"Love" (John Lennon)

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is an album that probably wouldn't have happened if The Beatles hadn't gone their separate ways.  Or, at the very least, it would have been a very different album.
But, as it is, it's quite the time-tested artistic statement from a complicated, immensely talented individual: one moment he's exorcising his demons through thumping, thrashing, bare-bones proto-punk; the next, he's playing the most beautiful, most delicate patterns on piano or acoustic guitar and expressing the purest of emotions.  He tosses everything out the window and puts his guts on a plate.  It is one of the rawest, truest, most confidently vulnerable albums of all time.  (This relatively short album is the home of several of my all-time favorite songs.)
One of the standouts from the album is "Love."  It features Lennon on acoustic guitar and producer Phil Spector on piano.  On the album version the piano begins ever so faintly (differing from the 1982 single remix, which remains the same volume throughout), fading up very gradually over the course of about 30 seconds.  It's a brilliant arranging/production technique that makes you really lean in and give your undivided attention.  Because by the time Lennon intones Love is real / real is love... you're entranced.
The lyric is innocently simple, but far from being banal.  The words have a deep, universal truth that always resonates and never gets old.  My favorite line of all:
Love is needing to be loved.
Timeless.