# How relevant is classical music? (Warning - Longwinded) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 12, 2003, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661 "2003-05-12T10:52:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/41 "2003-05-12T20:48:53Z")
Bed time folks. Its 11 PM here in Germany. Good night, and I’ll pick this up again in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/42 "2003-05-12T21:09:45Z")
Mort, what you are describing is called “programmatic” music, and it represents only a fraction of all so-called “classical” music. (Classical actually refers only to the period of Mozart, Haydn and the like, but it’s popularly used to mean all “serious” music). Some pieces, like Berlioz’ _Symphonie Fantastique_ or Strauss’ _Ein Heldenleben_, tell a story, but it’s not necessary to even know the story in order to appreciate the music. Good music is not dependent on any underlying program to make it so. In Heldenleben, it’s interesting to know that the squawky, angular woodwind passages represent the Hero’s critics sniping at him, or that the military-sounding drum cadence marks the beginning of the Hero’s battle with his foes. But you don’t _need_ to know that stuff. It’s still good music. Tchaikovsky hinted that his 6th Symphony was programmatic, but never divulged what the story _was_. I suspect it may have had to do with the fact that there were aspects of his life that he couldn’t discuss in open society. But the piece stands on it’s own; you don’t NEED the “story”. In fact, it’s more interesting to imagine what the story _might_ have been. I first got interested in classical music from hearing it on the radio. I didn’t know anything about the stories behind the pieces, I just knew that the music spoke to me. > [@](#): > > I’ll tell you, though. The lyrics to “Stairway to Heaven” made a great deal of sense to me the first time I heard them. In part they seemed to me to tell the story of a girl I knew at the time. I know that the guys from Led Zeppelin never heard of this girl, but, still, the words seemed to capture her essence. Not that this is a good thing - the essence was that of a dope taking gold digger and the part about “and as we wind on down the road … yada yada … to be a rock and not to roll” seemed to be telling me that I needed to simultaneously move (away from her) and become solid (like the rock, but more in a personailty kind of way than physically.) All of that probably has nothing to do with what the guys were thinking when they put it together - but without those lyrics, it’d just be an excercise in guitar playing to me. But that’s my point - the music meant something to _you_, but it may not mean the same thing to anyone else. You claim there are “conventions” in classical music that you aren’t privy to, but that’s not true. Some things transcend time. Stairway to Heaven was meaningful to you even though you admit that it may have nothing to do with what the words were _intended_ to mean. If that song is meaningful without knowing the exact intent of the writer, then why would you need to know the exact intent of classical composers? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/43 "2003-05-12T21:10:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mort Furd \* > **For me, the most visceral reaction I get to classical music is “Huh? Wazzat?” I just don’t get it. Lacking the ability to pickup on the cues that everyone else seems to hear and understand, I would seem to need an explanation - and that sort of kills the fun.** Well, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. I feel sorry that you’re missing so much. To me, what you’re saying is akin to seeing a beautiful woman smile at you and asking “How does this help me become a more efficient investment banker?” The meaning is beyond words, and beyond intellectual dissection. It’s on a purely emotional level. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/44 "2003-05-12T21:32:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Thudlow Boink \* > \*\*Maybe somebody just needs to strip to Beethoven for you. 🙂 > \*\* Might I suggest Symphony No. 9 in D minor, fourth movement? (Wonders how many will get it. Both jokes, especially.) ---
**Author:** ![Rhum\_Runner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rhum\_Runner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhum_Runner)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/45 "2003-05-12T22:07:35Z")
**Mort** , if you can dig up a copy of the Barber _Adagio_ that **DeVena** and I have mentioned, sit down and listen to it all the way through. If it doesn’t evoke a feeling of loss, sadness, redemption, or somthing else in you, then I really don’t know what to say. No, there aren’t any words, but it will rip your heart out. Certainly you can live a life w/o art music, but it is a wonderful part of the human experience, and I hope you will try to come to like it. Music can be a lot like good wine in some ways, if you just gulp it down it doesn’t do much more for you than a cheap cold beer, but if you take the time to enjoy it, to think about it, to savor it, it can be a very rewarding thing. Go find the Adagio, sit, listen, repeat. