Cacophony
Over the past two or three weeks, I have incessantly had something stuck in my head. Now, that's not abnormal for me at all; in fact, it's abnormal for me NOT to have something or other stuck in my head at any given moment. But it's that kind of stuck-in-your-head where your internal amplitude seems to have been cranked up about fifty notches, and you can't figure out how to turn it off, and the songs keep clashing with other songs, and you keep getting distracted from regular thinking and working, and you get frequent urges to burst out in song at inappropriate moments. That's been me. And what makes it worse is that they've all come from utterly unrelated genres: The Sound of Music, Rihanna, Bach, The Classic Crime, Lady Gaga, John Rutter, Newsboys, In The Heights, John Lennon, Carl Orff (yeah, kill me now), Britney Spears, Emery, David Crowder Band... you get the point. It's ridiculous. Have you ever tried having a 1960s drama ballad, modern-day Pop, and last decade's Screamo in your head, all at once? It's quite the experience, I'll assure you.
In any case, having these songs playing so loudly gave me the handy opportunity to be constantly thinking about certain small portions of lyrics for days on end. And I came to the conclusion that a great deal of my favorite music is absolutely illogical, and sometimes borderline manipulative for that reason. I am still in love with the music, but cannot help but rant a bit about my amusement at their ridiculousness.
The first one I'll pick apart is Something Good from The Sound of Music. The lyrics go something like this (I've arranged them in a somewhat syllogistic-y form):
Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past there must have been something good
For here you are, standing there, loving me (whether or not you should)
So somewhere in my youth (or childhood), there must have been something good
Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth (or childhood), there must have been something good
There are a bunch of very silly assumptions to be extrapolated from this song. Firstly is the idea that nothing good had ever happened to Maria. She may have had many wicked, miserable things IN her childhood, but she clearly expresses a great joy throughout the length of the movie. She is not characterized as someone unfamiliar with good in the slightest. “She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee / her dress has got a tear / she waltzes on her way to mass and whistles on the stairs / and underneath her wimper she has curlers in her hair / I've even heard her singing in the abby / She's always late for chapel, but her penitence is real / She's always late to everything, except to every meal” … “clown” … “angel” … “girl” … “THE HIIILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC!” “but Maria, you love children!” Mother Abbess even says that Maria has “a very great capacity to love.” There is no way this is a somber or depressed or emotionally-scarred character, incapable of falling for the guy. Now, by making it seem like their love is some preposterous miracle, they're able to swoon themselves into a ridiculous passion, even moving them to say they've always been in love with each other, even at the time when Maria said she felt as though he treated her as an animal, and when the Captain scorned Maria, saying that she caused him to suffer from indigestion. And all this commotion because they're trying to say that Maria never should have been a good person, that she never had anything good in her life? That's ridiculous.
The next song I'd imagine got quite the bettering from my parents' generation, but I'm going to go for it anyways, because it's the kind of song I've heard a million times my entire life despite never having had much of an affinity for the Beatles, or Lennon, or Oldies in general: Imagine. He starts out by telling his audience to imagine believing in no afterlife, and then juxtaposes that with something positive: a world where everyone “lives for today.” Well, given that he's speaking primarily to an American audience, and Christianity is predominant in America, I'm going to assume he's speaking against Christianity and call it a day. Actually, Jesus said we SHOULD live for today, not worrying about what will come tomorrow, but to have faith, instead. Then he goes on to associate “nothing to kill or die for” with the absence of religion; Jesus said to turn the other cheek and to love one's neighbor. It's not religion that makes people violent, it's people that misapply it. If there were no religion – or at least no Christianity, as one might argue that Islam can be interpreted as a violent religion – the world may very well be a more violent place. But he follows the line begging his audience to imagine a world without religion with another telling us to imagine everyone living in peace, essentially telling us to refuse religion in order to gain peace. And THEN comes the killer: “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.” Wow, like that justifies anything. You almost pulled off the ad populum there, Johnny, but you can't fool me. The fact that everyone else is also unrealistically optimistic and non-sequitur doesn't make you any less sad for being that way. He's saying that we should strive to make the entire world believe the same thing. Now, obviously this is unrealistic and silly, but it's also a dangerous thing to wish for: to explain the obvious, reform would be impossible, people would become angry, pain would become rampant, and their goal would never be achieved. Because people aren't actually perfect, Mr. Lennon. Sorry to break it to you. So like Something Good, it's a beautiful song, and I find this one in particular very inspiring. I dare say I enjoy it a great deal. It was written in a context where simply the desire to strive for something more meant everything, even the neglect of reason. Sometimes, I don't think it's a terrible thing to think beyond reason, if you're sure you're going in a positive direction. But as far as I can see, most of the time, it only works in countering a more terrible irrationality. But the fact remains that the song is very far from logically sound, and if the implications of Lennon's words were to get imbedded in a worldview instead of simply providing an idealistic hope (which isn't unlikely, given the immense popularity of the song), it's likely that some pretty nasty problems could arise.
