Popular Songs and the Death of Intelligence
Bear with my idiosyncrasies, gentle readers, because I’m off on another of my many tangential forays – this time weaving through the realm of education gained in mysterious ways. Even before we start on this journey, yes…I readily admit my by brain jumps about oddly, but it all makes perfectly good sense to me.
While not given much to astrology, I was born a Gemini, supposedly the cosmic twins, although I’ve always thought of the sign as representing the identical but in opposition, wherein one side (at least in my case) would display the creative or visionary while the other represented the practical or firmly rooted. One of the reasons this always seemed personally appropriate was that during my mother’s pregnancy, the doctors supposedly heard two heartbeats although there was only one squalling infant delivered on Father’s Day.
Anyway, all my early formative years through college were spent in creative pursuits; dance, art, writing, and primarily music, my major in college. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the powers that be in that creative world seemed to think they were guiding talent, although I personally felt that talent too widely scattered for true expertise in any one field. Upon finding my self married, however, all that burning creativity was suddenly overcome by the simultaneous desire and need to earn a living while my hubby returned to school to complete his degree. That need subjugated all creativity except as it led to idea development in a corporate setting. For someone with no real grounding in the business world, I did quite well.
Finally free of all those restrictions, I’m back indulging the creative side of my nature while at the same time wondering sometimes how it all came about. I’m pretty convinced I didn’t take the road cosmically laid out for people like me, but I also admit it was an interesting if confusing trip. Anyway, a couple nights ago, I finally caught a movie I’d wanted to see, “De-Lovely,” about Cole Porter’s life and love. While studying music, Porter was always and icon, and one of those composers and lyricists whose music was a highlight and continues to be played and sung now, years after his death and after all the major shifts in popular culture from his time.
Because I’ve always had a love of words, I had also always listened closely to lyrics, and remembering not only his songs from that era but also those of other lyricists from Broadway, I began to wonder about the ways we unconsciously expand our vocabularies, and thus, our ability to communicate. All this nostalgia and rumination fed the germ on an idea, not only about how music is probably the most insidious of the Arts in sparking ideas and revolutions, but how the words we hear within popular songs impact upon our ultimate level of intelligence.
The curious question that came to mind is how much of the dumbing down we seem to experience everywhere today is due more to the popular music and songs that permeate our lives than it is to a failure of education. Certainly formalized education plays a role, but it’s highly doubtful today’s failure of intellect is primarily due to that milieu.
It is only a leopard that is unable to alter its spots. People change. Because people change, so does society, culture, and language, as well, yet one would think people still required actual words as the lyrics to the songs they choose to sing. Unfortunately, we seem to relay more on grunts, lisps, single syllable nonsense sounds, squealing and wailing guitars, thumps, crashes, dissonance and curses to say… whatever. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m neither prudish nor thin skinned. There are definitely times when only the strongest, most vivid curse can adequately express the fury and rage we often feel in today’s screwed up world, but when that becomes all we are capable of saying, whatever is being said isn’t worth hearing.
Also, I’m not advocating any form of censorship or that any music I might deem hard on the ears should be outlawed. If that were the case, vocalized bluegrass would have vanished. But, stop for a moment and think about all the current commercials for cell phones that can record and play ‘your’ personal music, all the encouragement to drive, wander down the street, stop, eat or study while bopping to some favorite tune, most of which today seems to consist of only one syllable words, if words they be. What does anyone learn from that? Are we all afraid to be alone, or not to have our bleeding ears engaged? Just how much of what passes for popular music is memorable? And how many of those subliminal messages clutter our brain forever after?
There have always been silly songs. Who could hear “mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy” or “yes, we have no bananas,” or “does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bed post overnight,” and not realize that whimsy and silliness is part of the human animal? Silly isn’t nearly as bad as nastiness or meanness in songs, or even the ones that hold deadly threats of suicide (“I can’t live without you”) or messages of hate (“I’m gonna get you, sucker”).
