Friday 6 January 2012

The downside of education

I'm all for education. It's great to learn more, to discover more about the world, to ask questions and keep on searching rather than just sitting there and not being bothered. There's so much out there to learn and the more you know the more you know you don't know and so you keep heading forwards, searching for more information but there are some downsides to education. Namely the spoiling of songs.

Song 1: The Fireman Sam theme tune

When I was younger, I used to think the line went "driving down the sleazy street". Being preschool age and unaware of what sleazy meant I was totally happy with this for a while. It was just a 'happy' word in my mind and it wasn't until well after I started school that I learnt the true meaning of sleazy and that the line was actually "driving down the snoozy street". In my opinion, this has spoilt the whole theme. Learning that I was wrong, that what I sung every time I sang the theme tune was in fact horribly inaccurate made the magic of fireman same dissipate a little more than I'd like. Education spoilt it.

Song 2: The Tots TV theme tune

I used to love Tots TV. I think a lot of people my age did when they were younger and I was always fascinated by Tilly. I didn't realise she was French and just thought she was talking some sort of wonderful made up language so of course I totally didn't get what she meant by "Je suis un Tot" in the theme tune. However, with secondary school, that changed. I started French lessons and I learnt that "Je suis un" means "I am a". This has shattered the magic of Tots TV. The theme tune now goes "I'm a Tot, I'm a Tot, Tilly, Tom and Tiny" in my head and that's before I even get onto the whole magical bag bit. However, Tots TV wasn't the only thing learning French ruined.

Song 3: Les Poissons from The Little Mermaid

The whole song was so much more magical when I didn't know what the French bit meant. The whole song sounds so much nicer (if a little more crazy) when it's totally in a French accent with actual French thrown in but now I can't help but here "The fish, the fish, how I love the fish" in a rather posh English accent followed by an evil laugh even though that isn't even the next line of the song. Ah, French. If only I knew enough to be useful and not just enough to destroy songs...

Song 4: Vertigo, U2

Again, a song ruined from the outset by learning a language. I can't even get through the first line without Spanish lessons spoiling the lyrics and giving the impression that U2 can't count. Spanish lessons taught me that "Uno, dos, tres, catorse" is in fact "one, two, three, fourteen" instead of the logical "one, two, three, four". I don't think "because it sounds better" is any logical reason to take advantage of the majority not being able to understand and throw away all mathematical laws of counting. 4 comes after 3: it always has done and always will.

Song 5: Livin' La vida Loca

Once again, Spanish lessons changed a song from "cool Latin-y song you can do on dance mat" to another one of those songs that I can now only hear as the translation in a posh English life; and believe it or not, "Living the crazy life" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it. By the same argument you could say "Viva la Vida" has been spoiled however as that translates roughly as "Live the Life" it sounds grand enough in English that it hasn't really spoilt it and it's not like the actual song has them singing Spanish in it anyway. It is only the title after all.

Song 6: The Big Bang Theory Theme

So, I already knew that I disagree with the whole principle of the theme song. Life didn't start with "a big bang" unless there happened to be a loud noise like a bang when God proclaimed "Let there be light" and anyway, that isn't the sort of bang they're on about. However, the bit that made it worse was the learning of the meaning of the word "autotroph". An autotroph is an organism that is able to produce it's own food from inorganic substances with photoautotrophs such as plants and algae being the most well known ones. However, "autotrophs began to drool" just sounds even more rediculous knowing that. Surely from an evolution perspective, the idea of drooling plants or algae is just a little bit crazy....

I'm sure there are a couple of songs that I've forgotten however I'll leave the list for now.

Live long and keep posting =]


STATS
"First 12 for '12" Status: 10 down, 2 to go
Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance
Latest film/TV watched: The Big Bang Theory
Latest music listened to: Mitch Benn - Les Poissons from the Little Mermaid
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: A glass of milk
Predominant colour of current clothing: Grey mainly with bits of blue. Yup, I have exciting pyjamas...
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger, 4oD -  Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes

3 comments:

  1. It's obvious that you have suffered at the hands of opening theme songs. But don't worry help is at hand with Rescue Special Ops - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UWDcsC-yOk

    ReplyDelete
  2. I felt the same way when I found out that a lot of film composers do little more than write a melody, and leave the orchestration to a gang of minions.

    ReplyDelete