13 Comments

Been around the world and found

That only stupid people are breeding

The cretins cloning and feeding

And I don't even own a TV

Expand full comment
author

Been around the world and I....

I can't find my baby

I don't know where and I don't know why

Why he's gone away

Expand full comment
Oct 27Liked by Andrew Smith

Meanwhile a board-certified cretin with the speech patterns of a four year old could very well become the next President of the US

Expand full comment

I’ve been aware for some decades that the word ‘cretin’ is the French word for “Christian.” I had always assumed that the French somehow knew that believing in e.g. talking animals and other absurdities was… well… retarded.

Expand full comment
Oct 26Liked by Andrew Smith

Fun fact, some Cretans are cretins and some cretins are Cretans. They're not necessarily the same people. You're welcome.

Expand full comment

"Chrétien meant “Christian”, and it was designed to remind the people of the Alpine region that they, too, were Christians like them."

Another meaning of that specific to Canada is that it is the surname of Jean Chretien, who was Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2004.

Expand full comment
author
Oct 26·edited Oct 26Author

Nice. I'm not writing about him, though. Nice try.

Expand full comment

HIM!

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for helping me learn about other things!

Expand full comment
Oct 26Liked by Andrew Smith

That Ramones song sounds better to me now than it did then.

Expand full comment
author

What did it sound like back then to your ears?

I've been around just long enough to go back a few decades, and now all the songs I grew up with sound really different to my ears. Now, nostalgia is nostalgia, and so that still hits me too, but I mean like taste wise, there are loads of songs that I really enjoy but kinda loathed back then.

Expand full comment
Oct 27Liked by Andrew Smith

I guess that I wasn’t ready for that then, punk rock seemed like a lot of anger and noise. I’m a guitarist, it seemed like sacrilege. Over time I’ve come to appreciate the energy. I might have enjoyed it more then if I’d seen it live.

Expand full comment
author

Interesting! For me, the Beatles unlocked a new world when I was ten or eleven. I certainly appreciated well-composed songs and technical instrumentation, but the idea behind punk was to stick a big middle finger up to the establishment... and that often meant shunning fancy frills such as being able to play well.

To be clear, I don't think the Ramones didn't know how to play (although that's certainly true of other punk bands), but I think they just turned everything up super loud so it would be more shocking.

It's so weird now to think of the Ramones as "shocking" in any way, but there they were. History is like this!

Expand full comment