To change topic, I find it interesting that the American Webster retains the use of "one's" (as I prefer to do myself) while Cambridge uses "yourself".
I enjoyed its wry humour, too. Maybe part of the point is that Stravinsky, Boulez and Pärt represent three successive generations of Twentieth Century composers?
I was puzzled, though, by Chris's use of the saying, "shoot oneself in the foot" in respect of the first verse. I always thought that this phrase meant "to inflict pain on oneself in order to avoid a much greater pain being inflicted on one" - as when Malcolm Arnold literally shot himself in the foot; as he said, "I'd joined up to fight the Germans, not swap the trumpet for the bloody cornet!"
Incidentally, it's less than three weeks to his centenary, but I see no sign of any celebrations of this momentous occasion (the Proms, yet again, amounted to little more than utter ignorance).
Very amusing, but does this not shoot itself in the foot in the first verse? Surely Stravinsky has now entered the ranks of the classics so, just as his "thefts" are now indisputably music, the doubt is raised whether Boulez' "rubbish" and Part's "nonsense" might achieve this status for later generations, or even today's younger generations (though in this case I share the rhymester's dislike).
Genius !
In good Stravinsky’s golden days,
when mimicry might well please,
a staunch neoclassicist I was,
and so obtained his LPs.
Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose
and make both me and you sick,
but I admired his every pose
and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde
said squeaks and squawks were assets,
I learned that great art must sound hard,
and so obtained their cassettes.
Whatever noise might blare and bawl
and make both me and you sick,
I stood resolved to love it all,
and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note
that wasn’t weak and weedy,
on minimalists I chose to dote,
and so obtained each CD.
Composers may take different pains
to make both me and you sick,
but this one timeless truth remains:
we call the nonsense music.
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