs. From 2001, local government areas were divided between counties and cities. From 2014, they were divided into counties, cities, and cities and counties.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: In the Republic of Ireland, the traditional counties are, in general, the basis for local government, planning and community development purposes and are still generally respected for other purposes. They are governed by county councils. Administrative borders have been altered to allocate various towns exclusively into one county having been originally split between two counties.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: At the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, there were 27 administrative counties (with County Tipperary divided into the administrative counties of North Tipperary and South Tipperary) and 4 county boroughs, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Rural districts were abolished by the Local Government Act 1925 and the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1930 amidst widespread allegations of corruption.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Under the Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation Act 1976, part of the urban area of Drogheda, which lay in County Meath, was transferred to County Louth on 1 January 1977. This resulted in the land area of County Louth increasing slightly at the expense of County Meath. The possibility of a similar action with regard to Waterford City has been raised in recent years, though opposition from Kilkenny has been strong.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: County Dublin was abolished as an administrative county in 1994 and divided into three administrative counties: Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal, and South Dublin.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Under the Local Government Act 2001, the county boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford were re-styled as cities, with the same status in law as counties. The term administrative county was replaced with the term "county".


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The cities of Limerick and Waterford were merged with their respective counties by the Local Government Reform Act 2014, to form new "cities and counties". The same Act also abolished North Tipperary and South Tipperary and re-established County Tipperary as an administrative unit.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Since 2014, local authorities send representatives to Regional Assemblies overseeing three regions for the purposes of European Structural and Investment Funds: Southern Region, the Eastern and Midland Region, and the Northern and Western Region. From 1994 to 2014, the were eight Regional Authorities, dissolved under the Local Government Reform Act 2014.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: As placenames, there is a distinction between the traditional counties, listed as "counties", and those created as local government areas, listed as "administrative counties".


title: Counties of Ireland

text: In 2013 Education and Training Boards (ETBs) were formed throughout the Republic of Ireland, replacing the system of Vocational Education Committees (VECs) created in 1930. Originally, VECs were formed for each administrative county and county borough, and also in a number of larger towns, and were legally sub-committees of the relevant authorities. In 1997 the majority of town VECs were absorbed by the surrounding county authorities. The 33 VEC areas were reduced to 16 ETB areas, with each consisting of one or more local government county or city areas.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The Institute of technology system was organised by committee areas or "functional areas"; these areas retain their legal basis but are not as important as originally envisioned as the institutes are now more national in character. The functional areas are only of significance today when selecting governing councils; similarly, Dublin Institute of Technology was originally a group of several colleges within the aegis of the City of Dublin VEC.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Where possible, Dáil constituencies follow county boundaries. Under the Electoral Act 1997, as amended, a Constituency Commission is established following the publication of preliminary census figures every five years. The commission is charged with defining constituency boundaries, and the 1997 Act provides that "the breaching of county boundaries shall be avoided as far as practicable". This provision does not apply to the boundaries between cities and counties, or between the three counties in the Dublin area.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: This system usually results in more populated counties having several constituencies: Dublin, including Dublin city, is subdivided into twelve constituencies, Cork into five. On the other hand, smaller counties such as Carlow and Kilkenny or Laois and Offaly may be paired to form constituencies. Leitrim, Ireland's least populated county, was divided between the constituencies of Sligo–North Leitrim and Roscommon–South Leitrim from 2007 to 2016.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: Each county, city, and city and county is divided into local electoral areas for the election of councillors. The boundaries of the areas and the number of councillors assigned are fixed from time to time by order of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, following a report by the Local Government Commission, and based on population changes recorded in the census.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: In Northern Ireland, a major reorganisation of local government in 1973 replaced the six traditional counties and two county boroughs (Belfast and Derry) with 26 single-tier districts for local government purposes. In 2015, as a result of a reform process that started in 2005, these districts were merged to form 11 new single-tier "super districts".


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The six traditional counties remain in use for some purposes, including the three-letter coding of vehicle number plates, the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (which records counties in all addresses although they are no longer required for postcoded mail) and Lord Lieutenancies (for which the former county boroughs are also used). There are no longer official 'county towns'. However, the counties are still very widely acknowledged, for example as administrative divisions for sporting and cultural organisations.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The administrative division of the island along the lines of the traditional 32 counties was also adopted by non-governmental and cultural organisations. In particular, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) continues to organise its activities on the basis of its own system of counties that, throughout the island, correspond almost exactly to the 32 traditional counties in use at the time of the foundation of that organisation in 1884. The GAA also uses the term "county" for some of its organisational units in Britain and further afield. Legal adjustments to county bounds since 1884 have not been reflected in GAA county boards (e.g. Ballaghaderreen GAA which is located in County Roscommon but affiliated to Mayo GAA county board).