The last song I'll go through is one I have been particularly attached to the past couple months, one I find as inspiring in the modern context as Imagine might have been in 1970: Born This Way by Lady Gaga. I absolutely love Gaga and admire her as an unbelievable catalyst for a very necessary social change. She makes such a strong fight for gay rights and gives so many people hope for a better life, for community, for love. But Born This Way, as much as I love it, is disgustingly manipulative. It's manipulative for a good cause, but even so, I have to cringe at the mechanism.
My mama told me when I was young,
“We are all born superstars. [...]
There's nothing wrong with loving who you are,” she said,
“'cause He made you perfect, babe.
So hold your head up, girl, and you'll go far.”
Listen to me when I say:
I'm beautiful in my way, because God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret, just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way
First of all, the only reason she's able to make any of this argument at all is because her mother told her something that made her feel all warm and fuzzy and secure when she was a kid. So she's blatantly founded the song on nothing more than pathetic appeal, dragging the audience to her side even before she begins communicating her message. And what's the first line of her message? That I'm a superstar. Naturally, I want to believe that, but I feel guilty, because MY parents never told me that, so she tells me not to feel guilty, and I believe her, because she's got us thinking like gullible little children getting comforted by their mommies. So because Stefani Gemonata's mother said that little Stefani was perfect to make her feel happy, an entire generation of insecure young Americans are regaining self-confidence by getting taught that they're perfect. Oh, yeah, that's going to help them loads in the long run.
Then, in the chorus, she makes an essentially circular argument, because in order to believe that it was God that would have made the mistake for being gay to be wrong, she must already assume that people are born gay. The conservative standpoint ALSO argues that God doesn't make any mistakes, but that you do, and that being gay is a product of the fall. So just as Lennon associates pain and war with religion, Gaga associates the negation of her point with hypocrisy, essentially accusing those that don't agree with her of believing that God makes mistakes. And how is she able to say that she's “on the right track,” anyways? Oh, because her mother told her when she was a little kid that she was a superstar, and that she was perfect, that all she had to do was love herself to be “on the right track.” Actually, loving yourself too well births nothing but narcissism and a repulsive, bratty little attitude. You can be on plenty wrong tracks even if God made us “perfect,” because being “perfect” requires mistakes, paradoxically. This song teaches kids subliminally to dismiss their problems with the excuse that they're perfect and by changing themselves or correcting themselves or allowing themselves to be corrected, they're destroying God's creation. Which is a pretty scary thought, as far as I'm concerned.
