mat catastrophe - 17 September 2009 09:37 AM
Steve Shanafelt - 17 September 2009 09:33 AM
If Hanke ever sees this, he’ll asplode.
That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? If he’s gotten old enough to be upset about what the youth of today are doing?
Still, if he actually was around when the song came out that’s one thing. What I love are the 20, 30 and 40 year olds who cry “blasphemy” on songs like this. It isn’t your culture they are bastardizing, it is your parents’s.
Well, in one sense—unless you’ve just resigned from pop culture altogether—it’s still a part of your culture (I’d consider Al Jolson still a part of my/our culture). It’s just not a part of your youth, which, quite honestly, is something most of us are just a little too in love with anyway. There’s a difference between our collective culture and the flavor of the month.
Then again, I had a talk with somebody who is 22 last night and he was saying how jealous he was that I was able to go see Let It Be 5 times on its original release. I don’t think that’s uncommon either—envying an earlier generation. After all, it’s pretty easy to be nostalgic for something you never actually experienced. My generation tended to dote on Depression era stuff. I doubt we’d really have liked to have been there, no matter how much “better” we thought it was.
Anyway, I’m not gonna get bent out of shape over things like this (well, go to the movie review archive and look up my thoughts on the Olsen Twins performing “Suffragette City” in New York Minute). They’re mostly funny—consciously or not. Besides, the best parodies are usually by people who really love what they’re parodying, e.g. the Rutles with the Beatles. I love the Rutles, and yet I’m also one of those people who honestly does think the Beatles are the best rock group ever.
