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12/14/2004 Archived Entry: "Notes"
Notes in No Real Order or Reason
Songs about drinking and thinking:
"Warm Beer and Cold Women" - Tom Waits
"Cigarettes and Coffee" - Otis
What is it about popular music always speaking about Wichita? Something in the American imaginary about Kansas? Why not Des Moines? Or Titusville?
From the White Stripes:
I'm going to Wichita
Far from this opera for evermore
I'm gonna work the straw
Make the sweat drip out of every pore
And Glenn Campbell:
I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
Searchin' in the sun for another overload
I hear you singin' in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line
and who can forget the Witchita State fighting song!
All Hail! Hai! Wichita
U Rah! Rah! Rah for Wichita
March onward, banners high
With courage, force that can never die.
Rah! We'll fight for Wichita
Brave spirits never fail
To Wichita all loyalty
Hail! Our varsity, triumphantly hail!
Jeffrey Williams un-tangles the academic history of "smart," "rigor," and "interesting."
The promise of smart is that it purports to be a way to talk about quality in a sea of quantity. But the problem is that it internalizes the competitive ethos of the university, aiming not for the cultivation of intelligence but for individual success in the academic market.
Me, I prefer funky and cool to smart and rigor. I embrace the James Brown mantra "Make it Funky" for academia. In place of rigor, let's teach funkiness. Let's teach everybody to be on "the one." Instead of teachers, we need funky drummers!
Seriously.
Replies: 5 comments
Hey Jeff:
I imagine "Kansas" becomes important in The White Stripes because that band works so hard to signify rockist "cool." That means it needs guitars and drums (not wimpy synths or drum machines) and lyrics that, like that WS lyric you quoted, signify a sense of "toughness," and being a martyr to the Man, all of which gets worked into silly-ass cliches about the midwest and the "heartland" (and I say that as someone raised there). See Michael Jarrett's distinction between "rock" and "pop" in his fabulous SOUNDTRACKS book. And yes, those Verve remixes rock (oops-- guess I should say "groove"?)
Posted by Brian @ 12/16/2004 05:17 PM EST
And from Soul Coughing, my favorite band whose lyrics are about sound rather than signifier:
I’ve seen the kansas of your sweet little myth
You’ve never seen it, no,
I’m half sick on the drinks you mixed
Through your
True dreams
Of wichita
Posted by Brendan @ 12/15/2004 12:17 PM EST
Comments - old school, I see.
Dr. Goodwin, I presume?
Posted by jeff @ 12/14/2004 02:25 PM EST
Hmm...I'd always heard that line as "the heart of Witchita is the beaten."
Posted by Jonathan @ 12/14/2004 02:05 PM EST
Aren't you forgetting Huey Lewis & the News?
And, of course, there is no funk without the rigor.
Posted by Jonathan @ 12/14/2004 02:03 PM EST