@phantis: I disagree with the stupid children designation. As a teacher of 25 years experience, I rarely found any child who was just plain stupid. Callow, inexperienced, uninformed, defensive, angry, eager, and thoughtful, YES, but stupid, NO. They just needed comprehensible explanations for many things they had heard in lecture style classes. Once they were able to express their questions in a setting where all opinions were open to discussion, their attitudes improved to some degree. No big major upticks but visibly.
On the other hand, I have to agree about modern popular music. For me, mod pop began going downhill in the ’70’s. That’s about the time, lyrics stopped telling a story or describing a romantic scene. Now it seems limited to constant repetition of the same few words over and over, like an actor who constantly practices his lines in an effort to get it right. The lyrics sound angry, hurtful.
When I asked the young ladies in my class how they felt about the way song lyrics used truly obscene and threatening language toward them, supposedly as a kind of love song, most of them just looked down and did not reply. They were obviously uncomfortable, probably because their boyfriends were there, too. But, later, in their essays, many said outright or hinted that they were not happy when their boyfriends used the same language as in the songs. They had no answer or cure for it, and they felt afraid. And that was in the 1990’s just before I retired. I will guess that same feeling exists today for memberfs of both genders and not only the teens.
Troglodyte over 6 years ago
Not “Unchained Melody”? :)
sandpiper over 6 years ago
There’s an awful lot of that going around. Good advice, all too rarely followed these days.
Nyckname over 6 years ago
He such a square, he just can’t dig you, daddy-o.
Radish the wordsmith over 6 years ago
Is his name John Cage?
Diat60 over 6 years ago
Call it “Flight of the Critics”.
brklnbern over 6 years ago
The Duke Knows Best.
sandpiper over 6 years ago
@phantis: I disagree with the stupid children designation. As a teacher of 25 years experience, I rarely found any child who was just plain stupid. Callow, inexperienced, uninformed, defensive, angry, eager, and thoughtful, YES, but stupid, NO. They just needed comprehensible explanations for many things they had heard in lecture style classes. Once they were able to express their questions in a setting where all opinions were open to discussion, their attitudes improved to some degree. No big major upticks but visibly.
On the other hand, I have to agree about modern popular music. For me, mod pop began going downhill in the ’70’s. That’s about the time, lyrics stopped telling a story or describing a romantic scene. Now it seems limited to constant repetition of the same few words over and over, like an actor who constantly practices his lines in an effort to get it right. The lyrics sound angry, hurtful.
When I asked the young ladies in my class how they felt about the way song lyrics used truly obscene and threatening language toward them, supposedly as a kind of love song, most of them just looked down and did not reply. They were obviously uncomfortable, probably because their boyfriends were there, too. But, later, in their essays, many said outright or hinted that they were not happy when their boyfriends used the same language as in the songs. They had no answer or cure for it, and they felt afraid. And that was in the 1990’s just before I retired. I will guess that same feeling exists today for memberfs of both genders and not only the teens.