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/46 "2003-05-12T22:58:58Z")
I think Mort’s poblem is that he just doesn’t like instrumental music very much. No shame in that, but I think you have to concede that if all kinds of people insist on performing, listening to, and stealing ideas from classical music, and have done so for hundreds of years, then there must be _something_ to it more than mere habit. Virtually all orchestral film scores, for example, follow many of the conventions of classical music. All sorts of ordinary folk respond deeply to the emotional cues found in the classical-inspired music in a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movie, even though these people might say that they “hate classical music” if asked. Public service plug: If anyone reading this is thinking to themselves, “Yeah, I hate instrumental classical music too! In fact, I hate _all_ instrumental music of all types. What’s the point? It’s just gobbledegook,” then you may be tune deaf. Tune deafness is a bit like being color-blind to music. A tune deaf person can hear conversation and other sounds just fine; they can also distinguish different tones if the tones are far enough apart. However, the combination of tones we call music holds no appeal or interest to the tune deaf person–it just doesn’t “make sense.” Like color blindness, tune deafness is usually benign. It may also be fairly common–one estimate suggests that up to 5% of the population may be tune deaf. See: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1552449.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1552449.stm) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/2002/jul17music.shtml](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/2002/jul17music.shtml) [http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~large/SMneuroscience.pdf](http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~large/SMneuroscience.pdf) (Tune deafness should be distinguished from the complete inability to distinguish one tone from the other. Total inability to distinguish tones is extraordinarily rare, and is often a side effect of some other neurological problem.) ---
**Author:** ![Alma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alma)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/47 "2003-05-12T23:54:23Z")
Perhaps what you really like, **Mort** is _poetry_. The very best lyrics are really just great poems. You may like them to be set to music, but the music itself sure seems to be secondary to you. Music is an art in itself, of an intangible and visceral nature (like **tdn** and others have expressed), and that’s what a lot of us who love classical music respond to. I also love so-called rock and roll, but I’ll admit that what I find most appealing about modern songs is the sentiment expressed (the poetry of it), or that it has a good beat that I can dance to. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/48 "2003-05-13T01:44:57Z")
Long as I’m here, let me add my endorsement for Barber’s Adagio. I first heard this piece in a rehearsal and it blew me away. The first I heard it performed, it was dedicated to my conducting teacher’s father in law, recently passed away. Holst’s Planets is another good place to start, as you’ll have some idea of what it’s about. (Hint: think gods, not planets.) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alma \* > \*\*Perhaps what you really like, **Mort** is _poetry_. The very best lyrics are really just great poems. You may like them to be set to music, but the music itself sure seems to be secondary to you. Music is an art in itself, of an intangible and visceral nature (like **tdn** and others have expressed), and that’s what a lot of us who love classical music respond to. I also love so-called rock and roll, but I’ll admit that what I find most appealing about modern songs is the sentiment expressed (the poetry of it), or that it has a good beat that I can dance to. \*\* I like rock too, but it’s telling that I tend to ignore the lyrics and concentrate on the composition. Jethro Tull is my favorite. I hear the lyrics aren’t bad.😉 ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/49 "2003-05-13T01:58:53Z")
Color me _whooshed_ dude – I’m guessing one of the jokes is an allusion to ‘joy’? No clue as to the second. I am curious what the OP thinks about music like Louis Armstrong, etc – music most people don’t refer to as ‘classical’ (on which I am admittedly not an authority) but seems to speak across cultures as effectively as Bach et al. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by asterion \* > \*\*Might I suggest Symphony No. 9 in D minor, fourth movement? > > (Wonders how many will get it. Both jokes, especially.) \*\* ---
**Author:** ![heygeno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9a140/32.png) [@heygeno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heygeno)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/50 "2003-05-13T01:59:02Z")
EVERYTHING I know about Classical Music…I learned from watching Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny cartoons in the 50’s. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/51 "2003-05-13T04:00:27Z")
So if I understand you correctly, then I have to say that you are right by your standards: classical music is irrelevant. However, many others (myself included) love it regardless. But I’m curious - is everything you like relevant? Sounds restrictive to me. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mort Furd \* > My children (ages 4 1/2 years and 2 years) have definite likes and dislikes about music. Most of those likes I can, however, track to their roots. My daughter tends to like rock and roll and hard rock (much like I do.) I can see where her favorites come from, even though she herself probably can’t. Almost invariably, the songs she likes most are the ones that I like enough to sing along with (caution: do not ask me to do this in your presence) or that cause me to pick up one of the kids and dance around the living room. So since your kids are so young, they like your music for “the wrong reasons”? 