On the 7 page written exam I give to all potential suitors, there are only two automatic disqualifiers:
1. Do you live alone with cats?
2. Can you sing the preamble to the Constitution?
If you answer yes to the first or no to the second, there's almost no chance that I will take you home for the sexual disappointment of your life. Tomes have been written about the benefits of avoiding like the plague wimmins who live alone with cats, so I don't think I really need to defend that one here.
The second disqualifier? It's an age compatibility thing. Pretty much anyone within an acceptable age range for me was a child during the glorious 1970s years defined by Saturday morning Schoolhouse Rocks seminars: those little 3 minute educational cartoons/music videos that taught an entire generation at least as much as they were learning in their slowly deteriorating formal educational institutions.
Among the most well-known of these was the song/cartoon for the Constitution, which of course begins with "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union..." But it's gotta be sung. And if you were a child of the 70s, you can do it.
So in my mind, the world is divided between those who can sing the pre-amble, and those who have hope for a satisfying, rewarding relationship, because they won't be with me.
The world is also divided between people who think that "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here" is the finest ode to a part of speech, and those of us who will defend "Unpack Your Adjectives" to the death. And both songs are right there on the 1996 Atlantic Records release, SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK ROCKS, a collection of Schoolhouse Rocks covers by alt-style artists ranging from Pavement and Ween to Moby and Daniel Johnston.
Simpletons generally prefer "Lolly"
On the other hand "Unpack Your Adjectives" brilliantly captures the quiet desperation, yet ultimate triumph of noun modifiers, all within the strict parameters of a camping tale:
We hiked along without care
then we ran into a bear
he was a scary bear
he was a hairy bear
we beat a hasty retreat from his lair
and described him with adjectives
(That was one big ugly bear)
Next time you go on a trip
remember this little tip
the minute you get back
they'll ask you this and that
you can describe people, places and things
simply unpack your adjectives.
I think you can see that the adjective song is superior to the adverb song, which just says, over and over: "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here." I mean, there's not even any teaching or story line in that.
I'm somewhat less strident in my views regarding the math and history songs, except that they all give me the similar inclination to call my mommy and ask her to bring me the damn hot chocolate and graham crackers already so I won't have to get up from the couch while Zoom or The Electric Company are on.
The Schoolhouse Rock songs are so incredibly ingrained in the culture of my generation that it has rendered actual teaching obsolete. At my law school, we were all required to take one 1st year "statutory" class, which basically meant analyzing a series of statutory schemes (instead of case law). Toward the end of an excruciatingly boring two-day lecture on how a bill becomes a law, one of my classmates actually raised her hand and said "Dude, this is real interesting and all, but I think we all pretty much covered this on Schoolhouse Rock." The teacher looked a tad confused, but I swear I heard the low humming sound of 85 people singing under their breath: "I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill ..." On Schoolhouse Rock Rocks, that song is covered by Deluxx Folk Implosion, in a hard driving, cynical take on the classic.
Never my favorites in the original television series, "No More Kings" and "The Shot Heard Round The World" are given new life by Pavement and Ween, respectively, on this disk. Blind Melon provides a trippy, ecstasy hazed rendition of "Three Is a Magic Number" befitting the mystical subject matter of the tune:
Every triangle has 3 corners,
every triangle has three sides,
No more, no less.
You don't have to guess.
When it's three, you can see
It's a magic number...
I mean, it's true right? You couldn't exactly do that with four, now could ya? I mean, it's not like there's some magical thing out there that's got four sides and corners. Right? And, you know, "Three Is a Magic Number" was the final song ever recorded by Blind Melon, before the mysterious, as-yet unsolved, death of their lead singer Shannon Hoon, who was found only months later in a bus with a heroin needle stuck in his arm. So, spooky, eh?
Also spooky is that The Lemonheads chose to perform the song "My Hero, Zero" on this compilation.
And long before he became the world's highest paid writer of commercial jingles and songs to be sung by other people on his albums, Moby performed "Verb: That's What's Happening." More than any other song on the album, Moby's take on the original completely misses the mark. The driving drum-bass combo (think Bow Wow Wow circa Last of the Mohicans) and discordant guitar noise (think Sonic Youth circa their entire career) totally obscure the vocals, on what is, essentially, a grammar lesson. Not that the actual words were ever the strong point on "Verb" with its amateurish over-reliance on infinitives and gerunds. Plus, "Verb, That's What's Happening" was never really an appropriate song for pre-teens, what with its "I get my thing in action ... That's where I find satisfaction, yeah." Nevertheless, the original version, with its gospel call-and-response chorus and soulful Al Greene style primary vocals is clearly superior to Moby's remake.
Forgetting that one low point on the album, it's worth noting that there are also, uh, notable covers by Better Than Ezra( "Conjunction Junction") Biz Markee ("The Energy Blues"), Skee-lo ("The Tale of Mr. Morton") and Chavez ("Little Twelve-Toes"). Together, this collection provides the single most important educational tool that you can buy for your child, and a portion of the proceeds go to the Children's Defense Fund. It edifies. It entertains. It rocks the hizouse. Buy it.
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