But yet I continue to love this song. For some reason, it simply doesn't bother me that it's irrational or borderline abusive in its possible impact on society, because it's communicating a new idea, a beautiful idea, one that desperately needs to be heard: that it's okay to be yourself. It's okay to accept things you're proud of about yourself, even if people scorn you for it. It's okay to love, and – dare I say it – it's okay to be gay. I feel reluctant to say that its pro-gay message is necessarily positive, because I can see the conservative standpoint getting pretty worked up about it. But so many kids have been hurt beyond repair by that conservative standpoint that I don't see the harm in moving away from a hurtful God and towards a loving one. That's what the conservative Church stood for originally: not abuse, not bigotry, not anger, not scorn, but unconditional, never-ending love. As ridiculous as the mechanism of the song turns out to be, love is such a beautiful message that I can't help but embrace the song, even with all of its rhetorical cacophony.
In any case, having these songs playing so loudly gave me the handy opportunity to be constantly thinking about certain small portions of lyrics for days on end. And I came to the conclusion that a great deal of my favorite music is absolutely illogical, and sometimes borderline manipulative for that reason. I am still in love with the music, but cannot help but rant a bit about my amusement at their ridiculousness.
The first one I'll pick apart is Something Good from The Sound of Music. The lyrics go something like this (I've arranged them in a somewhat syllogistic-y form):
Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past there must have been something good
For here you are, standing there, loving me (whether or not you should)
So somewhere in my youth (or childhood), there must have been something good
Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth (or childhood), there must have been something good
There are a bunch of very silly assumptions to be extrapolated from this song. Firstly is the idea that nothing good had ever happened to Maria. She may have had many wicked, miserable things IN her childhood, but she clearly expresses a great joy throughout the length of the movie. She is not characterized as someone unfamiliar with good in the slightest. “She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee / her dress has got a tear / she waltzes on her way to mass and whistles on the stairs / and underneath her wimper she has curlers in her hair / I've even heard her singing in the abby / She's always late for chapel, but her penitence is real / She's always late to everything, except to every meal” … “clown” … “angel” … “girl” … “THE HIIILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC!” “but Maria, you love children!” Mother Abbess even says that Maria has “a very great capacity to love.” There is no way this is a somber or depressed or emotionally-scarred character, incapable of falling for the guy. Now, by making it seem like their love is some preposterous miracle, they're able to swoon themselves into a ridiculous passion, even moving them to say they've always been in love with each other, even at the time when Maria said she felt as though he treated her as an animal, and when the Captain scorned Maria, saying that she caused him to suffer from indigestion. And all this commotion because they're trying to say that Maria never should have been a good person, that she never had anything good in her life? That's ridiculous.
The next song I'd imagine got quite the bettering from my parents' generation, but I'm going to go for it anyways, because it's the kind of song I've heard a million times my entire life despite never having had much of an affinity for the Beatles, or Lennon, or Oldies in general: Imagine. He starts out by telling his audience to imagine believing in no afterlife, and then juxtaposes that with something positive: a world where everyone “lives for today.” Well, given that he's speaking primarily to an American audience, and Christianity is predominant in America, I'm going to assume he's speaking against Christianity and call it a day. Actually, Jesus said we SHOULD live for today, not worrying about what will come tomorrow, but to have faith, instead. Then he goes on to associate “nothing to kill or die for” with the absence of religion; Jesus said to turn the other cheek and to love one's neighbor. It's not religion that makes people violent, it's people that misapply it. If there were no religion – or at least no Christianity, as one might argue that Islam can be interpreted as a violent religion – the world may very well be a more violent place. But he follows the line begging his audience to imagine a world without religion with another telling us to imagine everyone living in peace, essentially telling us to refuse religion in order to gain peace. And THEN comes the killer: “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.” Wow, like that justifies anything. You almost pulled off the ad populum there, Johnny, but you can't fool me. The fact that everyone else is also unrealistically optimistic and non-sequitur doesn't make you any less sad for being that way. He's saying that we should strive to make the entire world believe the same thing. Now, obviously this is unrealistic and silly, but it's also a dangerous thing to wish for: to explain the obvious, reform would be impossible, people would become angry, pain would become rampant, and their goal would never be achieved. Because people aren't actually perfect, Mr. Lennon. Sorry to break it to you. So like Something Good, it's a beautiful song, and I find this one in particular very inspiring. I dare say I enjoy it a great deal. It was written in a context where simply the desire to strive for something more meant everything, even the neglect of reason. Sometimes, I don't think it's a terrible thing to think beyond reason, if you're sure you're going in a positive direction. But as far as I can see, most of the time, it only works in countering a more terrible irrationality. But the fact remains that the song is very far from logically sound, and if the implications of Lennon's words were to get imbedded in a worldview instead of simply providing an idealistic hope (which isn't unlikely, given the immense popularity of the song), it's likely that some pretty nasty problems could arise.
