[David Rosenthal]

There are a great many people -- a majority, in fact -- for whom homeschooling is not an option because: (a) the parent(s)/guardian(s) cannot afford to not be working (or at least scrounging for piecemeal work), (b) are unable -- because of poverty, their own lack of education, level of English fluency, etc. -- to provide the variety and depth of exposure to the experiences, content, strategies, and skills their children would need to have a shot at a future better than their own past, or (c) both. Plus, for many of these families, school is a necessary support system -- the only place they can find caring, sympathetic, and helpful adults with better access than they have. Homeschooling, like everything else in American education, is an option distributed along lines of stark inequity.

David R.

[John Riley]

Louis Armstrong received a few years of education in a "colored" reformatory in New Orleans. My favorite Armstrong quote pretty much sums up his lack of formal education and his genius at the same time: "First I plays the melody, then I plays the melody around the melody, then I routines." I don't think any more schooling would have made him a better musician.

[Tim Murphy]

One of my moonlighting jobs at New Haven was helping boys on the hockey team, all Southies from Boston, Irish-American as I was. The boys were at Yale to play hockey. They couldn't write a proper paper and they certainly couldn't type. I charged $3 a page, a fortune in those days. I didn't change any thoughts the boys had about the literature they were uncomfortably confronting. But they all got undeserved A's on their papers. Academic fraud? Yes. But I'd like to think those boys learned more from seeing their penciled drafts turn into A papers than the English Department could ever have taught them. They were smart kids with very limited language skills. My total experience in teaching the art of writing. Except here of course!

[John Whitworth]

Tim, I love it.

I have an Oxford MA. It cost me five pounds. No exams, no syllabus, just five pounds. I am working towards an honorary doctorate from the University of Sheppey. That's an in-joke.There are three prisons on Sheppey but no colleges at all.

Anyone want to sell me a Professorship. I'd give TEN pounds for one of those.

[Skip Dewahl]

From Quincy ("Recordboy") Lehr's non-competitive C.D. collection library:


