In 1984, I was a high school freshman. Iron Maiden’s Powerslave came out that year, and one of the greatest tracks on a great album was Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Y’tube part 1; part 2; lyrics ). As you can imagine from the thread title, English class that year included a major unit on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Ohhhh yeahh…
Nothing like having the entire story arc emblazoned in my imagination from the very beginning. Best part was that the teacher let me bring the cassette in and we listened to it in class.
Came in here to post about Maiden’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but the OP beat me to it. I slept through that whole section in English class and still passed smashingly.
I never admitted to it like the OP did, though. Better to let everyone think you’re a miracle worker.
I honestly remember leaning on Monty Python’s “Oliver Cromwell” for remembering dates in 10th grade English class (which in our school was British literature).
I had Maiden’s version memorized before I took Brit Lit in college when we came across Coleridge. So I quoted a lot of that and even included “B. Dickinson” in the references.
Got an A.
Slight hijack, in the same class I described the story of Golden Earring’s Moontan. Got another A.
I’m not sure if this is a whoosh (I apologize if it is), but my extemely basic knowledge of classical music tells me Eine kleine Nachtmusik sounds nothing like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I recall that Mozart did some variations of the tune (probably for a TV Christmas special), so perhaps that’s what you were thinking of.
Don’t Stand So Close to Me introduced me to the name Nabakov, but apparently Sting pronounced it wrong…so I guess it helped make me both a little smarter and more ignorant.
Well, an English prof in college pronounced it Nab-BOK-off. And I think I’ve heard a couple of other people say that the Sting pronunciation is wrong. I guess I could be wrong about Sting being wrong, so if any Russian lit experts want to correct me, go to it!
No, you caught me in a mix-up. Mozart wrote “Twelve Variations on 'Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman”, a French folk song the tune of which is used for Twinkle, Twinkle, the Alphabet Song, and Baa-Baa Black Sheep. My mental card catalogue was a little messy.
By the same token, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.
“Killing an Arab” by The Cure was based on “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, which I read in 10th Grade English.
But really, my entire concept of English grammar is based on the Schoolhouse Rock songs. Whenever someone asks me what a conjunction is, I break out in song.
Phil Ochs did a fairly good version of Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman.
Honorable mention: the “Historic” songs of Johnny Horton. Fairly loose with the facts, but this made me want to find out more about their topics (eg. Custer’s Last Stand (Comanche), the Bismark (Sink the Bismark), The Battle of New Orleans, Jim Bridger, etc. (Yeah, I know, not English, but hey, still helpful at school!)
