Tuesday Tunes
I sometimes think that high school students are not mature enough to understand literature. I know I was not.
The books that were assigned were mostly boring. They were almost impossible to read. I slogged through but never “enjoyed” reading them.
The closest I got was when we were reading Romeo and Juliet. The play was in our textbooks. Which made it easy, but I was and am lazy. Lugging a massive textbook to class when I could carry a thin, light book seemed stupid.
So that’s what I did; I purchased a copy from the local bookstore and used that instead.
This was not an issue until I was asked to read a part in class. Which I did. When I got to the end of my passage, nobody spoke the next lines. They were all thumbing through their textbooks trying to figure out where the F that language and those visuals came from.
My teacher, Mrs. Trout(?) was just nodding along. She knew the real words of Bill. The teacher from next door came and closed our classroom door because her class was listening to us instead of her.
What had happened was that I was reading the unabridged version. The textbook had stripped out all the “juicy” parts.
By the end of the next week, everybody in class had the pocket version and was much more invested in the writings of Bill. Our teacher was thrilled.
The Scarlet Letter, Oh my goodness, I still despise that thing. The Fountainhead, I’m glad I wasn’t forced to read that. And one of my most hated assignments? The Red Badge of Courage.
One of my ESL students picked The Red Badge of Courage. I walked into it knowing I would have to slog through.
Then it turned into something wonderful. The language is visceral. The author’s use of anthropomorphic language brings emotion to the story.
And listening to Henry talk about the glory of war. The battles he would fight. The honors he would reap. His friend and he, looking at the officers with disdain while grasping at every rumor of battle.
But Henry did not earn honors in his first battle. He exposed himself. He stripped the glory from his uniform and dashed it in the mud.
He had to live with his actions.
The next time the bugles sounded, he stood and fought. He fought not as a man or a hero. He fought as a machine. Standing because he could not stomach another failure of his soul and honor.
He earned his honor. And he learned of the horrors of battle.
Come Out Ye Libs and Wokes
Lyrics
Oh, come out ye libs and wokes,
Come out and fight me like a bloke,
Show your profs how you won debates up in Harvard,
Tell them how Charlie Kirk made you run like hell away,
From the freedom loving people of America.
Come out and fight me like a bloke,
Show your profs how you won debates up in Harvard,
Tell them how Charlie Kirk made you run like hell away,
From the freedom loving people of America.
I was raised in a Wheeling school where the blue drums do beat,
And the loving leftist feet they tramped all over us,
And each and every night when me Da would come home tight,
He’d invite the neighbors outside with this chorus:
Oh, come out ye libs and wokes,
Come out and fight me like a bloke,
Show your profs how you won debates up in Harvard,
Tell them how Charlie Kirk made you run like hell away,
From the freedom loving people of America.
Come let us hear you tell
How you silenced Charlie well,
When you thought him truly canceled and refuted,
Where are the shouts and jeers
That you bravely let us hear
When our campus heroes of youth were persecuted.
Oh, come out ye libs and wokes,
Come out and fight me like a bloke,
Show your profs how you won debates up in Harvard,
Tell them how Charlie Kirk made you run like hell away,
From the freedom loving people of America.
Come tell us how you slew
Those young conservatives two by two,
Like the students they had signs and facts and arrows,
How you bravely shut them down
With your safe spaces all around,
And you frightened those young patriots to their marrow.
Oh, come out ye libs and wokes,
Come out and fight me like a bloke,
Show your profs how you won debates up in Harvard,
Tell them how Charlie Kirk made you run like hell away,
From the freedom loving people of America.
The day is coming fast
And the time is here at last,
When each leftist shill will be cast aside before us,
And if there be a need
We will all sing, “Godspeed!”
And yell, “I am Charlie!” in chorus.
Oh, come out ye libs and wokes,
Come out and fight me like a bloke,
Show your profs how you won debates up in Harvard,
Tell them how Charlie Kirk made you run like hell away,
From the freedom loving people of America.
Tuesday Tunes
The Irish fought for independence for far too many years. There were multiple uprisings. It was very much an asymmetric war.
This song spoke to me earlier this week when thinking of how the left thinks and acts. I wish I had the skills to set new lyrics to this tune to describe how the murder of Charlie is the start of major change.
Tuesday Tunes
As I get older, I find the songs I once sang along to have a different meaning and a different feel.
Is he really singing about his nanny sexually abusing him “before he left his nursery?”