"[T]he worst pop song designed to reflect a profound moral conscience. I.e. the smuggest, most pretentious pop song in history."

Andrew Sullivan sets up a poll for what he (a bit inaptly) calls the "Shut Up and Sing" award. You can't really shut up and sing. He's just looking for bad lyrics of a particular sort.

I only know 4 of the 10 songs on his list, and they don't really bother me. I mean, it's fun to knock Sting, but other than that, who cares what Madonna was actually saying in "American Life"? And if Stevie Wonder wants to sing with Paul McCartney about racial harmony using a piano keyboard metaphor, that's too sweet to get upset about. As for "Okie From Muskogee," that song has aged fabulously well. I was around in the 1960s when we hippies loved hating Merle Haggard for the things he said in that song, but it's nuts to take it the way we did back then:

"Okie From Muskogee," 1969's apparent political statement, was actually written as an abjectly humorous character portrait. Haggard called the song a "documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time."... "I wrote it when I recently got out of the joint. I knew what it was like to lose my freedom, and I was getting really mad at these protesters. They didn't know anything more about the war in Vietnam than I did. I thought how my dad, who was from Oklahoma, would have felt. I felt I knew how those boys fighting in Vietnam felt."

That text is from Wikipedia. "Abjectly humorous character portrait"? Somebody doesn't know the meaning of "abjectly." But I'm inclined to say that Andrew Sullivan is abjectly humorless... at least when it comes to marijuana....

"We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee..."



Smug? Pretentious? Absurd!

You know what deserves to win the award Sullivan defines. It's damned obvious and it's not on the list. Imagine all the peeepull....

Really, this award is no fun if you take shots at lightweights like The Partridge Family and the New Kids on the Block — as Sullivan does. Get the guys who've been taken seriously, like Bob Dylan. ("He that gets hurt will be he who has stalled...") Pick a worthy target or... as they say... shut up.

Did you see Paul McCartney on "Saturday Night Live" last night?

Oh, that wasn't last night. That was back in 1993. Here's a report of last night's show, and here's the clip of him doing — of all things — "A Day in the Life." I don't think The Beatles ever did that live. It was weird having Paul sing the John part (as well as the comb-across-my-hair Paul part), and the last verse was replaced by the chorus of "Give Peace a Chance" — in case you didn't pick up on the tribute to John (a few days after the 30th anniversary of his death.)

"I wasn't really dead," says Paul, in that 1993 clip, when Chris Farley asks if the "Paul is dead" thing was a hoax. And now, Paul lives on, and poor Chris is dead. Chris was born here in Madison and is buried here, in a cemetery at the end of a street named Farley.

"I'm not a big opera buff in terms of going to opera, but there are days where Maria Callas is exactly what I need," says Barack Obama.

He was answering Jann Wenner's question: "What music have you been listening to lately? What have you discovered, what speaks to you these days?" I wonder what Callas arias are fulfilling his needs these days. He also says his iPod is "heavily weighted toward the music of [his] childhood: "a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane." And a "lot of classical music." He makes a bow to rap music — his personal aid Reggie Love has helped him with that. And "Malia and Sasha are now getting old enough to where they start hipping me to things."

Wenner pushes him about Dylan, who recently performed at the White House. He says:

Here's what I love about Dylan: He was exactly as you'd expect he would be. He wouldn't come to the rehearsal; usually, all these guys are practicing before the set in the evening. He didn't want to take a picture with me; usually all the talent is dying to take a picture with me and Michelle before the show, but he didn't show up to that. He came in and played "The Times They Are A-Changin'." A beautiful rendition. The guy is so steeped in this stuff that he can just come up with some new arrangement, and the song sounds completely different. Finishes the song, steps off the stage — I'm sitting right in the front row — comes up, shakes my hand, sort of tips his head, gives me just a little grin, and then leaves. And that was it — then he left. That was our only interaction with him. And I thought: That's how you want Bob Dylan, right? You don't want him to be all cheesin' and grinnin' with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise. So that was a real treat.

He segues on his own to the subject of Paul McCartney:

Having Paul McCartney here was also incredible. He's just a very gracious guy. When he was up there singing "Michelle" to Michelle, I was thinking to myself, "Imagine when Michelle was growing up, this little girl on the South Side of Chicago, from a working-class family." The notion that someday one of the Beatles would be singing his song to her in the White House — you couldn't imagine something like that.

Wenner asks if he cried, and he starts his response...

Whenever I think about my wife, she can choke me up. My wife and my kids, they'll get to me.

