[HN Gopher] "You Are My Sunshine": How a maudlin song became a c...
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"You Are My Sunshine": How a maudlin song became a children's
classic (2013)
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 12 points
Date : 2022-03-01 02:46 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.salon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.salon.com)
| bavell wrote:
| I played this song on guitar for my grandfather's funeral :( was
| one of his favorite songs to play on harmonica.
| ars wrote:
| I use this song to break "ear worms". Not sure why it works, but
| it does.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| Will it even break copa cabana?
| chanandler_bong wrote:
| There is a small handful of songs that I absolutely cannot listen
| to, for various reasons.
|
| "You Are My Sunshine" tops the list. It so incredibly sad... even
| thinking about it to type this comment is really difficult. Like,
| hide-the-razor-because-the-cutting-will-start-again difficult. I
| have no idea why.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > I have no idea why.
|
| Me, too, but in my case I do know why - when my son was born (2
| months premature), we had a lot of health scares with him and
| my wife insisted on singing that song to him over and over
| again.
| indigochill wrote:
| I was engaged at one point to a lady who sang that to me more
| than once and I was seriously freaked out because I was fairly
| certain she actually meant the lyrics (and looking at the full
| lyrics now, she didn't even go through all the verses). That
| and generally stuff in that vein gave me enough pause in
| planning the wedding that she finally had enough and broke
| things off, which I was relieved by because in hindsight I knew
| on some level something was seriously off but didn't have the
| maturity/confidence to break it off myself.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| There needs to be a word for when you are forced to quit
| something that you are too invested/embarrassed/whatever to
| quit yourself.
|
| e.g. I think pg mentioned being jealous of rtm when he got
| arrested because rtm had figured a way out of the PhD program
| without having to quit!
| fknorangesite wrote:
| I don't know how Canada-specific this is, but we can put 'Love
| You Forever' by Robert Munsch on this list - also a children's
| book/song.
|
| It's not even _sad_ , really? But it just hits so hard.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Imagine it being a US State song... Louisiana at that. Tragic
| 1_player wrote:
| For me it's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". I heard it for the
| first time as a kid while reading a book that was talking about
| AIDS and the people that died from it, no joke. It's taken me
| 30 years to forget the association between the two things.
| beaned wrote:
| Part of me suspects that hearing some sad songs as a child gives
| you a greater appreciation for life at a young age, and helps you
| to see the world while taking fewer things for granted. "Please
| don't take my sunshine away" sort of implies that it can be
| taken, its presence isn't granted, so be thankful that you have
| it.
| conception wrote:
| See Also - Why do draft dodgers use the song Fortunate Son? Why
| do politicians use Born in the USA for rallies?
|
| People are surprisingly bad at lyrics/knowing what songs are
| about.
| jMyles wrote:
| Interesting - why is Fortunate Son a bad choice for the theme
| of refusing the draft?
|
| It speaks of class stratification, and of rich folk asking poor
| folk to do their bidding.
| saghm wrote:
| Yeah, I think Fortunate Sun is pretty explicitly an anti-war
| protest song. If anything, I think it's weird when it gets
| used in military montages in movies and TV, although
| presumably some of them are aware of its meaning and are
| picking it for ironic effect.
| variaga wrote:
| _Fortunate Son_ is a perfectly good song to for draft
| dodgers: Yeah, some folks inherit star-
| spangled eyes They send you down to war And when
| you ask 'em, "How much should we give?" They only
| answer, "More, more, more" It ain't me, it ain't
| me I ain't no military son, son It ain't me, it
| ain't me I ain't no fortunate one, one
|
| But don't take my word for it; ask John Fogarty himself:
| https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/john-
| fogerty-a...
|
| People interpreting _Fortunate Son_ as a celebration of
| military service (it seems to me these are mostly the same
| people who also use _Born in the USA_ as if it were a
| celebration of the US) are the ones in the wrong here.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-03-01 23:01 UTC)