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The 35 divisions listed below include the traditional counties of Ireland as well as three created in Dublin in 1994. Twenty-four counties still delimit the remit of local government areas in the Republic of Ireland (in some cases with slightly redrawn boundaries). County Dublin, which was abolished as a distinct administrative entity in 1994, is included, as are the three new administrative counties which took over the functions of the former County Dublin. In Northern Ireland, the counties listed no longer serve this purpose. The Irish-language names of counties in the Republic of Ireland are prescribed by ministerial order, which in the case of three newer counties, omits the word (county). Irish names form the basis for all English-language county names except Waterford, Wexford, and Wicklow, which are of Norse origin.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The "Region" column of the table below, except for the six Northern Ireland counties, indicates Regions as defined under the Local Government Act 1991. These are NUTS 2 statistical regions of Ireland. "County town" is the current or former administrative capital of the county.


title: Counties of Ireland

text: The cities of Cork, Dublin, and Galway, which are separate local government areas with the same legal status as counties, are not shown separately. Also omitted are the former county boroughs of Londonderry and Belfast which in Northern Ireland had the same legal status as the six counties until the reorganisation of local government in 1973.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: "Imagine" is a song by English rock musician John Lennon from his 1971 album of the same name. The best-selling single of his solo career, the lyrics encourage listeners to imagine a world of peace, without materialism, without borders separating nations and without religion. Shortly before his death, Lennon said that much of the song's lyrics and content came from his wife, Yoko Ono, and in 2017 the process to give Yoko co-writing credit (while not yet confirmed), was already under way.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Lennon and Ono co-produced the song with Phil Spector. Recording began at Lennon's home studio at Tittenhurst Park, England, in May 1971, with final overdubs taking place at the Record Plant, in New York City, during July. In October, Lennon released "Imagine" as a single in the United States, where it peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The song was first issued as a single in Britain in 1975, to promote the compilation "Shaved Fish", and reached number six on the UK Singles Chart that year. It later topped the chart following Lennon's murder in 1980.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: BMI named "Imagine" one of the 100 most performed songs of the 20th century. In 1999, it was ranked number 30 on the RIAA's list of the 365 "Songs of the Century", earned a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". A 2002 UK survey conducted by the "Guinness World Records British Hit Singles Book" named it the second best single of all time, while "Rolling Stone" ranked it number three in the 2004 list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Since 2005, event organisers have played the song just before the New Year's Times Square Ball drops in New York City.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: "Imagine" has sold more than 1.7 million copies in the UK. More than 200 artists have performed or covered the song, including Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Joan Baez, Lady Gaga, Elton John and Diana Ross. After "Imagine" was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics, the song re-entered the UK Top 40, reaching number 18, and was presented as a theme song in the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics. The song remains controversial, as it has been since its release, over its request to imagine "no religion too".


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Several poems from Yoko Ono's 1964 book "Grapefruit" inspired Lennon to write the lyrics for "Imagine" – in particular, one which Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original "Imagine" LP titled "Cloud Piece", reads: "Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in." Lennon later said the composition "should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song. A lot of it – the lyric and the concept – came from Yoko, but in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of "Grapefruit"." When asked about the song's meaning during a December 1980 interview with David Sheff for "Playboy" magazine, Lennon told Sheff that Dick Gregory had given Ono and him a Christian prayer book, which inspired him the concept behind "Imagine".


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: With the combined influence of "Cloud Piece" and the prayer book given to him by Gregory, Lennon wrote what author John Blaney described as "a humanistic paean for the people". Blaney wrote, "Lennon contends that global harmony is within our reach, but only if we reject the mechanisms of social control that restrict human potential." "Rolling Stone"s David Fricke commented: "[Lennon] calls for a unity and equality built upon the complete elimination of modern social order: geopolitical borders, organised religion, [and] economic class."


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Lennon stated: "'Imagine', which says: 'Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,' is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement." He told "NME": "There is no real Communist state in the world; you must realize that. The Socialism I speak about ... [is] not the way some daft Russian might do it, or the Chinese might do it. That might suit them. Us, we should have a nice ... British Socialism." Ono described the lyrical statement of "Imagine" as "just what John believed: that we are all one country, one world, one people." "Rolling Stone" described its lyrics as "22 lines of graceful, plain-spoken faith in the power of a world, united in purpose, to repair and change itself".


