As mentioned in another post, one of the classes I teach at Konan is called Kiso ensyu I, which roughly translates as Introductory Seminar, or so I'm told. There is no prescribed curriculum or syllabus for this course: it is intended an introduction to academic studies for incoming students of English, who until just a few weeks ago were still in high school.
The gap year is still alien to most Japanese students, more's the pity.
In the absence of a fixed curriculum, I am free to do "pretty much what I like." Since the intersection of [the set of activities covered by this expression] and [the set of legitimate and appropriate things to do with a class of slightly post-adolescent teenagers] includes listening to and talking about English songs—and not much else—that is what we are doing.
Beginning next week, the course will introduce students to singer-songwriters that, but for this course, they would never, ever, listen to: Harry Chapin, Ralph McTell, Joni Mitchell, Don McLean, and Leonard Cohen are up there, for starters. They may not like it much, but I am a 'man on a mission'. And missionaries—at least in the popular Victorian stereotype—need to find out and understand what kinds of hideous alien gods their charges are currently in thrall to. It's important to have a base-line reference. So last week I asked my students to fill in a questionnaire about their favourite English-speaking bands.
A small, but marginally significant group (among those who expressed a preference) wrote 1D (= One Direction). I had heard of this group, of course—my 5 year-old nephew is quite a fan, but until yesterday, when I started to prepare for today's class, I had no idea—really n o i d e a—how bad, how jaw-droppingly, bletheringly, numbingly awful it could be. It is sometimes said of really bad art that "it's so bad, it's great", but this doesn't apply to 1D: the progression from awful through excruciating to hysterically revolting is completely linear (as their name suggests). What is most striking in the one song I assigned myself and transcribed below is not simply the complete absence of any musical or lyrical talent, considered separately: it is the almost surreal lack of correspondence between natural English prosody and musical metre that is so wretched-making. If the proverbial monkey were given a pen and asked to put stress on random syllables in each line, s/he could not have produced more unnatural-sounding English or more forced metre. This is not mere doggerel, it is much, much worse than that: indeed, for the writer of this song, doggerel must be an (unattainable) aspirational goal, rather than a pitfall to be avoided.
As evidence I offer the following specimens. Specimen 1 and 2 present two transcripts of the song What makes you beautiful: Specimen 1 contains only the syllables in each line that receive strong stress as sung by 1D; Specimen 2 contains the syllables that should receive stress if the song were read as a rhyme. For purposes of confirmation only, a link to the VEVO video is embedded below. Be warned that this may be injurious to your health: it is certainly not pretty.
Speciment 1.
(inse)cure, for
heads walk do-o-r
(make-)up, up, way are en-ou-ou-gh
Every else room, you
light world body
you hair over
smile ground, hard
don't kno-o-ow, don't know you're beautiful
If you I, understand want des(perately),
looking can't believe
kn-o-o-ow, You don't know you're beautiful,
That's
on, wrong,
right, it, song
why, shy, away, look, eye eye eyes...
Specimen 2. Most egregious forms highlighted
You're insecure, Don't know what for,
You're turning heads when you walk through the door,
Everyone else in the room can see it, Everyone else but you:
Baby, you light up my world like no-body else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell, You don't know, Oh, oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
If only you saw what I can see,
You'd understand why I want you so desperately,
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,
You don't know,
Oh, oh, You don't know you're beautiful,
Oh, oh, That's what makes you beautiful.
So come on,
To prove I'm right, I put it in a song,
And turn away when I look into your eyes
This is not a question of vocabulary choice. As Something shows, one can compose a song out of simple words that still manages to read almost exactly as well as it is sung. All you need is...love talent, something that these boyos and their aesthetically bereft team just haven't got.
Jesus wept.
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don't no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around now, it may show
I don't know, I don't know
Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
The gap year is still alien to most Japanese students, more's the pity.
In the absence of a fixed curriculum, I am free to do "pretty much what I like." Since the intersection of [the set of activities covered by this expression] and [the set of legitimate and appropriate things to do with a class of slightly post-adolescent teenagers] includes listening to and talking about English songs—and not much else—that is what we are doing.
Beginning next week, the course will introduce students to singer-songwriters that, but for this course, they would never, ever, listen to: Harry Chapin, Ralph McTell, Joni Mitchell, Don McLean, and Leonard Cohen are up there, for starters. They may not like it much, but I am a 'man on a mission'. And missionaries—at least in the popular Victorian stereotype—need to find out and understand what kinds of hideous alien gods their charges are currently in thrall to. It's important to have a base-line reference. So last week I asked my students to fill in a questionnaire about their favourite English-speaking bands.
A small, but marginally significant group (among those who expressed a preference) wrote 1D (= One Direction). I had heard of this group, of course—my 5 year-old nephew is quite a fan, but until yesterday, when I started to prepare for today's class, I had no idea—really n o i d e a—how bad, how jaw-droppingly, bletheringly, numbingly awful it could be. It is sometimes said of really bad art that "it's so bad, it's great", but this doesn't apply to 1D: the progression from awful through excruciating to hysterically revolting is completely linear (as their name suggests). What is most striking in the one song I assigned myself and transcribed below is not simply the complete absence of any musical or lyrical talent, considered separately: it is the almost surreal lack of correspondence between natural English prosody and musical metre that is so wretched-making. If the proverbial monkey were given a pen and asked to put stress on random syllables in each line, s/he could not have produced more unnatural-sounding English or more forced metre. This is not mere doggerel, it is much, much worse than that: indeed, for the writer of this song, doggerel must be an (unattainable) aspirational goal, rather than a pitfall to be avoided.
As evidence I offer the following specimens. Specimen 1 and 2 present two transcripts of the song What makes you beautiful: Specimen 1 contains only the syllables in each line that receive strong stress as sung by 1D; Specimen 2 contains the syllables that should receive stress if the song were read as a rhyme. For purposes of confirmation only, a link to the VEVO video is embedded below. Be warned that this may be injurious to your health: it is certainly not pretty.
Speciment 1.
(inse)cure, for
heads walk do-o-r
(make-)up, up, way are en-ou-ou-gh
Every else room, you
light world body
you hair over
smile ground, hard
don't kno-o-ow, don't know you're beautiful
If you I, understand want des(perately),
looking can't believe
kn-o-o-ow, You don't know you're beautiful,
That's
on, wrong,
right, it, song
why, shy, away, look, eye eye eyes...
Specimen 2. Most egregious forms highlighted
You're insecure, Don't know what for,
You're turning heads when you walk through the door,
[You're turning heads when you walk through the do-o-or,Don't need make-up, To cover up,
[Don't need make-up, To cover up]Being the way that you are is enough
Everyone else in the room can see it, Everyone else but you:
Baby, you light up my world like no-body else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell, You don't know, Oh, oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
If only you saw what I can see,
You'd understand why I want you so desperately,
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,
You don't know,
Oh, oh, You don't know you're beautiful,
Oh, oh, That's what makes you beautiful.
So come on,
[ So c-come on ]You got it wrong,
To prove I'm right, I put it in a song,
[ To prove I'm right, I put it in a s-o-ong,]I don't know why you're being shy,
And turn away when I look into your eyes
[And turn away when I look into your eye eye eyes]
This is not a question of vocabulary choice. As Something shows, one can compose a song out of simple words that still manages to read almost exactly as well as it is sung. All you need is...
Jesus wept.
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don't no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around now, it may show
I don't know, I don't know
Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
Comments