Wednesday, July 03, 2013






I have a teenage granddaughter who is able to find an interesting young man on facebook, make friends, and have a remote affair without meeting him. And then after an intense activity, perhaps a few weeks, of texting she will get bored, or he will, and the dumping will occur with a couple of thumbs surgically acting like a sharpened guillotine.

This sort of activity and with the addition of comments in social media will mean that should a student, my granddaughter as an example, want to change schools and make new friends, her reputation will follow and be made instantly available on line. What a young teenager writes into facebook becomes a file cabinet of information that will be part her life for as long as that cabinet is maintained.

These days I have been ruminating Art Bergmann’s wonderful melodic song Yellow Pages. Like his Hospital Song or Our Little Secret, lovely songs, too,  it becomes horrific when you notice the lyrics, Yellow Pages is about a world, before social media, but where one’s reputation could suffer still from someone’s whim.

I have friends I first met when I was in my teens.  We visit still. And yet now friends are made and lost with the frequency of young blonde singers that become famous and then disappear into oblivion.

There is that line in Yellow Pages that is so apt for our times.

When I see you again
We'll act like friends
And carry on
With the social pretence.

Bergmann’s lyrics are worth reading and happily I can report that this site has them all! But it was not working very well tonight. It did open once and I was able to download Yellow Pages:


Yellow Pages
Art Bergmann
Album: Vultura Freeway + Poisoned EP

I used to work with someone
Me and Billy always got the job done
I thought this would last for years
The start of a promising career
All this was ruined at an early age
By distortion on the public page
Cuz I met this guy at a party one night
Don't know what I said
Didn't know he could write
He said "I've got some dirt on you"
All he wanted from me was the facts
The next day I read we were through
You know it said I stuck a knife in your back

I'll forget what you said
If you forget what I heard
If you forget what you read
I'll remember the word

I used to go with a girl
We're gonna go around the world
She said love
You know the one
Forever gonna be so much fun
I should have known this could never last
Now she's just a photograph
Cuz I met this chick at a party one night
Don't know what I said
Didn't know she could write
She said "I've got some dirt on you"
All she wanted was the facts
Next day I read we were through
Read that we were through
You know it said I stuck a knife in your back
Sticking knives in our backs
Yellow journalist
When I see you again
We'll act like friends
And carry on
With the social pretence

Chorus

I want you
But all we see
Are the jaundiced little notes
Of the blind
Can you hear me
Through the din
And hope that nothing's lost in the translation
Every town's got a whore
And think they've got a saint
And if the two should ever meet
Who's gonna lodge the complaint

Chorus