Rejected Rock Lyrics

When musicians release promotional demo tracks, they often contain first draft lyrics that are later finessed into the final versions released to the public. For example, Eddy Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody” was originally recorded with “Let’s get together” as the repeated chorus. Compare the final and original original drafts of the following staples of the American popular music cannon:

Sometimes the differences are subtle, as in the Supremes 1966 classic hit “You can’t hurry love.”

Final lyrics:

My mama said, “you can’t hurry love
No, you’ll just have to wait”
She said, “love don’t come easy
But it’s a game of give and take”

Original Lyrics:

My mama said, “you can’t hurry love
No, you’ll just have to wait”
She said, “love don’t come easy
You’ll just have to masturbate”

Public Health Timeline

Here is a timeline, as best as I can recall without doing any pesky research, of public health advice from the Media:

1950: Meat, starch and dairy will keep you healthy.

1962: Make your kids drink juice. It has vitamins.

1965: Mercury is good for your teeth. Fill your cavities with it.

1969: Eat wheat germ to be groovy.

1973: Bread is a wonder food. Replace all meals with bread.

Celebrity (Donald Trump) Uber Alles

Thanks to the Dead (or recently retired) Kennedys

I am Emperor Donald Trump
Born again with fascist cravings
Still, you make me president
Rule of law has now gone ‘way
I am now your king today
Now I command all of you
Betsy Devos will Control your school
And Erik Prince will do security too!
Celebrity Über Alles
Über Alles Celebrity
White Nationalists will control you
‘Cause you’re afraid of other points of view
I’ll put Stephen Miller on the Court
The confirmation will be short!

Are Rock Lyrics Sexist?

I’ve always despised the sexist lyrics of Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound, which includes the despicable lines:

Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

What a great role for a woman: to lie in bed silently until her man, who’s out on the road seeking public adoration, bestows his presence once again upon her. Is she allowed to eat during her bed-waiting time? Is she allowed to speak once he has returned? We may never know. But it got me thinking:

Are Rock Lyrics Generally Sexist? Here’s an easy way to find out: Reverse the pronouns! Let’s try it with a few popular songs from throughout the decades:

• From the hit Elvis song, Baby, Let’s Play House:

(This song reached #5 on Billboard’s Country Singles chart in 1955)

Well, you may go to college,
You may go to school.
You may have a pink cadillac,
But don’t you be nobody’s fool…

Now listen to me, baby
Try to understand.
I’d rather see you dead, little boy,
Than to be with another woman.

I’m So Bored with the USA (new lyrics)

Yankee teenager
He want to shoot some China White
He met it in New Hampshire, but now
He can’t afford a bite

Words we need to make it through the next year

 

Junioring: The act of claiming innocence by stupidity

Internyet: Russian use of the internet to veto an election 

Fakicity: Obvious artificiality and fakeness presented by people pretending to be authority figures

Flerp: To pass on a brain activity due to media overload. Example: In response to a question about the Trump-Russia conspiracy,  “I flerp on that,” “I flerp,” or simply, “flerp.”

Little Things That Piss Me Off

• Calling soldiers “Warriors,” like they fight for the Greco-Roman Empire
• Calling the country the “Homeland,” like its an island fortress where our species first emerged and must stay to survive, surrounded by hostile alien vampire globs

Google Proves Trump Right!

This week’s news has the White House saying that miners (people who dig stuff up out of the ground, not people who are children) don’t watch public television (PBS). Thus, they are proposing to eliminate federal funds for PBS. I figured that there must be a “Miners for Public Television” advocacy group. So I googled it. No “Miners for Public Television” or even “Miners for PBS.” So, the White House must be right. What else are they right about? I decided to google some phrases to find out….

1. “People think Trump has small hands” gets zero results. Therefore, people think he has big hands.
2. Also, no hits for “People like Hillary better than Donald.” You’re on a roll, Donny!
3. “People think Donald Trump is stupid”: According to Google, as of March 16, 2017, only 4 people think this.
4. Finally, 155,000 hits for “Donald Trump is the best president ever.”

So, the White House can rest easy. I decided to continue my search for truth on the internet, and this is what I discovered:

Why Conflict Resolution Works

A lot of systems have been devised to help people take control of interpersonal conflict with the aim of facilitating positive, win-win outcomes. But, is there an underlying essence common to successful conflict resolution techniques? Let’s compare six systematized approaches to conflict resolution, looking for commonalities.

Stand Up and Be Discounted (is the name of this blog post)

Just like the @ sign for “at,” there should be signs for “before” and “after,” something like this: and

and

Here is some Trump Haiku:

1.

This Haiku is rigged

It is against Donald Trump

It is so unfair