The biggest piece of Egnorance yet

February 15, 2014 • 2:29 pm

I try not to engage in back-and-forth internet squabbles, but sometimes I’m drawn in against will (or my better judgement). Sometimes I’m like Maru, who famously said, “When I see a box, I must enter.” Here’s a box.

Michael Egnor, an intelligent-design flak whose website is subtitled “Opinions and musings on religion, philosophy, science, politics, and life from a conservative Catholic neurosurgeon,” just can’t leave me alone. Not satisfied with going after my views on evolution and creationism, he’s now deriding my tastes in music. If I were, say, David Klinghoffer, I’d say thjat Egnor’s posts mean that he’s not spending enough time in the operating room.

But this time he’s gone very badly wrong. In his latest post, “Something else on which Jerry Coyne and I disagree,” he praises to the skies the execrable tune “I’ve never been to me” by Charlene—a song that I despise and put among the five worst pop/rock songs ever performed.

Egnor thinks it’s fantastic. I don’t need to comment on his taste, which is religiously conditioned, it seems. His post speaks for itself:

Jerry Coyne lists his “worst songs ever”. #2 is … Charlene’s “I’ve never been to me”.

It one of my favorite songs ever!

. . . I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. I was walking in Manhattan with my girlfriend (also circa 1982) and we heard it on the radio. I was mesmerized. I told her it was a beautiful song. She detested it (we broke up few months later, not because of the song).

I love the melody, and the lyrics are profound and countercultural. A woman who had lived her life on the fast side– sleeping around, chasing glamour and wealth and novelty– is giving advice to a young mother who feels trapped. She says that what really matters is family and love and commitment, not the “subtle whoring” of the fast life.

Very countercultural. Leagues better than most of the swill the Beatles wrote.

. . . The last verse:

But you know what truth is?
It’s that little baby you’re holding, and it’s that man you fought with this morning
The same one you’re going to make love with tonight. That’s truth, that’s love

Sometimes I’ve been to cryin’ for unborn children
That might have made me complete
But I, I took the sweet life and never knew I’d be bitter from the sweet
I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that cost too much to be free

Hey lady, I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me

A lot of truth. A beautiful melody. I love the song . Coyne and I disagree on so much.

Indeed!

But judge for yourself;

You may remember this song from the opening credits of the movie “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” which you can see and hear here.

I can’t resist adding that anyone who thinks that the music of the Beatles is “swill” would probably prefer “Dogs Playing Poker” to “The Night Watch.”

_______

UPDATE: Reader Michael sent me this picture, saying that it’s the version of The Night Watch to which I referred:

Rembrandt_Nightwatch-det

108 thoughts on “The biggest piece of Egnorance yet”

  1. He thinks that song is better than songs by The Beatles?

    Perhaps he thinks “I am the egg man” should have been “I am the Egnor” and is just peevish. More likely he just out of his mind.

  2. I lasted seven seconds this time and blood vessels nearly hemorrhaged in my brain. At least I know I had done this before and this nausating feeling will pass.

    1. Stupidly, I listened to this song. I remember it when it first came out. Now it’s in my head!

      1. Thankfully, I didn’t listen – could remember enough of it! BTW…..ear worm cure – play another song from the past that you liked.

  4. I took the following from Egnor’s post: he can’t make Jerry his girlfriend because Jerry’s taste in music isn’t crap.

    1. Oh yes. Anka’s song (as Dave Barry might have said), is 479 times more effective than syrup of ipecac, as measured by sensitive university laboratory equipment.

      One (possibly the only) good thing that came out of my being a missionary and missing 20+ years of life in America is that I have *never* heard either Muskrat Love or I’ve Never Been To Me, two songs that I know are always mentioned whenever the discussion of all-time worst songs arises. And, if I play my cards correctly, I never will.

  7. Blergh. Every time I hear that song I want to clean my brain with wire-wool and bleach. Then I realize that what I really want to do is take the wire-wool and bleach to the person who wrote it.

