Before we descend into Dennis Prager’s Id and begin digging around for his usual nuggets of wisdom and veins of poetry (part of our new government-sponsored program, Clunkers for Spelunkers), I’d like to welcome former law clerk, former part-time community college instructor, and ham radio talk show host Ellis Washington, who dropped by this post yesterday to wish us happy holidays:
I’m elated that my article, “Art, music and the Wagnerian dilemma,” provoked such passionate discussion. During this Holiday Season I wish you all …
Peace
Passionate we certainly are, although as Mary remarked, Mr. Washington may have “confused discussion with derision.” But hey, if it leads to … Peace, then I’m all for it. Plus, Ex-Clerk Ellis has a blog now, Ellis Washington Report, and while so far it only features links to, and brief excerpts from, his World Net Daily columns, this is still a very exciting development, because unlike WND, Mr. Washington’s blog invites you to “leave a comment.” Naturally I wanted to reciprocate his holiday sentiment, but clicking on “leave a comment” takes you to World Net Daily where you can’t … leave a comment.
It just goes to show that liberal’s well-known love of the “intentional fallacy” leads to chaos and Caravaggio, while Veritas leads to a clean and well-lighted causality loop.
So anyway. Dennis Prager is about to school us squares on popular music. And a one, and a two…
‘F— You’ – from the music industry
The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Song of the Year is a song titled “F— You,” with the F-word, of course, spelled out and pronounced.
Here are the song’s opening lyrics:
I see you driving ’round town
With the girl I love and I’m like,
F— you!
Oo, oo, oooI guess the change in my pocket
Wasn’t enough, I’m like,
F–- you!
And f— her, too!The next lyrics add the S-word:
Which, if you say it real fast, sounds like “sword.” That’s why I like to mumble when I curse, because people don’t know if I’m saying “S-word,” or threatening to grab a basket-hilted claymore and run them through. Either way, it will usually inspire the elderly woman ahead of me in line at the grocery store to fill out her check with a bit more alacrity.
And shortly thereafter, the N-word:
Eventually this song is going to exhaust the English alphabet, and we’re going to have to start importing fricatives from the !Kung Bushmen.
It is also worth noting that the video of this song includes children who appear to be under 12 years of age and all the performers are black – a point I will address later.
Well, I took that for granted, since Dennis usually gets around to pointing out how black people are spoiling everything, from pride to snack chip commercials. Not to mention all the “name rape.”
I have long believed that MTV has done more damage to America’s young people than any other single institution. I am referring to the music videos, in which most images or scenes are shown for less than two seconds and thereby numb kids’ minds, and to the sexual imagery and sex talk that permeate the music videos and much of the rest of MTV programming.
There are music videos on MTV? I’d better touch up my spiral perm.
How does a song replete with expletives, whose very title is “F— You,” get nominated for a Grammy Award as Song of the Year?
I blame industry pressure from Big Dash.
The answer is that the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts and to profaning that which is held sacred.
Tell me about it! What’s next in their unending quest for sensationalism and exploitation? Caribou snuff films?
There is no better explanation for “F— You” being nominated as Song of the Year. It has little, if any, redeeming moral, social or artistic (to the extent that this word retains its original meaning) value. The lyrics are as vapid as they are obscene; the video further degrades that part of black life that is already too lacking in elevation; and there is the participation of children in a profanity-filled video.
Dear Black People: Mr. Prager would appreciate it if you would stop living at sea level. Thanks.
For most of American history, a child who used such words was punished by his parents, and society instinctively knew how important it was not to expose children to obscenities. Today, adults in the music industry reward children for participating in videos laced with obscenities.
When in fact they should have been dealt with in the same time-honored fashion Dennis would have dished out to the kid in that corn chip ad which delivered such a fatal blow to Western Civilization during the Super Bowl: ”If a child did that to me, I would grab his offending arm and apply enough force to make it clear that he will never do that again…The Doritos kid deserved a physical response from this man — as in pressure on the offending arm.”
The third nominee is an ode to New York City, “Empire State of Mind,” performed by black rapper Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, and which also contains the N-word. It is worth recalling that when white radio-show host Laura Schlessinger used this word solely to condemn its use in inner-city black life
Black people really needed to hear it from an unbiased source.
…society’s elite poured such wrath on her that it forced many of her sponsors to abandon her, and she decided to leave radio.
…and move to satellite radio, where apparently you can say any crazy s-word that comes into your head.