“Imagination’ kicks off with the very real question that can stay with you long after a relationship has ended: was it real? Was it ever real? Oskar Brandt constructs the song around that very notion, returning to the uncomfortable thought that the relationship might have been quite different (or perhaps only in the mind). Rather than resolve the question, the song stays with the uncertainty and that gives the heartbreak a very personal, very unsettled quality. It’s the moment when the memory isn’t quite enough to prove anything.
Brandt’s voice is so vulnerable it’s as if he’s going through the relationship again, searching for what was real. The whole business of going back over every word, every touch is there. “Imagination” is not just about losing a relationship, it’s about the whole question of what the relationship was really like after it was over. That uncertainty is what drives the emotional arc of the song, you’re left inside that question.
Cinematic orchestral pop gives the subject space to breathe. It’s a huge, sweeping arrangement with lush strings and big dynamic builds, the heart of it all being Dave Eggar’s cello and string work which gives it that deeply melancholy quality. Brandt again worked with producer Heather Holley whose input was key to the production and the vocal delivery. The arrangement provides the scale to the uncertainty without in any way resolving the doubt in a facile way. It’s an arrangement that gives the uncertainty its due while still underpinning the vulnerability of Brandt’s performance.
“Imagination” is a very vulnerable performance set within an orchestral backdrop to express the aftermath of love. The central question it poses is left hanging, which is in itself a very powerful thing to do. It’s about staying with the question of what it was rather than trying to answer it. The emotional power of the song comes from that very thing. It takes a personal sense of doubt and puts it on a cinematic scale. It’s a song about heartbreak, about memory and the inherent distance between what it was and what it can now be.
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