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Pure Imagination
Fiona Apple
Pure Imagination-Single
2013

I hesitated before posting this song because:

1. it was written for a movie adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1964 novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
2. it is a cover of the original sung by Gene Wilder
3. it is used in an advertisement for an American-based Mexican restaurant
4.1. the above-mentioned advertisement is also a gone-viral public service announcement--a criticism of current methods of food production

All that aside.
I am so excited to share it.
This song is beautiful.
Fiona Apple's cover is a twenty-first century adaptation; replete with electronic blips and beeps that add an altogether-new layer of creepiness.  As much as I have always loved this song (I have come back to it during particular bouts of depression), I have always found it a little unsettling (and, simultaneously, delightful).  I love the breadth of this version...the orchestra; the way the music swells and shrinks; the familiarity of Fiona Apple's voice.

The original composition--even if it is so very entwined with a movie adaptation--takes its inspiration from a wonderful book.
I think what I have always liked about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--and Roald Dahl's books in general--is that they can be quite...horrifying.  He creates these vivid, fantastical lands and characters, but they are not without their ugliness.  I think that that is an important facet of good children's literature; these are the books that stay with us.