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As you may recall, I recently mentioned to the world Livejournal that my brother is the best brother ever - in that particular instance, thanks to his generosity in purchasing and letting me rip a tremendous stack of music CDs. One of the most awesome songs in a generally fantastic batch is 10,000 Maniacs, "Planned Obsolescence" from Hope Chest: The Fredonia Recordings 1982-1983. It's a great spaced-out synthy track with cleverly layered vocals in clever harmonies - a little like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" might be if it was orchestrated by Eurythmics, to grotesquely misdescribe it.
But the lyrics are about the conflict between science and religion.
Really, I kinda hate it when this happens. Sometimes, when I'm staying up too late on a school night (he-e-y-y...), I feel things like, "all those people talking about elephants in the room must be talking about religion - it's the biggest one here." You get almost everyone repeating one or another of the same dozen or so platitudes that don't make sense but at least don't offend most people, or repeating one of a different couple dozen which offend one half or the other of the population but which everyone already has a standard response for (usually involving foaming at the mouth and insults either to one's character or to one's intellect, depending on which side is being offended - and yes, the whole "condemn 'both' sides" schtick is one of the "don't make sense" class).
So when I want to talk about this song, I can't even go "is this irony like 'Shiny Happy People', serious like 'Both Sides Now', or something else altogether?" without feeling like I'm walking onto a landmine. I have to lay down a few hundred words of insulation just to mention the question.
...so, what is this song saying? Is it bemoaning the materialism (in the dual-meaning sense) of the worldview now replacing primitive animistic belief, or is it simply observing the death of outdated modes of being? ...I think it is the latter, but I'm not sure!
But the lyrics are about the conflict between science and religion.
Really, I kinda hate it when this happens. Sometimes, when I'm staying up too late on a school night (he-e-y-y...), I feel things like, "all those people talking about elephants in the room must be talking about religion - it's the biggest one here." You get almost everyone repeating one or another of the same dozen or so platitudes that don't make sense but at least don't offend most people, or repeating one of a different couple dozen which offend one half or the other of the population but which everyone already has a standard response for (usually involving foaming at the mouth and insults either to one's character or to one's intellect, depending on which side is being offended - and yes, the whole "condemn 'both' sides" schtick is one of the "don't make sense" class).
So when I want to talk about this song, I can't even go "is this irony like 'Shiny Happy People', serious like 'Both Sides Now', or something else altogether?" without feeling like I'm walking onto a landmine. I have to lay down a few hundred words of insulation just to mention the question.
...so, what is this song saying? Is it bemoaning the materialism (in the dual-meaning sense) of the worldview now replacing primitive animistic belief, or is it simply observing the death of outdated modes of being? ...I think it is the latter, but I'm not sure!
no subject
no subject
(I don't imagine it helps much, but last.fm has a sample of Planned Obsolescence (http://www.last.fm/music/10,000+Maniacs/_/Planned+Obsolescence).)
uncertainty principle
Re: uncertainty principle