Re: Suddenly, suddenly

1

...in fact, now, in her absence, he is half a man!

It's not so much the absence, it's what she took on the way out.


Posted by: Opinionated John Wayne Bobbit | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 7:28 AM
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That may be one of the stupidest fucking articles I've ever read. Deconstructing "Yesterday" is like tripping a dwarf. What a pathetic whinging piece of utter crap. There are so many, many valid criticisms to be made of the Beatles and the times etc. and she goes after the instant muzak of fucking "Yesterday"--which on twitter she described as the "anthem of a generation."

Grumpy.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 7:54 AM
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I was really confused by "the song that by general agreement took the Beatles from Popular to Important". Not having been alive in the 60s, I guess I don't really know when that may have happened, but surely not with "Yesterday".


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 7:58 AM
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2 gets it exactly right, including its tone. Everyone involved in the creation, publication, or promotion of this article is sentenced to 5 years away from a computer and/or recorded music.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:27 AM
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God and the "millenials" framing. Ok, the publishers and promoters get time away from the computer, the author is sentenced to death. Tough but fair.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:29 AM
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The author of the linked piece is, indeed, history's greatest monster.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:45 AM
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Stanley is history's second-greatest monster for linking it.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:48 AM
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I watched about half of the Africa video and felt like he had the same asshole attitude. Sure, it's cheap melody pop, but about 90% of song lyrics can be made to sound stupid if you read them in an ironic hipster voice. Oh no, a dangling modifier in song lyrics! It's not a fucking novel, dude.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:49 AM
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9

Give him time. He's not even finished with his classes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:49 AM
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10

Let me be the first to pile on and endorse 2, minus the bit about the dwarf.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:49 AM
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11

9 to 7.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:49 AM
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re: 3

Yeah, that claim is clearly bullshit. 'Yesterday' might be covered a lot, but I don't think anyone thinks of it as a core part of the Beatles' "canon", let alone one that transformed how they were perceived (by general agreement, or whatever).


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:51 AM
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10; Yes. That part was wrong. I'm history's third greatest monster.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:51 AM
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14

Other than comments 1-12 Mrs. Lincoln, how'd everyone like the post?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 8:52 AM
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I'M TRIPPING BALLS


Posted by: Opinionated Dwarf | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:02 AM
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8: Who was the comedian in the late 70s -- and old guy then, Steve something? -- who made his schtick be reading pop songs in dead pan white dude manner? I remember thinking it was reactionary when I was 8. (I remember his reading "Hot Stuff," which is a great song, so fuck off.)


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:03 AM
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I have a dwarves with hats problem (not that one) that I was looking to include in a Guest Friday Puzzler, but am open to suggestions for a less insensitive categorization for the hat-wearers.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:06 AM
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13: You ended your post in 2 with Grumpy, so if the dwarf to which you were referring was from Snow White, then perhaps less of a monster?


Posted by: Rance | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:09 AM
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Or more of one!


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:09 AM
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And now you need a place to hide away, even though she left you. This implies you no longer have a place. Are you getting kicked out? Did she pay the rent? Were you a sap and a dip and a freeloader?

Paul had a room at Jane Asher's parent's London place.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:10 AM
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Sure, it's cheap melody pop, but about 90% of song lyrics can be made to sound stupid if you read them in an ironic hipster voice. Oh no, a dangling modifier in song lyrics! It's not a fucking novel, dude.

A stratagem only about 57 years old, dating back to when Mr. Ironic Hipster Steve Allen did "poetry readings" of things like "Be Bop A Lula", to the delight of the Kate Smith fans in his audience.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:16 AM
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re: 16

Yeah, you could take the work of genuine songwriting geniuses [Smokey Robinson, Sammy Cahn, Lorenz Hart, or whoever] and the lyrics would still look daft taken out of context.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:16 AM
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16: "Hot Stuff," which is a great song, so fuck off.

Indeed. It came on when I was in Target recently, and I realized that I had never really appreciated the guitar solo before (@ about 2:25). Skunk Baxter it turns out, which I imagine the more musically-attuned here were quite aware of.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:19 AM
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Stanley, we don't need to come all the way to Charlottesville and stage an intervention, do we? I mean, what else are you learning there?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:22 AM
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You should totally come visit! I can tell you all of my fascinating theories derived from the work of Ronald Coase.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:36 AM
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Bah, that "Africa" explanation is video? TV,DW (too video, didn't watch)


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:56 AM
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You have to admit, even if all pop songs would sound dumb when read aloud, "looking for some solitary company" is a really unusually dumb phrase.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:01 AM
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I'm have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I agree that "Look! I can make these song lyrics sound dumb by reading them aloud!" is not very impressive.

On the other hand, it's got to be OK to make fun of Toto, right? Otherwise what's the world coming to?


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:14 AM
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29

"I'm" = "I"


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:15 AM
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30

I was in elementary school in the mid-70s, and the teachers had us all sing 'Yesterday' for our 6th grade graduation. My mother was furious. 'They're practically infants and they're supposed to be feeling sad about the past already?? What's going on here!?" etc.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:27 AM
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31

At our grade school, we sang "That's the Way (I Like It)".