    The implication that women without babies are incomplete (and miserable) is disgusting drivel and a lie. I am extremely happy to be not fulfilling my evolutionary imperative.

    I’m eternally grateful to the makers of Priscilla, because now whenever I hear the song it conjures up images of drag queens in a nightclub rather than a self-pitying, self-righteous woman in need of a good psychologist.

    1. Ha ha! Yes the bleach! I need it! That song also makes me happy to be unsuccessful from an evolutionary perspective.

    2. “…women without babies are incomplete (and miserable)…”

      Like religion, this concept is accepted without thought.

      Those against gay marriage at some point usually posit that the purpose of marriage is for having children. Aside from the fact that being gay doesn’t prevent you from having babies, they apparently don’t realize that this would also deny marriage to a much wider range of people. By that reasoning, I am not really married because my spouse and I chose not to have kids. What about people who can’t have kids? No marriage for them? People who want to get married late in life?

      Like religion, the incomplete woman thing is another case of “if you don’t live like me, you’re doing it wrong”

      And the song is dreck, to boot.

      1. Yes and what’s actually funnier is that if you were to accept the premise that marriage is for having children, then it should be acceptable to never be married but to live with someone but not produce offspring. However, that idea is not suitable for them either because the thought of people having sex for fun makes them clutch their pearls!

        This is probably the root of all of this nonsense around women and reproduction – when it boils right down to it, these people who shame others don’t want anyone having sex for pleasure without consequences: disease, pregnancy, guilt.

          1. And every other theocrat ever. Control sexuality, and you control society. See Orwell’s 1984 or Roman Catholic Church, History of, for details.

  8. M. Egnor clearly has at least two design flaws.
    Actually, I rather like the ‘Dogs Playing Poker’ painting, but only because of it is kitschy. My favorite party shirt is here.
    Of course ‘The Night Watch’ is incomparably better, but it would be less fun to wear.

    1. My mother used to send me Dogs Playing Poker postcards when I went away to camp when I was 9 (and I enjoyed them then), but she also introduced me to Leonardo and Michelangelo even earlier. If you want an example of really kitschy art, check out Thomas Kinkade ( barf). He’s got the added “benefit” of being xian.

  9. I try not to engage in back-and-forth internet squabbles, but sometimes I’m drawn in against will (or my better judgement). Sometimes I’m like Maru, who famously said, “When I see a box, I must enter.”

    Jerry, I think you are familiar with this cartoon?

    1. Yes, exactly. It takes a special kind of mentality to endorse the message of the song as beautiful and profound.

      Married baby-makers = good; other women = whores. Gottit.

  11. Oh, no you don’t! No way in Hell am I going to click that video a second time — and you were the one to get me to click on it the first time!

    b&

      1. I believe that’s an old saying in Tennessee (and possibly Texas). Perhaps we should listen to The Who instead?

    3. My first thoughts exactly, “Oh god no!” I listened to that damn song when it came out, there was no choice, it was everywhere, but I certainly have no intention of doing it on purpose. It is the most self absorbed, self pitying, pop-psych load of crap I have ever heard.

  12. I had never heard that song before and there is a good reason. It is not even bad elevator music.

    Anyone who thinks the Beatles produced swill should never be listened to for a microsecond.

    John Lennon/Paul McCartney were the best composers since Mozart (maybe I exaggerate a little).

  13. That video strikes me as the cheesiest bit of warbling I’ve ever heard. What were they thinking over at Motown?!

  15. “Opinions and musings on religion, philosophy, science, politics, and life from a conservative Catholic neurosurgeon.”

    There’s something very jumbo shrimpesque about this declaration.

    1. Religion: The Bible is everything.
      Philosophy: Use bible.
      Science: Bible – Genesis.
      Politics: Go by the bible.
      Life: Obey the bible.

      The life of a conservative Catholic neurosurgeon is rather simple.