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: An original piano musical motif, later called "John's Piano Piece", close to the final one was created in January 1969 during the "Let It Be" sessions. Lennon finished composing "Imagine" one morning in early 1971, on a Steinway piano, in a bedroom at his Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, Berkshire, England. Ono watched as he composed the melody, chord structure and almost all the lyrics, nearly completing the song in one brief writing session. Described as a piano ballad performed in the soft rock genre, the song is in the key of C major. Its 4-bar piano introduction begins with a C chord then moves to Cmaj7 before changing to F; the 12-bar verses also follow this chord progression, with their last 4 bars moving from Am/E to Dm and Dm/C, finishing with G, G11 then G7, before resolving back to C. The 8-bar choruses progress from F to G to C, then Cmaj7 and E before ending on E7, a C chord substituted for E7 in the final bar. The 4-bar outro begins with F, then G, before resolving on C. With a duration of 3 minutes and 3 seconds and a time signature of 4/4, the song's tempo falls around 75 beats per minute.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Lennon and Ono co-produced the song and album with Phil Spector, who commented on the track: "We knew what we were going to do ... It was going to be John making a political statement, but a very commercial one as well ... I always thought that 'Imagine' was like the national anthem." Lennon described his working arrangement with Ono and Spector: "Phil doesn't arrange or anything like that—[Ono] and Phil will just sit in the other room and shout comments like, 'Why don't you try this sound' or 'You're not playing the piano too well' ... I'll get the initial idea and ... we'll just find a sound from [there]."


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Recording took place on 27 May 1971 at Ascot Sound Studios, Lennon's newly built home studio at Tittenhurst Park, with string overdubs taking place on 4 July 1971 at the Record Plant, in New York City. The sessions began during the late morning, running to just before dinner in the early evening. Lennon taught the musicians the chord progression and a working arrangement for "Imagine", rehearsing the song until he deemed the musicians ready to record. In his attempt to recreate Lennon's desired sound, Spector had some early tapings feature Lennon and Nicky Hopkins playing in different octaves on one piano. He also initially attempted to record the piano part with Lennon playing the white baby grand in the couple's all-white room. However, after having deemed the room's acoustics unsuitable, Spector abandoned the idea in favour of the superior environment of Lennon's home studio. They completed the session in minutes, recording three takes and choosing the second one for release. The finished recording featured Lennon on piano and vocal, Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, Alan White on drums and the Flux Fiddlers on strings. The string arrangement was written by Torrie Zito.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Issued by Apple Records in the United States in October 1971, "Imagine" became the best-selling single of Lennon's solo career. It peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and reached number one in Canada on the "RPM" national singles chart, remaining there for two weeks. Upon its release the song's lyrics upset some religious groups, particularly the line: "Imagine there's no heaven". When asked about the song during one of his final interviews, Lennon said he considered it to be as strong a composition as any he had written with the Beatles. He described the song's meaning and explicated its commercial appeal: "Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugarcoated it is accepted ... Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey." In an open letter to Paul McCartney published in "Melody Maker", Lennon said that "Imagine" was "'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself". On 30 November 1971, the "Imagine" LP reached number one on the UK chart. It became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album of Lennon's solo career.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: In 1972, Lennon and Ono released an 81-minute film to accompany the "Imagine" album which featured footage of the couple in their home, garden and the recording studio of their Berkshire property at Tittenhurst Park as well as in New York City. A full-length documentary rock video, the film's first scene features a shot of Lennon and Ono walking through a thick fog, arriving at their house as the song "Imagine" begins. Above the front door to their house is a sign that reads: "This Is Not Here", the title of Ono's then New York art show. The next scene shows Lennon sitting at a white grand piano in a dimly lit, all-white room. Ono gradually walks around opening shutters that allow in light, making the room brighter with the song's progression. At the song's conclusion, Ono sits beside Lennon at the piano; they gaze at one another, and then kiss briefly.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Several celebrities appeared in the film, including Andy Warhol, Fred Astaire, Jack Palance, Dick Cavett and George Harrison. Derided by critics as "the most expensive home movie of all time", it premiered to an American audience in 1972. In 1986, Zbigniew Rybczyński made a music video for the song, and in 1987, it won both the "Silver Lion" award for Best Clip at Cannes and the Festival Award at the Rio International Film Festival.


title: Imagine (John Lennon song)

text: Released as a single in the United Kingdom in 1975 in conjunction with the album "Shaved Fish", "Imagine" peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart. The photograph on the sleeve was taken by May Pang in 1974. Following Lennon's murder in 1980, the single re-entered the UK chart, reaching number one, where it remained for four weeks in January 1981. "Imagine" was re-released as a single in the UK in 1988, peaking at number 45, and again in 1999, reaching number three. As of June 2013, it had sold over 1.64 million copies in the UK, making it Lennon's best-selling single there. In 1999, on National Poetry Day in the United Kingdom, the BBC announced that listeners had voted "Imagine" Britain's favourite song lyric. In 2003, it reached number 33 as the B-side to a re-release of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".