If you've been following my rantings of late, you will know one of the things that has been bringing me joy is tutoring in English. I have a few students, ranging in age from ten to seventeen, and with the high school students I have found myself going through assigned poetry texts and helping them isolate techniques used to make the poem more vivid to the reader, and to discuss the themes - all that stuff you no doubt did when you were in high school. The poets I had to study in high school and uni vacillated between ones I liked (the Romantics such as John Keats and John Blake), and ones that made me scratch my head (the Metaphysical types like John Donne and T S Eliot). I was asked to assist with a poetry assignment, and approached this with interest, hoping it might be Blake. You wouldn't credit it, but what I was asked to render assistance with was the song I was Only 19. Yes, songs from my high school days are now texts to be studied in school. People say you know you're old when the elevator muzak is the Top 40 from your high school days, but I think that pales to insignificance when you find yourself discussing imagery, themes, and literary techniques to the stuff you used to listen to on the radio when doing your own homework (on Keats and Donne).
Naturally, I went into old fart mode and said to my pupil, 'This song came out when I was your age' (another sure sign you're getting old is when you trot out the 'when I was your age' line).
I actually enjoyed looking into the themes and techniques of the song today. To me it hearkens to the common theme of Lost Innocence, with a heavy dose of Futility of War.
But what I'm wondering is this: if songs from my final high school days are going to be used as English texts, will I find myself assisting people with this bilge:
1. Shiny, Shiny by Haysi Fantayzee. This is hands down one of the worst songs ever released. Literary types, don't even bother looking for themes, or imagery, or indeed sense. The song just sucks balls, and is a musical manifestation of the skid marks in Satan's underwear.
2. Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. Maybe there is some depth to 'We can dance/Everybody look at your hands', but the depth is comparable to that of a teaspoon.
3. Bop Girl by Pat Wilson. This is fingernails-down-the-blackboard stuff if ever there was. Have you ever bitten into a bar of chocolate, only to catch some foil lining on one of your fillings? The song has the same effect.
4. I Eat Cannibals by Toto Coelo. Fuck me dead, why? This song has the power to stun and debilitate at fifty yards by its sheer godawfulness alone.
5. The Clapping Song by Belle Stars. A close runner up to Number 4 above, and pretty much word for word with the explanation, so just see above.
6. Fraction Too Much Friction by Tim Finn. Look, I really liked Split Enz and think the Finn brothers prolifically talented; so why this dross? It makes me think he needs K-Y Jelly.
7. Living on the Ceiling by Blancmange. Like the name of the band, the song is a bland, flavourless pile of slop.
8. Zoom by Fat Larry's Band. This is a massive pile of cheeeeeeeze, so much so that listening will render you constipated for a week.
9. Shoop Shoop Diddy Wop Cumma Cumma Wang Dang by Monte Video & The Cassettes. Don't even try to analyse this; you'll end up under the desk in a foetal position, sobbing and clutching a bottle of wine.
I could go on, but I will stop there. Got other things to do. Besides, I'm getting seriously bad flashbacks from this list.
Will post again soon. Things are starting to improve slightly for me, and I'm getting excited about the upcoming Scone Literary Festival, whereat I shall be a panellist (hell, in my mind I'm the star attraction!).
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