  16. The contrarian in me would love to recommend Piero Scaruffi’s critical essay on the Beatles.

    1. I’m taking that to mean that you don’t recommend it? Look how he rubbishes you:-

      [English translation]

      The Beatles were the quintessence of instrumental mediocrity. George Harrison was a pathetic guitarist, compared with the London guitarists of those days (Townshend of the Who, Richards of the Rolling Stones, Davies of the Kinks, Clapton and Beck and Page of the Yardbirds, and many others who were less famous but no less original). The Beatles had completely missed the revolution of rock music (founded on a prominent use of the guitar) and were still trapped in the stereotypes of the easy-listening orchestras. Paul McCartney was a singer from the 1950s, who could not have possibly sounded more conventional. As a bassist, he was not worth the last of the rhythm and blues bassists (even though within the world of Merseybeat his style was indeed revolutionary). Ringo Starr played drums the way any kid of that time played it in his garage (even though he may ultimately be the only one of the four who had a bit of technical competence). Overall, the technique of the “fab four” was the same of many other easy-listening groups: sub-standard.

      1. Even if you don’t agree I always find greater joy in watching someone attempt to eviscerate sacred cows than heaping further praise upon the altar.

      2. The point of the Beatles wasn’t stunning displays of technical virtuosity; it was compositional. Offhand, I can’t think of any other popular group (at their level of popularity) that displayed such a breadth of compositional literacy. They drew from the Experimentalists, Classical Indian (Asian) masterworks, many different Western art music traditions…and, yes, the same African-American Blues tradition as all the other Rock bands.

        And I’d disagree that their technique was sub-standard. They were quite competent, again, even if they weren’t virtuosic.

        Cheers,

        b&

  17. Personally I like the tune (but not most of the words!). I seem to recall reading somewhere that it was originally written for a male singer, and rewritten (and that ghastly OTT spoken bridge ‘you know what truth is yadda yadda’ inserted) for Charlene.

    I’d like to hear that tune with different lyrics about something entirely different and see how it sounds then, because musically, I think it’s very catchy.

    (Oh, and by the way, compulsive nitpick: “Isle of Greece” makes no sense whatever. I mentally swap it to “isles of Greece” i.e. Greek islands, which is at least geographically credible).

  18. A new ‘greatest ever fear’ – I could be on the operating table, with insufficient sedation, with Egnor’s fingers in my brain, and THAT SONG being played in the OR.

  19. I can’t blame Egnore for disagreeing with your selections in general because I complained at the time that Melanie’s “Brand New Key” was self-consciously fun, catchy, and far from one of the worst pop/rock songs ever. As I recall you found a live version which was a bit ambling and out of tune. The actual Top 40 hit was better.

    And one could in theory have argued against a couple of your selections which were not, per se, pop/rock songs, but speeches with a bit of background music — including one execrable piece by Walter Brennan. Your list thus was not beyond reasonable critique.

    But “I’ve Never Been to Me?”

    Oh, dear.

    The sentiment or message is not in itself absolutely wrong. There are plenty of women who enjoyed a traditional home life and probably some women who regretted burning the candle at both ends — and they would have their male analogs. Technically speaking, you could rewrite it just a bit and have it sung by a man.

    But in context it’s anti-feminism., And it’s unforgivably cheesy, laying on the schmaltz with a trowel. It’s like Wayne Newton’s “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast.” Short story is man decides to try to save his marriage one more time for his daughter’s sake. Ok, fine. But it will make you gag.

    1. If you happen to have a Newton-resistant gag reflex, I suggest Red Sovine’s “Giddy Up Go” to loosen up the sluices at both ends, as the Pythons would say.

  20. Well I’m with Egnor, that Coyne fellow has a lot of deficiencies when it comes to taste. Have you seen what he eats when he travels? What’s up with that? I know for a fact that there are McDonalds available everywhere, but no, he’s got to eat all that weird foreign food with garlic and spices and cheese that isn’t pre-sliced and bright orange color like cheese is supposed to be. You can tell just by looking at the stuff that it doesn’t taste nice and familiar like Kraft dinner – which, by the way, fits neatly into a suitcase and would be a welcome gift for any European friends who are denied the convenience of American style food-like products and have to go to the store all the time to buy new food.