I can easily accept music as subversive. After all, there are some great protest songs even today, but I have a difficult time accepting that music and the lyrics tied to those sounds are being subverted. Somehow, the joy and companionship of such a personalized art is demeaned and dangerous when it not only condones but furthers ignorance.
While not given much to astrology, I was born a Gemini, supposedly the cosmic twins, although I’ve always thought of the sign as representing the identical but in opposition, wherein one side (at least in my case) would display the creative or visionary while the other represented the practical or firmly rooted. One of the reasons this always seemed personally appropriate was that during my mother’s pregnancy, the doctors supposedly heard two heartbeats although there was only one squalling infant delivered on Father’s Day.
Anyway, all my early formative years through college were spent in creative pursuits; dance, art, writing, and primarily music, my major in college. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the powers that be in that creative world seemed to think they were guiding talent, although I personally felt that talent too widely scattered for true expertise in any one field. Upon finding my self married, however, all that burning creativity was suddenly overcome by the simultaneous desire and need to earn a living while my hubby returned to school to complete his degree. That need subjugated all creativity except as it led to idea development in a corporate setting. For someone with no real grounding in the business world, I did quite well.
Finally free of all those restrictions, I’m back indulging the creative side of my nature while at the same time wondering sometimes how it all came about. I’m pretty convinced I didn’t take the road cosmically laid out for people like me, but I also admit it was an interesting if confusing trip. Anyway, a couple nights ago, I finally caught a movie I’d wanted to see, “De-Lovely,” about Cole Porter’s life and love. While studying music, Porter was always and icon, and one of those composers and lyricists whose music was a highlight and continues to be played and sung now, years after his death and after all the major shifts in popular culture from his time.
Because I’ve always had a love of words, I had also always listened closely to lyrics, and remembering not only his songs from that era but also those of other lyricists from Broadway, I began to wonder about the ways we unconsciously expand our vocabularies, and thus, our ability to communicate. All this nostalgia and rumination fed the germ on an idea, not only about how music is probably the most insidious of the Arts in sparking ideas and revolutions, but how the words we hear within popular songs impact upon our ultimate level of intelligence.
The curious question that came to mind is how much of the dumbing down we seem to experience everywhere today is due more to the popular music and songs that permeate our lives than it is to a failure of education. Certainly formalized education plays a role, but it’s highly doubtful today’s failure of intellect is primarily due to that milieu.
It is only a leopard that is unable to alter its spots. People change. Because people change, so does society, culture, and language, as well, yet one would think people still required actual words as the lyrics to the songs they choose to sing. Unfortunately, we seem to relay more on grunts, lisps, single syllable nonsense sounds, squealing and wailing guitars, thumps, crashes, dissonance and curses to say… whatever. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m neither prudish nor thin skinned. There are definitely times when only the strongest, most vivid curse can adequately express the fury and rage we often feel in today’s screwed up world, but when that becomes all we are capable of saying, whatever is being said isn’t worth hearing.
Also, I’m not advocating any form of censorship or that any music I might deem hard on the ears should be outlawed. If that were the case, vocalized bluegrass would have vanished. But, stop for a moment and think about all the current commercials for cell phones that can record and play ‘your’ personal music, all the encouragement to drive, wander down the street, stop, eat or study while bopping to some favorite tune, most of which today seems to consist of only one syllable words, if words they be. What does anyone learn from that? Are we all afraid to be alone, or not to have our bleeding ears engaged? Just how much of what passes for popular music is memorable? And how many of those subliminal messages clutter our brain forever after?
There have always been silly songs. Who could hear “mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy” or “yes, we have no bananas,” or “does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bed post overnight,” and not realize that whimsy and silliness is part of the human animal? Silly isn’t nearly as bad as nastiness or meanness in songs, or even the ones that hold deadly threats of suicide (“I can’t live without you”) or messages of hate (“I’m gonna get you, sucker”).
I can easily accept music as subversive. After all, there are some great protest songs even today, but I have a difficult time accepting that music and the lyrics tied to those sounds are being subverted. Somehow, the joy and companionship of such a personalized art is demeaned and dangerous when it not only condones but furthers ignorance.
posted by kaz at 1:40 PM
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