David Pogue explains how he did a song spoof based on My Way, about the iPhone. He pulled six singers from the crowd waiting for their iPhone and made them sing.
This is fun in itself, but I was greatly surprised by this statement:
"(None of the six, all of whom were under 45, knew the song "My Way.")"
No friggin' way!
(Especially since they were those from the crowd who could sing, and were at least educated enough to want an iPhone.)
I am under 45, I am not even American, not very interested in crooner music, and I can't imagine any adult not being familiar with My Way. I even know the Sid Vicious version. (Which I like better than the version by that mob guy.) Am I more educated than I realize? Or is this the twilight zone? Or does the cliche about the level of knowledge/education of Americans have a grain of truth? I hate to think so. I think I'll go on the street over here (UK) and ask people if they know this song.
I'm 33, American, and know the song "My Way". I just don't know all of the lyrics by heart.
ReplyDeleteI am flabbergasted at that. How could anyone in this day and age not know that song?
ReplyDeleteIm 33, Canadian, and know that song.
Maybe the six concentrated more on Nancy's way.
ReplyDeleteI love the Frankyboy era.
I'm 29 and I know it.
ReplyDeleteKnowing the song and knowing it well enough to be able to sing it ad hoc may be two different things.
ReplyDeleteI, too, know the song. But I don't remember the lyrics nor every detail of the melody to be able to properly sing it.
Mind you, I'm not sure about Pogue's performance either. ;-) It's an entertaining video, though. He fooled me with his sleigh of hand when throwing the phone.
I don't know about other people, but when I say "I know it," it means I know the lyrics. If I didn't, I would have said "I know of it."
ReplyDeleteAny American should know this song, it's the ultimate timeless classic by Sinatra but Elvis ALWAYS performed it far superior!
ReplyDeleteElvis, that's a popular singer, is she?
ReplyDeleteJust kidding.
ReplyDelete"TTL said...
ReplyDeleteKnowing the song and knowing it well enough to be able to sing it ad hoc may be two different things."
Bullseye!
Eolake,
You like to live dangerously, mister. Be careful not to get too reckless, because you're coming dangerously close here. I mean, you could be indicted with lese-majesty right there. Elvis was the blumen KING, by Jove!
And this, barely a day after the BBC had to present public apologies for a milder case. You really should follow the local news, old bean. ;-)
(Not a day older than 52, natch.)
Elvis was the blumen KING, by Jove!
ReplyDeleteSadly he was named "one" of the biggest failures in history. He had fame and fortune but was labled a miserable failure in the end because of his horrible drug addiction and obesity.
He thought he could find the answers in a bottle or the table laced with tons of food.
Dead at 42. What a waste.
Watch out, Eolake, or we'll have to come after your beloved Hans Christian Andersen and vikings! Ha ha ha! Leave Elvis alone! :-)
ReplyDeleteI have a question: what does knowing a song have to do with being educated?
ReplyDeleteEducation is about knowing the world you're in.
ReplyDelete"[Elvis] was named "one" of the biggest failures in history."
ReplyDeleteYeah, but that's precisely because he wasted one of the biggest successes in history.
Joe Dick,
Just please don't go and get fresh with the Little Mermaid, okay? Please. She's a nice girl.
"Education is about knowing the world you're in."
ReplyDeleteThat's part of it, and I know that's where you were coming from. Still doesn't answer my question. ;) What does a song have to do with knowing the world you're in? There are many ways to ascertain such knowledge. There's a lot you can go without knowing while still understanding this world. Rote fact has little to do with knowledge.
It is certainly true that Americans are unaware of the world as a whole. But that's not the issue. The problem is that it stems from a lack of caring or desire to understand. We are driven by our fears to paint unrealistic pictures of other societies to justify our ends.
Forget whether or not you know of a song or can sing along with it, what do you know about the people that surround you? Art of any kind can give one a glimpse into such things but nothing replaces an understanding of core human nature or actually interacting face to face with someone from a different world.
Funny thing is it's such a personal thing. Understanding hardly means the same thing to every one of us nor does it come via the same means.
I don't know it by heart, but I am certainly "familiar" with it. At 41 years old I'm pushing the edge of the artificial envelope created by the premise of the post, but still ...
ReplyDeleteAmericans have made a habit of deliberate obliviousness. Our culture (in the United States, but also more generally in the developed West) is based to a HUGE degree on the buying and selling of distractions. In fact, buying and selling IN AND OF THEMSELVES are distractions in the first place.
The "information super-highway" (a vehicle for news, among other things) rapidly gave way to "cyber commerce" (a vehicle for the latest Britney video). Regularly man-on-the-street interviews find average citizens who can't identify whether Cheney is Vice President or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Dan Quayle can't spell "potoato" -- and yet we RE-ELECT HIM!!
The problem isn't, that people attain to quite low standards in the traditional "intellectual" pursuits. The problem, rather, is that they resent being asked to attain to a standard, whether high or low. This idea of "cultivating yourself" seems a bit un-American, as though it might be uppity to memorize a Sonnet by Shakespeare or maybe read some Galileo. Wouldn't be able to get a date with that, my intended suitor would think I thought too much of myself.
Well, I DO think too much of myself. I'm a little disappointed that in our quest for the too-soon-lost songsters we're defending Frank Sinatra instead of, say, Robert Burns or Turlough O'Carolan.