    Well, gotta go now. The microwave is beeping that my Cheese Whiz on Wonder Bread nachos are done, and my Dan Hill cassette needs to be flipped over. Woooweee, it’s gonna be an Egnor Saturday night.

        1. I can’t entirely put my finger on the funny, but it makes me laugh so hard, I have tears. The music is a big part to it, the bad presentation & the awful food. I guess it’s just a perfect storm.

          1. Yes, I laughed too — to tears.

            I think that video contains the one extra element which makes truly bad movies truly bad: sincerity. As far as I can tell “Microwave Cooking with Sad Music” oozes both sincerity and good will: this man is trying to do his very best job. He’s teaching some of the skills the elderly husband of the woman who HAS ‘been to me’ will need when she unexpectedly kicks the bucket and now he needs nachos and … what to do?

            This is something even he can follow.

          2. Yes, the sincerity must be it & without the music, it would just be odd but the music just makes it hysterically funny.

          3. It’s sad but hopeful at the same time. I know that I’ve walked past that cheese derived stuff at the supermarket but I’ve never given it a second thought because I had no idea that you could put it in a microwave and then mix it with bean products.
            Whole new worlds have opened up for me.

          4. The buzz in the industry is that the producers are trying to raise money for the sequel. So far they have enough to rent a Keurig machine and are working to line up sources for those cup things.
            They want John Williams to compose the sad music but his people haven’t returned their calls.

          5. For me it was the dead seriousness, especially the economic analysis: Costs about 6 bucks. Feeds 3 to 6 people. So about a dollar a person. Or $2.

          7. To be fair it seems he is trying to give cooking lessons to college students. They are frequently broke and can be unexpectedly clueless. I can just barely imagine an 18 year old boy away from home for the first time and having problems with the concept and sequences involved in making microwave nachos which are — to his alarm — not already labeled “Microwave Nachos,” watching closely to make sure he gets this right, Grandpa go slow…

            The sad music, however, suggests widower to me. Which shouldn’t make me laugh but …

          8. To me, the sad music suggests someone who just is unlucky in love and its partly because of his bad food taste but also because he’s unlucky in love, he’s been forced into this bad food taste. It’s a vicious circle that for some reason makes me laugh in a way I figure I’ll pay for some day.

          10. I just started watching it again and as soon as he said that I started laughing. The close ups of the cheese in the jar are pretty funny too.

          14. The best part is where the dialog stops and the camera zooms in on the cheese sauce going around and around in the microwave.

          15. I know! The up close camera shots of the cheese shots in the jar really make it. I love it when he introduce the cheese shots, then the camera zooms in & rests on the jar with the words “cheese sauce” clearly visible. I’m crying with laughter as I type this.

          16. And I was laughing so hard that I meant to say “cheese sauce” but said “cheese shots”. 😀

          19. I’m starting to think the best part is the very end, with the long, slow close-up camera shot of the nacho dip with its cheese still mostly on the top and the chili still mostly on the bottom and you realize … he … didn’t … even … make it … right. This is a failed dip. And we have to look at it for a long time and take this fact in.

            Sad music. It now … makes sense.

          20. I think my favorite moment is when I first realized that no — the chef is not going to finish stirring the amazing nacho cheese dip. It’s a cooking video, there are only two (2) ingredients, they are now in the clear glass bowl, here is the time to show the magic where the colors blend and the cheese and beans transform before your eyes into cheese/beans surprise and — and he takes up the spoon and gives it about 3 or 4 half-hearted swirls and leaves it with cheese still lumped on top.

            It’s not even worth whisking.

            Here’s your damn bean dip, Wildcats, which will satisfy your small group.