The last song I'll go through is one I have been particularly attached to the past couple months, one I find as inspiring in the modern context as Imagine might have been in 1970: Born This Way by Lady Gaga. I absolutely love Gaga and admire her as an unbelievable catalyst for a very necessary social change. She makes such a strong fight for gay rights and gives so many people hope for a better life, for community, for love. But Born This Way, as much as I love it, is disgustingly manipulative. It's manipulative for a good cause, but even so, I have to cringe at the mechanism.
My mama told me when I was young,
“We are all born superstars. [...]
There's nothing wrong with loving who you are,” she said,
“'cause He made you perfect, babe.
So hold your head up, girl, and you'll go far.”
Listen to me when I say:
I'm beautiful in my way, because God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret, just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way
First of all, the only reason she's able to make any of this argument at all is because her mother told her something that made her feel all warm and fuzzy and secure when she was a kid. So she's blatantly founded the song on nothing more than pathetic appeal, dragging the audience to her side even before she begins communicating her message. And what's the first line of her message? That I'm a superstar. Naturally, I want to believe that, but I feel guilty, because MY parents never told me that, so she tells me not to feel guilty, and I believe her, because she's got us thinking like gullible little children getting comforted by their mommies. So because Stefani Gemonata's mother said that little Stefani was perfect to make her feel happy, an entire generation of insecure young Americans are regaining self-confidence by getting taught that they're perfect. Oh, yeah, that's going to help them loads in the long run.
Then, in the chorus, she makes an essentially circular argument, because in order to believe that it was God that would have made the mistake for being gay to be wrong, she must already assume that people are born gay. The conservative standpoint ALSO argues that God doesn't make any mistakes, but that you do, and that being gay is a product of the fall. So just as Lennon associates pain and war with religion, Gaga associates the negation of her point with hypocrisy, essentially accusing those that don't agree with her of believing that God makes mistakes. And how is she able to say that she's “on the right track,” anyways? Oh, because her mother told her when she was a little kid that she was a superstar, and that she was perfect, that all she had to do was love herself to be “on the right track.” Actually, loving yourself too well births nothing but narcissism and a repulsive, bratty little attitude. You can be on plenty wrong tracks even if God made us “perfect,” because being “perfect” requires mistakes, paradoxically. This song teaches kids subliminally to dismiss their problems with the excuse that they're perfect and by changing themselves or correcting themselves or allowing themselves to be corrected, they're destroying God's creation. Which is a pretty scary thought, as far as I'm concerned.
But yet I continue to love this song. For some reason, it simply doesn't bother me that it's irrational or borderline abusive in its possible impact on society, because it's communicating a new idea, a beautiful idea, one that desperately needs to be heard: that it's okay to be yourself. It's okay to accept things you're proud of about yourself, even if people scorn you for it. It's okay to love, and – dare I say it – it's okay to be gay. I feel reluctant to say that its pro-gay message is necessarily positive, because I can see the conservative standpoint getting pretty worked up about it. But so many kids have been hurt beyond repair by that conservative standpoint that I don't see the harm in moving away from a hurtful God and towards a loving one. That's what the conservative Church stood for originally: not abuse, not bigotry, not anger, not scorn, but unconditional, never-ending love. As ridiculous as the mechanism of the song turns out to be, love is such a beautiful message that I can't help but embrace the song, even with all of its rhetorical cacophony.
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