# he reads to us from something called 'Ulysses'. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891 "2014-10-09T20:15:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/341 "2014-10-30T21:05:12Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > 1. No I did not. > 2. N/A > 3. No. > > And it’s not irrelevant- the absurdity of the comment is what makes it funny! Of course a normal 10 year old wouldn’t know about these things. But a fictional 10 year old (like all precocious kids on TV shows and movies- that seem a bit to savvy or knowledgable beyond their years) would. And that makes it funny! > > I love your implication that the Homer interpretation is the “logical choice” so where does that leave the Joyce folks? I guess we’re all just durpy, illogical folks, hurr hurr. I never said “ **the** logical choice.” I said it was “ **a** logical choice,” with as much going for it as Joyce. And in my mind, more going for it when talking about how it was perceived. Let’s again remember we’re addressing two questions here: what was in Sherman’s mind when he wrote the line (unknowable in the absence of an interview or something similar)…and what was in the minds of those who heard that line (not, in my opinion, as unknowable). ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/342 "2014-10-30T21:07:21Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Wow, you shift goal posts like nobody’s business. > > It can’t be a blue song because those were for adult audiences. > > The Camp song was for an adult audience > > But wait, it still couldn’t have been blue because it was _later_ picked up for Top 40…? > > So he changed not a word of the song, but somehow the song changed? Wow. No, the _interpretation_ of the song changed. In its new environment, it had to change. The Joyce interpretation would have been OK when the song was a number performed in adult clubs or appearing as a cut on an album bought exclusively by an adult audience (which Sherman’s albums assuredly were — I would have been astounded to find one in a teen or pre-teen’s collection before 1963). The more innocent interpretation had to be embraced by radio programmers before the song was ever let on the mass airwaves. And I firmly believe the more innocent interpretation was embraced by the greater percentage of listeners to the song. No goal post moving here at all. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/343 "2014-10-30T21:49:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Very true. Very, very true. Very, very, very true. It’s like the world’s worst performance art at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/344 "2014-10-30T22:06:42Z")
I gave you an example of an unambiguously dirtier line (oh balls) he used in an earlier album.Stating that the kid was read Joyce is in no way dirty. Sherman, by the way. started in this career by singing the parodies he composed at Hollywood parties. Hardly a place for kids songs. Malaria in upstate NY is pretty close to impossible also, and not something a kid would mistake. I only knew about malaria symptoms because I took quinine pills in Africa, a place where you do get it. Inconsistency and the structure of a humorous sing are two very different things. Forget about Ulysses - the kid talks about all sorts of stu7ff the kids do outside, like getting lost, even though it is raining. Humor is often inconsistent. Humor however, builds, just as mentioned before. Consider the “Would you believe” jokes from Get Smart if you need an example. Homer is not funny. Reading Homer to kids is not funny. Reading Homer to kids, as I’ve said before, is educational. And I knew about Ulysses. It was one of the few “dirty” books back then that were famous and respectable. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/345 "2014-10-30T22:14:43Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > The Joyce interpretation would have been OK when the song was a number performed in adult clubs or appearing as a cut on an album bought exclusively by an adult audience (which Sherman’s albums assuredly were — I would have been astounded to find one in a teen or pre-teen’s collection before 1963). I guess not quite astounding, but My Son the Nut was in my collection in 1964 when I was 8. My Son the Folk Singer was in my parent’s collection before that, but mine by default since my parents rarely listened to a record more than once. Why did I have those? Because they were acceptable to my parents and Rock was not. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/346 "2014-10-30T22:50:46Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > No, the _interpretation_ of the song changed. In its new environment, it had to change. > > The Joyce interpretation would have been OK when the song was a number performed in adult clubs or appearing as a cut on an album bought exclusively by an adult audience (which Sherman’s albums assuredly were — I would have been astounded to find one in a teen or pre-teen’s collection before 1963). > > The more innocent interpretation had to be embraced by radio programmers before the song was ever let on the mass airwaves. And I firmly believe the more innocent interpretation was embraced by the greater percentage of listeners to the song. > > No goal post moving here at all. Oh, really? For most of this thread, you’ve argued strenuously that the song clearly refers to Homer’s _Odyssey_, and no other explanation makes sense. Now, on page 7, you suddenly declare that the OP was really asking two questions: what Sherman meant and what people _thought_ he meant. Then you dismiss the first question as “unknowable” and proceed to redefine the debate in terms of what the general public and radio programmers thought the line meant. You even allow that “the Homer interpretation ‘works’ just as well as the Joyce one,” an interesting concession given your earlier insistence that the line doesn’t work at all as a Joyce reference because a kid wouldn’t have known about _Ulysses_, the coach would have gotten into trouble, etc., etc. Then, just to continue your pretense that _hey, this is what I’ve been arguing all along_, you slip in “Let’s again remember we’re addressing two questions here,” hoping that we won’t notice that this is something you came up with only a few posts ago. You’re not just moving the goalposts; you’re moving the whole freaking stadium. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/347 "2014-10-30T23:48:48Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > This is something else I’ve been curious about. Did anything in particular happen around the era of 1963 that brought Joyce’s book into notable public consciousness? The court trials involving obscenity charges against it took place in the 1920s, and all proceedings concluded in 1934. > > So what would have made the novel particularly top-of-mind in 1963? I’m just asking. Random House brought out a new, revised hardback edition in 1961, setting off a huge Joyce industry. By 1963 a number of studies of the book were being published and Peregrine Books put out an annotated student’s edition. Joyce’s _Ulysses_ was in the public’s mind (the NYTimes has 83 mentions of the book in 1962 and 63.) about a thousand times more than Homer’s _Odyssey_ - which, for the millionth time, was never referred to as _Ulysses_. Ever. By anybody. > [@](#): > > Um, except that it’s actually The Jimmy Joyce Singers and that they really existed and performed as session vocalists for many artists of the day. (The linked Google Search produces over 31,000 hits.) Yes, and I thought that the point that everybody has been making is that Sherman called them The **James** Joyce Singers as a joke. Why would anybody do that without calling attention to his use of Joyce? I’ve seen bad performance art. This is just sloppy parody of thought and logic. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/348 "2014-10-31T00:26:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Someone who claims this and is willing to give money to anybody with more musical knowledge needs to stand on streetcorners and give out $100 bills to everyone who walks by. Including deaf toddlers. The above is all that really needs to be said at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/349 "2014-10-31T01:32:07Z")
Of all the impenetrable rock/pop lyrics in all of the world, the OP picked this one? And pages later he’s still not satisfied? Mystifying. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/350 "2014-10-31T01:40:23Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Of all the impenetrable rock/pop lyrics in all of the world, the OP picked this one? And pages later he’s still not satisfied? > > Mystifying. Oddly, our valiant Homer warrior was not the OP! ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/351 "2014-10-31T01:57:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’ve seen bad performance art. This is just sloppy parody of thought and logic. [Belief perseverance effect.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Persistence_of_discredited_beliefs) ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/352 "2014-10-31T05:38:36Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I guess not quite astounding, but My Son the Nut was in my collection in 1964 when I was 8. My Son the Folk Singer was in my parent’s collection before that, but mine by default since my parents rarely listened to a record more than once. Why did I have those? Because they were acceptable to my parents and Rock was not. I was introduced to Allan Sherman by my cousins; I remember how we listened to “My Son, The Nut” on their portable record changer. None of the adults in the house seemed even slightly perturbed by this. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/353 "2014-10-31T11:37:42Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > I’ll have more to say about this in a reply to a subsequent post. And I’m sure that while everyone is waiting with bated breath for it, please don’t bother if it’s for me. I’ve moved on to reading other threads and more interested discussing things with people who don’t keep moving goalposts and are interested in a dialogue as opposed to handwaving and saying “None of your points make any sense because of this double-secret rule I just now invented” type monologuing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/354 "2014-10-31T15:39:33Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Of all the impenetrable rock/pop lyrics in all of the world, the OP picked this one? And pages later he’s still not satisfied? > > Mystifying. It’s generated some incredible posts, gone many pages, and gotten “Thread Spotting”. :eek: Color me surprised, sure, but it’s been a great run. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/355 "2014-10-31T16:17:40Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > Oh, really? > > For most of this thread, you’ve argued strenuously that the song clearly refers to Homer’s _Odyssey_, and no other explanation makes sense. > > Now, on page 7, you suddenly declare that the OP was really asking two questions: what Sherman meant and what people _thought_ he meant. No, I did not “declare” this. In [this recent post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17858985&postcount=329), I reproduced the post that began this thread. Please show me where in this original post the OP asks “What did Allan Sherman intend in his own mind when he wrote this line?” When discussing the meaning of song lyrics, there are ALWAYS two questions: “What did the songwriter mean in this lyrical passage?” and “What do you think the songwriter meant by this lyrical passage?” The answers to these two questions are very often entirely different. It is actually fairly uncommon for a songwriter to explicitly and definitively answer the first question. Most are content to leave interpretation up to the listener, and most are perfectly fine with the listener drawing his or her own conclusions. Thus, we have entire books authored by those attempting to answer the second question. When it comes to songwriters like Dylan, for example, it’s practically a cottage industry. > [@](#): > > Then you dismiss the first question as “unknowable”… Since you disagree with this characterization, please explain how the answer to the question is “knowable” in the absence of a statement from Sherman himself. > [@](#): > > …and proceed to redefine the debate in terms of what the general public and radio programmers thought the line meant. No redefining at all. As I said, EVERY such question about lyrics will have these two components. Given the nature of the line in question, the perception of the general public and radio programmers is particularly important in this instance. To steal a phrase from another poster, anyone who feels this issue isn’t important “wasn’t paying attention” during the era in question. > [@](#): > > You even allow that “the Homer interpretation ‘works’ just as well as the Joyce one,” an interesting concession given your earlier insistence that the line doesn’t work at all as a Joyce reference because a kid wouldn’t have known about _Ulysses_, the coach would have gotten into trouble, etc., etc. You’re right, it is a concession — because frankly I’m tired of fighting those who cling to the Joyce interpretation so dearly and won’t admit for even a nanosecond the possibility of an alternate interpretation. If folks want to believe this, that’s fine. I’m trying to state that the Homer interpretation works perfectly well too, and I’ve given many reasons why it does. I haven’t changed my view that it works better than the Joyce one. Nor have I changed my view that the greater percentage of listeners to the song chose the Homer interpretation. > [@](#): > > Then, just to continue your pretense that _hey, this is what I’ve been arguing all along_, you slip in “Let’s again remember we’re addressing two questions here,” hoping that we won’t notice that this is something you came up with only a few posts ago. > > You’re not just moving the goalposts; you’re moving the whole freaking stadium. It doesn’t matter when I “came up” with this…it’s an issue regardless. (And in fact, I “came up” with the issue a week and a half ago when I took an informal survey of my friends to see what their perception of the line was and gave the results in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17833970&postcount=235)). To repeat: the issue is present regardless of whether people choose to say it’s not an issue. This is true just as surely as considering what was permitted on Top 40 radio in 1963 is an issue, regardless of people who choose to ignore it. History is not changed by ignoring it. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/356 "2014-10-31T18:31:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Random House brought out a new, revised hardback edition in 1961, setting off a huge Joyce industry. By 1963 a number of studies of the book were being published and Peregrine Books put out an annotated student’s edition. Joyce’s _Ulysses_ was in the public’s mind (the NYTimes has 83 mentions of the book in 1962 and 63.) about a thousand times more than Homer’s _Odyssey_ Thanks for the information, but there you go again. So everyone in the nation was a regular reader of _The New York Times_, was eagerly devouring “studies of the book” and was breathlessly awaiting the latest publication from Peregrine Books? No doubt, for a small subset of the total universe of listeners to “Hello Muddah! Hello Fadduh!” these events were big news. But the key word here is “small.” I can assure you that a much larger subset of these listeners had at least some exposure to Homer in their high school English classes and had seen the 1954 movie starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn that was entitled _Ulysses_. > [@](#): > > which, for the millionth time, was never referred to as _Ulysses_. Ever. By anybody. I’ve dealt with this several times, most recently in the second portion of [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17842612&postcount=284). Answer the question it poses honestly, and then we can talk again. > [@](#): > > Yes, and I thought that the point that everybody has been making is that Sherman called them The **James** Joyce Singers as a joke. Why would anybody do that without calling attention to his use of Joyce? Maybe it’s because **nobody did that**. There is no backing singers credit at all on [_My Son, the Nut_](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bz8hL1k_cMM/U5yBM4pcGQI/AAAAAAAA46A/r71xwPEFa2Q/s1600/Allan+Sherman+-+My+Son,+The+Nut+back.jpg). See the [the _Allan in Wonderland_ back cover art](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PMEVXMwb2oI/U5xo8vobm2I/AAAAAAAA40A/JT-TtZnNGfs/s1600/Allan+Sherman+-+Allan+In+Wonderland+Back.jpg) for the credit that appeared on Sherman’s subsequent album. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/357 "2014-10-31T18:47:41Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Maybe it’s because **nobody did that**. Except on the album I cited when I brought it up in the first place. [![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qPyg2PWfKds/Tq3UcvEB1CI/AAAAAAAAQkM/IAhND7wSP-4/s1600/Allan+Sherman+-+My+Name+Is+Allan+back.jpg) ](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qPyg2PWfKds/Tq3UcvEB1CI/AAAAAAAAQkM/IAhND7wSP-4/s1600/Allan+Sherman+-+My+Name+Is+Allan+back.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/358 "2014-10-31T18:53:40Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Thanks for the information, but there you go again. So everyone in the nation was a regular reader of _The New York Times_, was eagerly devouring “studies of the book” and was breathlessly awaiting the latest publication from Peregrine Books? > > No doubt, for a small subset of the total universe of listeners to “Hello Muddah! Hello Fadduh!” these events were big news. But the key word here is “small.” I have not read 50 Shades of Gray. I will never read 50 Shades of Gray. But if someone made a joke about it, I’d sure as hell know what he was talking about. BTW the second Firesign Theatre album from 5 or 6 years later ends with a stoned Ralph Spoilsport, used car salesman, reading Molly’s soliloquy from the end of Ulysses. Not the same audience, true, but not English majors either. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/359 "2014-10-31T19:03:30Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > I’ve dealt with this several times, most recently in the second portion of [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17842612&postcount=284). Answer the question it poses honestly, and then we can talk again. And you’re still treating the song as if it were actually written by a child, and not by an adult satirist. I repeat: even if it is plausible that a \*kid \*might somehow misconstrue the title of the reading, it makes absolutely no sense for \*Sherman \*to refer to one work of literature by the title of another and expect his audience to realize that he was doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/360 "2014-10-31T19:22:27Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Thanks for the information, but there you go again. So everyone in the nation was a regular reader of _The New York Times_, was eagerly devouring “studies of the book” and was breathlessly awaiting the latest publication from Peregrine Books? Absolutely right. Obviously, nothing that the country’s premiere newspaper, the one every other media outlet looked to for guidance, wrote about could possibly be reflective of what the country might be talking about. And equally obviously, New Yorker Allan Sherman himself would never deign to read the Times for what was current and trendy in order to use in a song aimed at other New Yorkers who might be reading the very same papers he read. Why, it would be silly to assume that the timing you yourself asked about might be a factor when the book had just been all over the country’s papers for two years, a uniquely important period in the book’s lifetime. And downright pernicious to leave off Homer and his work not-called Ulysses even though it had all of four mentions in the Times in that same period, or 5% as many. Why should reality and context count for anything at all when you can provide your own imaginary facts and alternate world? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891.md?page=19)