"Dan Quayle can't spell "potoato" -- and yet we RE-ELECT HIM!"
ReplyDeleteI have a bigger question about how seemingly intelligent people (like author Orson Scott Card) can support a president who can't even speak his own mother tongue.
Eolake, his mother tongue is South and he speaks it very well indeed! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think he takes it a bit beyond. Like "is our children learning?"
ReplyDeleteBushisms
I'm surprised pascal didn't pipe up that the song my way is originally French.
ReplyDeleteOh well enjoyable vlog especially stumbling onto more of pogue's works. How much longer till you get a videocast or podcast or yourself eolake?;) Just as long as you promise not to sing.:p
eolake said...
ReplyDelete"Dan Quayle can't spell "potoato" -- and yet we RE-ELECT HIM!"
Not guilty here. Look at Bush's son who has wrecked havoc upon the earth with his crimanal behaviour with the illegal war and murdering performed on the Islamic people (Iraq) who was blameless for 9/11.
Who was SELECTED AND NOT ELECTED as CEO of the US. A retarded man who can barely read a kid's book. I have no blood to wash away. His hands are full. But God will deal with him in the future.
Rote fact has little to do with knowledge.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, IT DOES. Repetition has everything to do with knowledge. Without it we would all be mindless cattle.
'On the contrary, IT DOES. Repetition has everything to do with knowledge. Without it we would all be mindless cattle."
ReplyDeleteI've seen it produce exactly that, though: human cattle.
This is what I mean: there is no value in simply knowing a lot of stuff. There are men who can quote entire history books that don't know a damn thing. If it does not inspire, if it does not provoke thought and creativity, then it is not being used and might as well not be known.
In school we're encouraged to memorize numerous things. Rarely are we encourage to learn.
Final Identity said...
ReplyDelete"Well, I DO think too much of myself."
Seems to me like you think much more of yourself than of the average philistine. Which is a very different thing. If all you're doing is cultivate yourself and be aware that lots of people like being inferior, is it TOO MUCH? Does that mean you've got a superiority complex? I don't think so. Being aware of ambient mediocrity is quite different from being full of oneself. (Which in itself would also be a form of mediocrity.) You could call it the Lisa Simpson Syndome.
=(8o(|) "D'oh!"
From my own experience, I know that the more people are ignorant, the more easily they really think too much of themselves. And try to put you down. As the Arab poet said:
You can tell the maven
Who claims to know it all:
"So much you've forgotten,
What you know's very small."
(Translated by me. I couldn't even TYPE the original version on this "decadent infidel Western server". ;-)
kronostar said...
"I'm surprised pascal didn't pipe up that the song my way is originally French."
Well, I'm the kind of guy who'll always surprise you! ;-)
In truth, I just didn't know that. Even a great maven like me doesn't know it all. Almost, but not quite yet. (^_^)
I've never cared much for French variety anyway. Talk to me about Aznavour, Brassens, Enrico Macias... Them I proudly know. The timeless classics, with soul in the song.
"I've seen it produce exactly that, though: human cattle."
This reminds me of a classic lebanese piece of literature we read in school. The memoirs of a young boy (Maroun Abboud, I think) getting knowledge hammered into his head in school, and the ruler pounded on his tender fingers by a terrifying schoolmaster calling him a hopeless donkey. That boy later became a classic author...
"There are men who can quote entire history books that don't know a damn thing. If it does not inspire, if it does not provoke thought and creativity, then it is not being used and might as well not be known.
In school we're encouraged to memorize numerous things. Rarely are we encourage to learn."
Many classic authors said the same. This is why I memorize little in minute details, but brazenly consider myself to be cultivated. I also have the chutzpah to believe I am extremely modest, even more than I am cultivated. And witty. And handsome. And charming. And... but enough about lil' old me already, y'all. :o)
Back to seriousness for a nanosecond. Knowledge is not about memorizing, although a small portion of that is useful. Knowledge is about UNDERSTANDING. "Culture is what remains when you've forgotten everything", as, um, somebody said, um, once, in the past. I think.
Neuroscience has established that the smartest brains, those, say, that solve mathematical problems best and fastest, use up the least energy. Otherwise phrased, a smart person isn't the one that thinks the most, but the one that thinks the most efficiently. Brains fancy not brawn.
I bet Bush Jr's brain makes so much efforts for every thought, it uses up as much bio-energy as a small "nukular" power plant.
"But I intend to water it so that plant will grow one day. I love plants and the envirun... roon... enveeron... and nature!"
I can see the effort on his face when he, um, talks. (For lack of a more appropriate word.)
Charles Aznavour... only seen him once, decades ago... I think it was Je T'aime, and he started with the thing where you turn your back on the audience and embrace yourself so it looks like you're being fondled... sorry, it did nothing for me!
ReplyDeleteNot all his songs move me to tears. But l'Instant Présent is almost metaphysical, and brilliantly written. A poet's answer to the question "what is the present moment?"
ReplyDeleteA good example of the "knowledge cabbage" is Kim Peek, the main inspiration for Rain Man. He has an absolutely phenomenal memory, but is incapable of applying the knowledge - or at least has shown no interest in doing so.
ReplyDeleteSo what's wrong with being a member of the cattle community?
ReplyDeleteNothing compares to a herd of peaceful cows in a pasture.
But then comes man with his desire for steaks and milk. And he will prod the cow if she's unwilling!