"Jacques Derrida": Classic Or Dud

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

The mispronunciation is one of pop's better academic gags.

OK this is the last one I promise. Sorry Josh and Nicole.

― Tom, Wednesday, 11 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Dudridda

― Mork, Wednesday, 11 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Oh, I'm in love"

(And to answer a question you asked long ago, Tom, yes I'm, the clown that read Of Grammatology because of this record!)

― mark s, Wednesday, 11 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

For the benefit of the kids out there, I'd like to make clear that it's an early Scritti Politti song being discussed. As such, neither classic nor dud...

― Mark Morris, Wednesday, 11 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Classic or dud? I'm not saussure...

(runs off stage left, avoiding rotten veg, eggs etc)

― stevie t, Wednesday, 11 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Just some guy with a weird name I've never heard of before. I'm going to go with "dud", though, because generally I can be "for" or "against" anyone, especially strangers, and usually I choose "against". So dud, fool, whatever. I'm a bit of a hypocrite at at times.

― , Wednesday, 11 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

now that I know it's a song I've never heard, guess I'll just foucalf

― Geoff, Thursday, 12 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

One of my students was working for Scritti Politti's management company (I think) at the time of this particular gem, but turned down the opportunity to accompany Green and the gang on their legendary trip to Paris to meet the only post-structuralist Columbo lookalike because she was pregnant. Needless to say, she got an excellent essay mark on her next assignment...

― alex thomson, Thursday, 12 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

classic. . . no ifs or barthes.

*bow*

― don't derride tha derrida, Tuesday, 17 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Only heard it yesterday, but on my first few listens, classic.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 17 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

He's great, if you've got a sense of humour. But I haven't heard any of his songs. Oh yeah, he's a big fan of Spinal Tap

― K-reg, Friday, 27 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

three years pass...

This is so classic. I wish I had something interesting to say about it. I don't know why it excites me so much that it reminds me so much of Simon & Garfunkel (who I essentially never listen to) and the Beatles at times, without really sounding like them. I think he's got a refreshingly different voice from what I associate with 80s pop singers. In fact, the fact that I like his singing so much might be the biggest surprised of all to me.

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:06 (nineteen years ago) link

It seems appropriate that I only got to hear this by "stealing" it.

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:09 (nineteen years ago) link

6] Deconstruction in music. 'I am talking about the absolute arrivant, who is not even a guest. He surprises the host - who is not yet a host or an inviting power - enough to call into question, to the point of annihilating or rendering indeterminate, all the distinctive signs of a prior identity, beginning with the very border that delineated a legitimate home and assured lineage ... This absolute arrivant as such is, however, not an intruder, an invader, or a colonizer, because invasion presupposes some self-identity for the aggressor and for the victim. Nor is the arrivant a legislator or the discoverer of a promised land', Derrida writes (Aporias, p.34). Why this quote? I think these phrases tell how deconstruction is always already at work within music. The arrivant is deconstruction, the host is music. Deconstruction is not an intruder into the realm of music; it always already operates from the inside. It has no clear and delimited identity. Derrida: 'All sentences of the type 'deconstruction is X' or 'deconstruction is not X' a priori miss the point, which is to say that they are at least false' (Wood and Bernasconi, p.4). Deconstruction does not mean dis-covering music, uncovering everything in music that was concealed so far. Deconstruction in music questions musical identities, musicological assumptions and achievements; it questions the border between music and non-music.

― Steve Gertz (sgertz), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:19 (nineteen years ago) link

BTW, if you have the stomach for it, the full text of that essay can be found at:

http://www.cobussen.com/proefschrift/100_outwork/110_music_deconstruction_ethics/music_deconstruction_ethics.htm

― Steve Gertz (sgertz), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:22 (nineteen years ago) link

Well, I enjoyed "The Word Girl" and "Perfect Way" a lot more...

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:50 (nineteen years ago) link

eight months pass...

I have still never really heard it!

― the bellefox, Saturday, 26 November 2005 14:24 (nineteen years ago) link

Well jeez!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 26 November 2005 15:06 (nineteen years ago) link

Have you?

― the bellefox, Saturday, 26 November 2005 15:08 (nineteen years ago) link

Yus. (Frankly I'm surprised they didn't make the UCI English/comp lit grads listen to it by default.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 26 November 2005 15:10 (nineteen years ago) link

What does 'UCI' mean?

― the bellefox, Saturday, 26 November 2005 16:16 (nineteen years ago) link

The University of California, Irvine, where I work at and where Derrida taught in spring for the last decade and a half or so of his life. Saw him around campus a few times, he was always very dapper, though the last time, when I passed him on the bridge between campus and a nearby shopping area, he looked very tired and weary. Not surprising given his age and health, but still a disheartening reminder of mortality.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 26 November 2005 16:19 (nineteen years ago) link

classic or dud is just the sort of binary opposition that jack and his mates set out to celebrate/destroy

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, 28 November 2005 13:47 (nineteen years ago) link

Da'p Daaah Da'p Daaah doo bee doo! Ooh Ooh!

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 28 November 2005 13:55 (nineteen years ago) link

Yus. (Frankly I'm surprised they didn't make the UCI English/comp lit grads listen to it by default.)
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), November 26th, 2005.

why? what could they learn from this slightly underproduced gem?

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 28 November 2005 13:58 (nineteen years ago) link

Shouldn't it be "classic/dud"?

― Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Monday, 28 November 2005 14:00 (nineteen years ago) link

oh, ha, Dr. X said basically the same thing.

― Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Monday, 28 November 2005 14:03 (nineteen years ago) link

why? what could they learn from this slightly underproduced gem?

That they too could one day be immortalized in song. (Anything to draw away from the grinding reality of grad school.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 November 2005 14:07 (nineteen years ago) link

four years pass...

i don't get the mispronunciation thing or that it's a gag, really. I mean it's pronounced in an anglicised way which fits more with the rhythm of the song - is that the gag? if so i suppose it's a pretty subtle one.

― jed_, Sunday, 13 June 2010 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link

actually, i accept that it's a gag but i want someone to explain it to me. is THAT the gag?

― jed_, Sunday, 13 June 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link

or is it just the fact that he makes it sound like da-reader?

― jed_, Sunday, 13 June 2010 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link

I don't think he meant it as a gag, he just pronounced it wrong.

― anagram, Sunday, 13 June 2010 18:13 (fourteen years ago) link

I'm in love with Jacques De-Read-er, kinda, isn't it? i.e. a pun on "reading" as in deconstructionism of texts

― Euler, Sunday, 13 June 2010 18:14 (fourteen years ago) link

regardless, this is now my favourite scritti single and i think i probably get the joke - about translation/meaning/slippage (is this close?) - as much as one can who knows only vaguely about JD.

xxpost

and likely GG did mean it as a gag - the meaning of something changing when you 1. translate it and 2. impose another system upon it, in this case a rhythm.

― jed_, Sunday, 13 June 2010 18:19 (fourteen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.