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:29 AM
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32

At camp when we were 15 we sang In My Life, similar message for sad teenagers.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:30 AM
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33

We sang "There Is Nothing Like A Dame" at 6th grade graduation. I have no idea what was going on there.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:36 AM
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34

One of my elementary school choruses had to sing"After All", which I believe is from the point of view of two fortyish divorced people.


Posted by: cryptoc ned | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:39 AM
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35

I remember listening to "Puff the Magic Dragon" in second grade, and feeling all nostalgic for when I was little and that was my favorite song.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:40 AM
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36

For the record, 31 was a joke. After seeing 33 and 34, I figured I'd better clarify.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:41 AM
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36: I believed you.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:43 AM
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38

When I was in middle school, the band director had us do "Livin' on a Prayer." It was a hilariously dorked-up-for-concert-band version. Like so.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:44 AM
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35: in second grade, I used to put "Leaving on a Jet Plane" on the phonograph and cry about the sweet sadness of parting. Of course I also thought that the Peter in Peter, Paul & Mary was Pete Seeger, which is maybe why I'm not a music critic. But really, it was very confusing! He was in The Weavers, so he must have been in every part of my parents' record collection.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:46 AM
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40

We sang "Yesterday," albeit with adapted lyrics, at our 6th grade graduation. Ich bin ein PGD.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:48 AM
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41

Recently Hawaii said something like "I have a funny feeling...I'm not sad, but..." and she kind of indicated her stomach. I told her she had ennui.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:48 AM
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42

I totally want to hear a school band do "I Want a New Drug"


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:49 AM
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43

We sang "That's what friends are for" at fifth grade graduation. I hated my teacher and most of the students, and was going to a middle school with none of them, and the choice of song made me sad.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:49 AM
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44

American Pie anyone? There's got to be plenty of CTY alums here.


Posted by: dz | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:50 AM
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45

My senior year of high school the humanities teacher, who I think was usually high, made us all sing "Build Me Up Buttercup" and "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy". He did make a real effort to explain the lasting impact of classical music: "in those days if you were a composer you didn't have to be a good butler or a good nanny or a good gardener... even though we still play them today". After saying that sort of thing, he would just sit and bask in the profundity of it for a while.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:51 AM
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41 is great.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:55 AM
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In my upper elementary (probably 5th or 6th grade, I forget), we did a class opera on a time machine taking some kids back to the age of Greek gods, featuring early on a song "History" to the tune of "Yesterday".


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:56 AM
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43: Likewise. Also, "Lean on me" with sign language.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:56 AM
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49

In first grade we did "Ebony and Ivory".


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 10:59 AM
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Our third grade teacher wrote a song for us to sing at an assembly because the gym teacher was leaving. It went:
"We have run, run, run
till our little legs were sore.
We have jumped, jumped, jumped
till we could not jump no more.
We have [something, something, something]
as much as we could endure
For YOU Coach Vickers, for YOU."

Plus many more verses.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 11:05 AM
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The summer camp I went to did a Broadway Revue type thing every year and I remember doing "I'd Do Anything" (in which half the girls were in hobobaby drag) and "Greased Lightning" (in which a crucial [ha! Latin joke!] "cream" was changed to "scream").


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 11:06 AM
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How you folks remember songs from elementary school graduations is beyond me. Although I do recall the day in 6th grade when to her regret, our teacher let a scaled-down version of the group one of the kids was in play a song. They chose "Louie, Louie!" We had all bought into the "I felt my boner in her hair" version of the lyrics; she was just distraught due to the volume.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 11:27 AM
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And Paul's name is actually Noel.
In elementary school we did the usual Christmas songs one year and some Jewish parents (thanks mom!) complained about lack of balance so the music teacher found a song for us to do called I Want A Harmonica for Hannukah, out of spite or ignorance I can't say.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 12:04 PM
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I have a little dreidel. I made it out of clay.
When it's dry and ready, then Assad I will slay.


Posted by: Opinionated Neocon | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 12:10 PM
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For some sort of class play in 4th grade, we did a version of "Jack and Diane", with the "hand between her knees" line modified. I recall being faintly confused, since of course sex does not involve hands or knees.

I never had one of those "graduation" things before high school, so no songs.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 1:23 PM
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Ooh, I've got a good one- at the Jewish summer camp mentioned in 32, they had a song book of various popular campfire songs, in Fire and Rain they had the second verse starting, "Won't you look down upon me, Moses, you've got to help me make a stand."


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 2:38 PM
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I associate "Suddenly" with Sinatra. As an actor.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 4:51 PM
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My wife and her brother made a Beatles-themed Purimspiel when about 12. Hey Jew, etc.

8th grade music teacher of mine pulled Eleanor Rigby apart for us, to show us that it was well done and used lots of compositional technique. He also played Stockhausen for us. I was impressed.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 9:53 PM
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We sang Happy Together in 3rd grade. We'd all seen it on Ed Sullivan that year.

And You've Got a Friend for 8th grade graduation.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 03- 3-14 11:51 PM
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3. I was alive in the 60s, and I endorse 12. I wasn't aware that we had an anthem, but if we did it was probably Like a Rolling Stone.

Richard III.



Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 03- 4-14 3:17 AM
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"Won't you look down upon me, Moses, you've got to help me make a stand."

But, Moses wasn't a carpenter.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 5-14 1:49 PM
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>snort


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 03- 5-14 1:54 PM
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