😉 > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mort Furd \* > This is then followed up by “Meanstreak,” a one-two punch that will give anyone (in our western, christianized, society) pause and make them think about himself very hard - and probably not like those thoughts worth a damn because they _are_ damnable. That is artistry, artistry that I’d like to hear classical music match. Is [this](http://users.computerweekly.net/mindwarp/zmisc/zreleases/meanlyrics.htm) the song you mean? > [@](#): > > I believe in America, dressed in my pointy white suit. > I’m the fires in the ghetto, the bitter taste of strange fruit > I’m the mark on Cain, my tears are black rain > I shipped desert [sic], I betrayed the Jew > I hide in the mirror and I’m pointing at you If so, I have to tell you that you greatly overestimate its impact. Anybody who knows something about racism or Hitler’s attempted extermination of the Jews realizes that average people let this happen and that there are demons in all of us. (And are you assuming that this message - not the particulars - applies most to a “western, christianized, society”? If so, why?) Perhaps others more qualified can speak to the quality of the poetry separate from its message, but I don’t see any great artistry. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/52 "2003-05-13T04:13:44Z")
Look, you didn’t like the horse music - fine, let it go. Stop looking for a literal translation in classical music, and quit thinking you need some kind of special seminar to “get” it. You’re trying to analyze something that’s about synthesis. That’s like reducing Christian religion to the specific details of various Bible stories - the particulars are a means, not the end itself. If you won’t listen to the excellent suggestions people have already made here, then go to Blockbuster (or since you’re in Germany, Der Blockbuster) and rent Amadeus, Milos Forman, 1980. Plenty of specific narrative details are provided along with the bigger story, so perhaps by meeting your need for literalism that movie might give you an understanding of what people are experiencing. If that doesn’t light your fire, then I’m buying the tune deaf theory. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/53 "2003-05-13T06:55:46Z")
I don’t quite get the anger and the pity that’s in some of these responses; the guy’s (I’m assuming guy) expressing an opinion and asking for counter-opinions. Not that big a deal. He’s not asking whether classical music is **valid** , but **relevant**. And in his case, apparently it’s not. If I understand the OP correctly, it’s saying this: if classical music is intended to be representational, how are we supposed to appreciate without the same context? And I think it’s a perfectly valid question. (If I missed the point of the thread, then excuse me.) For example, when I hear Aaron Copland’s music, I think of the western US, the Grand Canyon, cowboys, and beef. Where does that come from? Is it somehow part of the music itself, or is it just because the music was so influential that it became the soundtrack for every single western movie ever made? Is it just because of those commercials? I read an essay about _Rodeo_ and _Billy the Kid_, which described how Copland took folk melodies and traditional songs and subtly expanded on them through his compositions. But I’ve never heard the traditional songs, so how am I supposed to get the same connotation out of them? And it’s not just the titles, either. One of the most interesting essays I read pointed out that people frequently told Copland that while hearing _Appalachian Spring_ they saw vivid images of the Appalachian mountains and rainstorms and such, to which Copland replied that the title was somewhat arbitrary; he’d given it that title after it was already completed. As an experiment a while ago, I got a copy of Vivaldi’s _Four Seasons_ and listened to it on “randomize.” I’d never consciously listened to it (although it turns out I’d heard much of it before). In any case, I was just testing to see if I could identify which season corresponded to each piece. I couldn’t, and that was with a 1-in-4 chance of being correct. So if I can’t identify what the music was originally supposed to be “about,” does that make it irrelevant? Not necessarily; the music can just exist for its own sake. Even if it were originally intended to represent something. I love Copland’s stuff, even though it makes me hungry for steak, and I love Beethoven’s 9th, even if I associate it more with _A Clockwork Orange_ than anything else. The point is that 200 years later, we’re still listening to the music and finding new ways to appreciate it; it’s got that much complexity to it. As much as I love Led Zeppelin, I’m skeptical that their work will stand for so long. ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/54 "2003-05-13T10:02:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rowrrbazzle \* > But I’m curious - is everything you like relevant? Sounds restrictive to me.So since your kids are so young, they like your music for “the wrong reasons”? ;)Is [this](http://users.computerweekly.net/mindwarp/zmisc/zreleases/meanlyrics.htm) the song you mean?If so, I have to tell you that you greatly overestimate its impact. Anybody who knows something about racism or Hitler’s attempted extermination of the Jews realizes that average people let this happen and that there are demons in all of us. (And are you assuming that this message - not the particulars - applies most to a “western, christianized, society”? If so, why?) Yes, my kids like certain pieces of music for the “wrong” reasons. They don’t understand it at all - and given some of the things I like, that is fortunate in deed. “Meanstreak” uses symbolism from chrisitianity and the “western world” to make the point that each of us harbors the demons of evil. I wouldn’t expect someone who knows nothing of Jesus and Judas to make any sense of the line “I skipped dessert, I betrayed the Jew.” I’d expect it to sound like so much gibberrish to them - they would be lacking the background to