1969 Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Hal David & Burt Bacharach (Rhyme-driven )
1970 For All We Know Lovers and Other Strangers Arthur James, Robb Wilson & Fred Karlin (Patched together schmaltz with worn phrases)
1971 The Theme From Shaft Shaft Isaac Hayes (Good music, kindergarten lyrics)
1972 The Morning After The Poseidon Adventure Al Kasha & Joel Hirschorn (Not unpleasant, but average)
1973 The Way We Were The Way We Were Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman & Marvin Hamlish (Too flowery, but well crafted))
1974 We May Never Love Like This Again The Towering Inferno Al Kasha & Joel Hirschorn (Very average)
1975 I'm Easy Nashville Keith Carradine (Keith Carradine trying to be cool with no sense of meter and banal words)
1976 Evergreen A Star Is Born Paul Williams & Barbara Streisand (Rhyme-driven diva crap)
1977 You Light Up My Life You Light Up My Life Joseph Brooks (Runs out of lyrics, so the repetition gets tedious, but catchy))
1978 Last Dance Thank God It's Friday Paul Jabara (Not worthy of comment)
1979 It Goes Like It Goes Norma Rae Normal Gimbel (Not, etc)
1980 Fame Fame Dolly Parton (Not, etc.)
1981 Arthur's Theme Arthur Carol Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross, Peter Allen & Burt Bacharach (Written by a toked-out foursome who phoned the illiterate thing in, I guess)
1982 Up Where We Belong An Officer and A Gentleman Jack Nitzsche, Will Jennings & Buffy Sainte Marie (Repetitive, repetitive, whew)
1983 What A Feeling Flashdance Keith Forsey, Irene Cara & (What a brain fart)
1984 I Just Called to Say I Love You The Lady In Red Stevie Wonder (Stevie channeling the greats by composing in 10 minutes, I suppose)
1985 Say You, Say Me White Nights Lionel Richie (Say no)
1986 Take My Breath Away Top Gun Giorgio Moroder & Tom Whitlock (Boyband singer lyrics)
1987 (I've Had) The Time of My Life Dirty Dancing Franke Previte, John DeNicola, Donald Markowitz & Franke Previte (Oh, patch more worn ones, won't you?)
1988 Let the River Run Working Girl Carly Simon (Great arrangement, but the lyrics, although inspiring, are not well crafted)
1989 Under the Sea The Little Mermaid Alan Menken & Howard Ashman (Kiddy music, made to order for Disney)
1990 Sooner Or Later Dick Tracy Stephen Sondheim (I hate to say this, but the great Sondheim was not great on this one)
1991 Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast Alan Menken & Howard Ashman (Disney kiddy music again)
1992 A Whole New World Aladdin Alan Menken & Tim Rice (Help, it's Disney stalking me!)
1993 Streets of Philadelphia Philadelphia Bruce Springsteen (Liberal: "I can't possibly say I don't like the thing because the subject matter is so relevant")
1994 Can You Feel the Love Tonight The Lion King Elton John & Tim Rice (Can you feel my boredom?)
1995 Colors of the Wind Pocahontas Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz (Apparently Disney's caught me and will torture me with this "song")
1996 You Must Love Me Evita Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice (No, I don't)
1997 My Heart Will Go On Titanic James Horner & Will Jennings (It says something when an overinflated, non-involving movie is outdone by a schmaltzy song)
1998 When You Believe The Prince of Egypt Stephen Schwartz (Now I'm being blasted by this)
1999 You'll Be in My heart Tarzan Phil Collins (Ah, it's the self-important Collins, bringing us his style over craft knack)
2000 Things Have Changed Wonder Boys Bob Dylan (Muse-abandoned)
2001 If I Didn't Have You Monsters, Inc. Randy Newman (Catchy attitude, limited vocabulary)
2002 Lose Yourself Eight Mile Eminem, Jeff Bass & Luis Resto (Neurosis to enrich himself by unpleasant rant)
2003 Into the West The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Fran Walsh, Howard Shore & Annie Lennox (Not into the best, however)
2004 Al Otro Lado Del Rio The Motorcycle Diaries Jorge Drexler (Angst, angst, so enough already)
2005 It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp Hustle & Flow Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman & Paul Beauregard (Possibly the worst piece of sh-- ever heard at the pimped-out Awards)
2006 I Need to Wake Up An Inconvenient Truth Melissa Etheridge (PC composition that thinks the message will make up for its inadaquacies)
2007 Falling Slowly Once Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová (Take this sinking boat and quickly sink it)
2008 Jai Ho Slumdog Millionaire m: A.R.Rahman, l: Gulzar (Jai Ho jumps into crap)
2009 The Weary Kind Crazy Heart Ryan Bingham & T-Bone Burnett (Vanity project lyrics)
2010 We Belong Together Toy Story 3 Randy Newman (: "Damn, they keep giving me awards, so maybe I am that good". Please, somebody drop the big one!)

[W.F. Lantry]

Actually, I rather liked "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp." Good movie, too... The whole film was a good metaphor for a poet's life. What's not to like?

Thanks,

Bill

[Janice D. Soderling]

I'm a Randy Newman fan, myself. But what does this list have to do with education, Skip?

[E. Shaun Russell]

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

I'm a Randy Newman fan, myself. But what does this list have to do with education, Skip?

Whew. Glad I'm not the only one completely confused...

[Skip Dewahl]

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

I'm a Randy Newman fan, myself. But what does this list have to do with education, Skip?

It certainly has to do with conscientiousness, at the least, if we wish to give the composers above the benefit of the doubt, and I don't with the majority. Janice, if someone handed you the lyrics to most of these songs, don't you think that you would dismiss the bulk as inadequate, and have doubts about the schooling of the composers?

[Roger Slater]

Skip, it's a more or less random list, and I'm willing to bet that the folks on the list are at least as well educated (formally) as Irving Berlin and most others who created the great American Songbook you set up as your model.

But certainly you are not claiming that educated and literate people are inevitably wonderful poets and lyricists, such that the only way to understand any failing in a popular composition is to blame a shoddy education. Given that 99.999% of well educated people can't write poems or lyrics that would measure up to the highest standard, and there are so many examples of uneducated people doing just that, your hypothesis does more to prove a failing in the way logic is taught than the way literacy is taught.