Debunking Humor...

[Mauro]

I thought that WAS "cute cats doing goofily adorable things".

It has no lyrics, it's just a jumble of sounds meant to look like English, with no meaning at all.

As a song, it offends my musical sensibility, but it's just me (maybe).

 

[Mendel]

As a song, it offends my musical sensibility, but it's just me (maybe).

Well, technically, it's not a song; it's rhythmic spoken word, called "Sprechgesang" in German, in the tradition of opera's "recitative", talking blues, and pre-dating rap.

 

[Ann K]

Agreed. I was happier before all of it. What about you? Part of it is just getting older in a world I wouldn't have chosen for a future, and looking at the past with rosy retrospection, but social interactions seemed better before all the computers.

I'm (approximately) older than dirt. Eight or ten years ago I had the opportunity to meet almost every day of the week with friends from various art groups, either plein air sessions (often followed by lunch together), open studio sessions, or evening meetings. But then along came Covid. I never got it, although I knew several people who died of it, but all the community activities came to an abrupt end. That was when my computer became my main connection with friends and with the world. The pandemic was an unexpected life-changer, but it was so much better WITH computer access than it might have been. Now I'm seriously old and creaky I wouldn't be without it.

 

[FatPhil]

Well, technically, it's not a song; it's rhythmic spoken word, called "Sprechgesang" in German, in the tradition of opera's "recitative", talking blues, and pre-dating rap.

Sprechgesang is a new word to me - thanks for that! To me recitatives come on a spectrum of which I'm only familiar with one end - when I sang them I was told specifically to lean on the rhythm of (dramatic, so you might call it operatic) speech rather than be bound by the strict rhythm of the underlying music. That song, however, seemed to be the opposite end of the spectrum, it was closer to scat - getting the metrical feet in place almost as accurately as the podial ones.

Not my style, I describe myself primarily as a metaller (prog, thrash, shred, and doom mainly) who dabbles with baroque/romantic (not the "classical" stage that came in between), folk, and funk ... but, heck, you've got to like it if you like any music with real verve to it.

 

[John J.]

Sprechgesang

Arguably features in a surprising range of rock and pop stuff.
Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, Kraftwerk, Black Grape, Wet Leg's Chaise Longue.

 

[RTM]

Also Shattered by The Rolling Stones.

 

[FatPhil]

Arguably features in a surprising range of rock and pop stuff.
Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, Kraftwerk, Black Grape, Wet Leg's Chaise Longue.

I wouldn't say it's surprising, it's all over the blues and everything derived from it: I guess I first encountered it in Hendrix and early Deep Purple. Just not under that name.