understand it. (BTW: The punch comes from “Hoodlum Thunder” followed by “Meanstreak.” The first points up evil and vileness, and “Meanstreak” says “you and I are responsible for it.”) That’s the problem I think I have with classical music - the composer and I don’t have a great deal in common, and I can’t get a grip on what he’s trying to convey. To refer back to the “Nightride,” I didn’t say I didn’t like it. It kind of falls under “not unpleasant.” The theing of it is, that classes it over with Muzak - not unpleasant, but I’m not going to go out of my way to hear it either. The biggest thing seems to be that I’m not getting the same symbology that others are. Supposedly there are horses to be heard - galloping, no less. I know that sound. My family had horses when I was a kid. I don’t hear them in that piece of music. The composer and I aren’t connecting - even though it would seem that he connects quite well to others here. Sol Grundy has phrased my thoughts perfectly: > [@](#): > > If classical music is intended to be representational, how are we supposed to appreciate without the same context? That’s what I’m talking about. How does it come to be that you folks have enough in common with these composers to understand their music, and why am I so far off in left field? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/55 "2003-05-13T11:06:48Z")
Actually, you do experience the music in the same context as the composer. Like us, the composer lived in a place of pain, love, sorrow, joy, desperation, envy, greed, lust, frustration…The emotions and experiences that the composer brought to the music are not what is most important. It is what _you_ bring to the music – emotionally and intellectually. A famous poet once said that "A poem should not _mean_ but _be_. The same is true of serious music. If classical music is irrelevant, then why is it used in so many movies that are set in other times? I can think of at least two films that use the often-mentioned Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”-- _The Elephant Man_ and _Platoon_ . _The Man Who Wasn’t There_ used Beethoven. _Somewhere in Time_ used “Variations on a Theme by Paganini” by Rachmaninoff. How would _Moonstruck_ have survived without _La Boheme_? I wonder if you have been moved by movie themes that you were not even aware were considered serious music. If you want to learn to love classical music, _listen_ to it – don’t just have it in the background. As for country music, I live right in the heart of it. Some of those country music folks were classically trained – and certainly the backup musicians are. Do yourself and your children one favor. Watch the original _Fantasia_ with them. If you really need a story to attach to the music, you will have it in that film. But keep in mind as you watch, that the music was composed at one time and set to story lines at a much later date. What you are watching is an artist’s interpretation of what the music means. You have every right to have your own interpretation. Sometimes having those “numbers” for titles frees you up even more to interprete for yourself. Everything that I have said relating to classical music is also true of jazz. Can you dig it? ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/56 "2003-05-13T12:52:07Z")
I don’t ‘dig’ jazz either. ---
**Author:** ![OliverH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/278dde/32.png) [@OliverH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverH)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/57 "2003-05-13T13:09:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mort Furd \* > \*\*I don’t ‘dig’ jazz either. \*\* Hey, Mort, btw, where in Germany are you, if I may ask? Feel fre not to reply or PM if you don’t want to have it on the board. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/58 "2003-05-13T13:12:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > \*\*If you won’t listen to the excellent suggestions people have already made here, then go to Blockbuster (or since you’re in Germany, Der Blockbuster) and rent Amadeus, Milos Forman, 1980. \*\* 1. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/59 "2003-05-13T13:30:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OliverH \* > \*\*Hey, Mort, btw, where in Germany are you, if I may ask? Feel fre not to reply or PM if you don’t want to have it on the board. \*\* I work in Wiesbaden (for now) and live in Meisenheim (close to Bad Kreuznach) ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661/60 "2003-05-13T13:32:32Z")
> [@](#): > > ## \*\*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If classical music is intended to be representational, how are we supposed to appreciate without the same context? > > That’s what I’m talking about. How does it come to be that you folks have enough in common with these composers to understand their music, and why am I so far off in left field?\*\* That’s a bad assumption, that it’s supposed to be representational. Most often it’s not. I think you’re trying to be way too literal in your interpretations. What do I have in common with Prokofiev? I could ask you what you have in common with John Lennon. Were you born in Liverpool in 1940? Did your father abandon you? Did you live with your aunt? Did you attend art school? Did you make your first million by the age of 25? Were you assassinated? Not me. I have very little in common with the guy. And yet his music speaks to me. The tunes are catchy, and he had a nice voice. When I listen to I am the Walrus, I don’t listen for the sound of a walrus in the music. And although the lyrics are cool, if it were in Swahili and I didn’t understand it, I’d still enjoy it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-relevant-is-classical-music-warning-longwinded/174661.md?page=4)