the danger of respect

[fpb]

I think there is a widespread habit of reading things that people said "benevolently", especially if the person in question is famous or respected. When a sentence starts with "What I think s/he REALLY meant is...", I go "uh-oh" inwardly. The classic case as far as I am concerned is John Lennon's song "Imagine", a song which postulates a dreadful and intolerable situation - no possessions (what, not even my stuffed toys?), nothing worth dying for, nothing that is loved enough to matter. I simply can't tell you how often I heard this song justified with: "I think that what he REALLY meant was..." peace on Earth, goodwill to all men, and so on. No: you can only go by the actual words he used, and the words he used describe a lifeless, spiritually dead world. The point is however that Lennon, a clever musician, placed music to those words which has such a pleading and convincing power that we are lulled into ignoring what they actually say. We become convinced that he cannot really have said things as dreadful as he did. But this only means that he cleverly got us to do his dirty work for him, to be, in a sense, his accomplices. (I will add that Lennon was a notoriously troubled person and that there is some excuse for his terrible beliefs in his rather sad personal life.)

Many of the people who get the same treatment have been attacked, even eviscerated, by such writers as Paul Johnson; but there is at least one who, as far as I am concerned, still gets away with intellectual murder. I mean Samuel Langhorne Clements. Mark Twain may have been the first truly great American writer and a really funny man, but he was also a fundamentally unpleasant misanthrope and a very provincial spirit, judging everything by what he knew (and hated) of the Missouri small towns of his childhood. Many of his witticisms amount to a desire that the human race should not exist. ("Such is the human race. Sometimes it seems a downright pity that Noah did not miss that boat.") And many more amount to a narrow-minded, ignorant judging of the whole universe as being nothing more than Small Town USA. I had something to say about that here: http://fpb.livejournal.com/406368.html

Comments

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

I think exactly what you do about "Imagine." I think it is the worst song ever written (and given much of the Top 40 drivel of the past 50 odd years, that's saying something). It's one two song guaranteed to make me change the station if I hear it come on the radio.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think the music is good. What I loathe is, first, the inherent proposal, and, two, the abuse of good music to make us ignore, or worse still mentally rewrite, a rotten proposal.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

OK, let me rephrase that: I think it's the worst set of lyrics ever written. And you're right - coupling them with a snappy melody makes it insidiously worse.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

Even when I was a kid I thought there was a sinister quality to the song, though I could not identify it specifically.

I was never a fan of Lennon at all, and I'm still not. I never understood the worship of him.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm afraid you are right about Twain, as much as I admire his writing.

-mrmandias

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

I never liked that song either. It gives me the chills. But I always thought it was because I am a "Paul"-person.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I came up against something like this recently, after co-authoring a scathing article about the writing and characterization in a particular video game. Most of the negative responses I read were of a similar pattern. But, a writer either means what he wrote, or he has failed as a writer. I suppose it's possible that Lennon didn't mean what he said, but even if he didn't mean them, that fact wouldn't improve the lyrics as written.