          22. Oh, the ennui.

            Should I stir this to blend the cheese sauce and the chili? Why bother? What is the point? Why even go on living?

            It is still funny the next day.

          23. From his tone I get the feeling that he’s the coach of the football team, they’re 0-13 and he needs to do something for his Wildcats.
            But what? He cooks as well as he coaches.
            Up next: The laundromat with sad music “Here’s where you put your quarters, but don’t push them in until you have your clothes in”

          24. Doing Laundry to Sad Music would be very good. The sad music to the drying clothes would be great.

          25. As the video ends and we gaze for a long, long time at the sad, pathetic mess of the Chili-Cheese dip, we realize that no… nobody will be coming to the small gathering. Not 4 people, not 6 people. The dip is growing colder and colder before our eyes.

            This party will not happen.

            Therefore a “Doing Laundry to Sad Music’ would fill us with the same sense of malaise and hopelessness. These clothes, “clean” as they are (no doubt some of the grains of powdered detergent and dryer lint still cling), are going nowhere. You will not wear them anywhere.

            And nobody will be there even if you do.

      2. I could only take about 40 seconds of that. By then, I would have settled for Gordon (‘f*cking’) Ramsay, adjectives and all.

  22. I’m reliably informed this song inspired (for lack of a better term) Edvard Munch.

    What?

    Oops. I take that back. Wrong century. 90+ years off.

    Plausible surmise otherwise, though.

  23. Amazing a proud Catholic who has likely never stopped to mull over the disastrous sins of his church. Suppressing the advancement to discovery, killing thinkers for proposing ideas not in line with the Bible nor the Pope. In total giving us the Dark Ages. And now a serious problem that threatens all of us,overpopulation, a gift of the distorted and unrealistic teaching on sex. Any large city from the US-Mexican border to the southern tip of Chile reveals the crushing poverty as the result of the draconian teachings against birth control. Rio, a great example with over 600 favillas, slums so crime ridden and filled with murdering drug traffickers and gangs, parents burdened with more children than they can feed or count. Few are likely escape their “City(ies) of God” insuring that generation after generation becomes locked into this urban hell. No education, little decent food, gangs, drugs, crime…what an environment to nurture children. I would love to sit down with the kind Doctor so he can give me “the other side”.

    1. The birth control rule wasn’t revealed by god to the church until after Thomas Malthus explained that unchecked population increase must result in human catastrophe. The role of the church is to deliver the Suffering of Christ. His precious gift!
      When the current pope was home in Argentina when the military government disappeared tens of thousands of human beings into the torture chambers and divvied their children up into proper catholic homes he heard the officers confessions and then absolved them.
      For their service in the cultivation of human suffering.

  25. E: I love the melody

    There is one? Only listened to 0:40 but didn’t hear one. Thankfully, before now, never heard it or of her.

  26. It sounds like the lame background music from an ABC Afterschool Special.
    The scratches on my Beatles records sound better than that.

  27. As soon as someone refers to themselves as a “Catholic” anything I dismiss whatever it is that they are pontificating about.

  28. As a corrective I had to listen to Patti Smith singing Gloria after this
    ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine!’ – Yeah Baby!

    1. Good call on that one. One of my all time favorites when you want to sit back and listen to a whole album that works together as a piece.

  29. Having just finished my favourite Beatle playlist on my iPod (104 songs on mine) I can say that this silly song (I haven’t heard it before, thank god) is the most forgettable non-event listen in my life.

  30. Horrible song. Back in the day, a friend of mine said “I’d rather be undressed by kings.” We used to mock it and laugh.

        1. Beautiful, intelligent, sexy and funny – I love Pam Stephenson! No wonder the big yin fell for her, hard. I seem to recall NTNON was a pioneer in cool video processing tricks, which show up well in that video.

          I think my favourite NTNON song was their first, Lufthansa Terminal’s ‘Nice Video, Shame About the Song’. It managed to be, simultaneously, a take-off of surrealistic videos and an excellent example of same.
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQamw4xxxHY

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