His aides make him stop the interview at that point. No crying in politics! Then he comes back a "moment later" and makes a speech to Wenner — "with intensity and passion, repeatedly stabbing the air with his finger" — about how people need to shake off their malaise lethargy.

"Someone's knocking at the door. Somebody's ringing the bell. Do me a favor. Open the door. Let 'em in.

That's the entirety of the lyrics to the cute little Paul McCartney song "Let 'Em In," from the 1976 album "Wings at the Speed of Sound."

Please familiarize yourself with the original recording.

Now, you are prepared to view the song and dance interpretation from the 1976 Miss America contest — with Bert Parks and 3 male dancers:

***

What long and winding road led me to that door? Back in last night's "rare opportunity" thread, I wrote:

Being tried for murder is a rare opportunity, as is ending your life in the electric chair.

Meade said:

I once had the rare opportunity to become King of England but I turned it down.

I chose romantic love instead.

Then Hollywood called and I said "no." At the time, keeping my private life private seemed like a rare opportunity I didn't want to give up.

Oh, I almost forgot - then I was asked to run for Vice President but I decided I wanted to spend more time with my family.

In hindsight, I'm glad I turned down that king gig. The pay wasn't all THAT great.

Then Lem said:

Good call Meade.

Greetings from Julio "If love calls on your door"

If love calls your door
let it find it always open
never close it, let'm in ...

Open up, don't get distracted
don't let'm go, dont miss it
you don't know when it will call again ...

If love calls your door
let it find it always open
tomorrow is another day, it's God's will ...

Let love be welcome
Today I will stay with you
For a Gifted night without end ...

I want to be more than your friend
it is all I ask
and that you give me a chance.

(painstaking translation by Lem)

"Gifted" — like "God" — is capitalized in Lem's view, and I accept that.

The open door... someone's knocking at the door...

If you'd left that door open somebody wouldn't have had to ring the bell. Maybe you just leave that door wide open — and let love walk in — but at least answer it. Maybe check the peephole first.

"I'm sure Macca's new lady-friend Nancy Shevell is a very nice woman..."

"... but she just willingly, knowingly went out in public wearing leggings that might be made out of Miss Piggy."

To anyone who thinks I drink a lot of wine.

Now, maybe you're wondering, why is Eve talking about amputees? Well, that's from the final segment of the diavlog about sex and economics. On the subject of amputees — and possibly influenced by what's in that glass — I tell a joke:

See the muddy waters rise.

Thanks to Jason for pointing me to The Beatles Search Machine, after I tweeted about wanting a place to search Beatles lyrics, the way you can search Bob Dylan's lyrics at his official website. I wanted to know:

Is the only reference to "water" in the Beatles' lyrics "muddy water"? (Typical of the kind of thing I need to know to blog.)

Don't you think it's interesting that the word "water" appears only once in all those lyrics, and it's muddy water? The "he" of "Come Together" "got muddy water." (I'm not sure how well the "mojo filter" works to clarify said water.) Presumably, the reference is to the musician Muddy Waters, though surely he is not the "he" of the song. (It's Timothy Leary, right?)

The Beatles Search Machine also returned "Mother Nature's Son," but there, the word actually is "waters," so it does not undo the conclusion that the only "water" in a Beatles song is "muddy water." But the "waters" of "Mother Nature's Son" look sparkling clear:

Sit beside a mountain stream — see her waters rise
Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies.

The usual things that are said about the difference between Paul and John can be said here. John's dark "shoot me" song has muddy water, and Paul's sweet happy song has us listening to the pretty music of a mountain stream. But I must add that "see her waters rise" today makes me think about global warming. Now, I hear that song and picture Paul, Mother Nature's son, in his field of grass, with his swaying daisies, and the mental picture is ruined by big old Al Gore lumbering up and harshing his mellow.

"I love Bruce for the simple reason he is, from all appearances, a social phobe and a depressive."

Says Stephen Metcalf, bemoaning the fact that Springsteen gave a powerfully energetic performance at the Super Bowl halftime.

Nothing will ever compete for sheer tone-deafness with Paul McCartney playing a zealous Super Bowl rendition of "Live and Let Die" at the height of the Iraq war. But Springsteen would have put America on its ass—its mind shortly to follow—had he strolled out with a Martin and played "The Wrestler."... The national mood is sober bordering on a galloping panic. Lively as he was, I wouldn't say the Boss did much to either banish or capture it.

Yeah, why doesn't Bruce help us plunge ever more deeply into depression — mental, to go with the economic?