Michael says...
Leave Music Trivia To The Music Trivia Buffs
John Phillips died at
age 65 of a heart attack. The CBS News story
posted on iwon.com is relatively brief, yet throws in this background: "The best known of their hits include California
Dreamin,' I Saw Her Again Last Night, Monday, Monday and Puff the Magic Dragon."
Now, I think
it's great to include details about their music in a musician's obit, but has
CBS News hired on former Kansas City Star writers? (Needless to say, I
think their fact checking, along with their spelling and grammar is second grade
- er, second rate).
Puff the Magic Dragon???
The writer thought, The Mamas and the Papas and had a flashback to his Peter
Paul and Mommy album? Try to get me to sing and I'll flub the lyrics with the
best of them (messing up lyrics is so common it has a
name - mondegreens). Ask me who sang what though, and if I don't know, I
become obsessed to find out. Most times I find I have to find out who wrote it
too, and what else they wrote, and so on. I perfectly understand that most
people do not share that interest - they ask people like me *L*
As
one who from childhood wanted to be a writer only to put that occupation on the
back burner all these years, what I don't understand is how those who chose that
craft take it so lightly. We - they - have the opportunity to entertain,
enlighten, inspire, amuse, inform. If a writer ends up in the informing end of
the craft... the business... check the facts... then check 'em again. If time is
short, consider if the item in question is essential to the piece... because,
even if it were not in a John Phillips' obituary but in some puff piece, Puff the Magic
Dragon is a Peter Paul and Mary tune.
For
a couple years now I've had as the lead-in to my Music
Site "My name is Michael, I've got a nickel, I've got a nickel, shiny and
bright... and I spend a lot of my nickels on music, which I love very much..."
Those who write asking about that song get a good dose of trivia along with the
answer and where to buy it.
posted March 20 - April 4, 2001
