Songs That Would Have Been Different If Co-Written With Philosophers
“The Shadow of Your Cave Wall” – Tony Bennett (J. Mandel/P.F. Webster/Plato)
“Being and Time In a Bottle” – Jim Croce (J. Croce/M. Heidegger)
“Abyss On My List” – Hall and Oates (D. Hall/J. Oates/ F. Nietzsche)
Those are a few titles from “Ten Popular Songs That Would Have Been Different Had They Been Co-Writtten With Influential Thinkers From History” at McSweeney’s.
Any philosopher-featuring additions to the list?
“With and Without You” — U2 (Bono/D. Evans/A. Clayton/L. Mullen/G. Priest)
“Here I Go Again. Again.” — Whitesnake (D. Coverdale/B. Marsden/F. Nietzsche)
“No Changes” — David Bowie (D. Bowie/Z. from Elea)
Album:
“Smells Like World Spirit” by Nirvana (Cobain / Novoselic / Grohl / Hegel)
“Socrates went down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels Band (Plato). [He was looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind; he was way behind; he was willing to make a deal.]
“Pour Some Sugar With Me”–Def Leppard (J. Elliott/S. Clark/P. Collen/J. Perry)
“Subterranean Homesick Missing Shade of Blue” (B. Dylan, D. Hume)
“Not More Than A Feeling” — Boston (T. Scholz, C.L. Stevenson)
“All The Small Things” blink 182 feat. Democritus
“Zombie” by The Cranberries and David Chalmers
“Born This Way In Nature” (L. Gaga/J. Laursen/ J. J. Rousseau*) *Actually a musician and composer)
“Miracles” by Insane Clown Posse feat. David Lewis
Little known fact: artistic disagreements over the production of this song was the catalyst for the breakup of the ICP/Hume supergroup.
“Born To Hand Jive” (explicit) — Sha Na Na (J. Jacobs / W. Casey / C. McGinn)
Gotta Have Faith (Despite Its Paradoxical Nature) -G. Michael and S. Kierkegaard
Mama Tried – M. Haggard, A. Augustine
Born to Be Radically Evil – Steppenwolf, I. Kant
“What Proud Mary Didn’t Know”–John Fogerty with Frank Jackson
“(Unmoved) Pusherman” (C. Mayfield / Aristotle)
“Enter Swampman” — by Metallica (J. Hetfield/K. Hammett/L. Ulrich/D. Davidson)
“Total Eclipse of Descartes” — by Bonnie Tyler (J. Steinman/C. S. Peirce)
“Man in the Vat” – Alice in Chains and H. Putnam
“Yellow, Nasty, Brutish and Short Submarine” – The Beatles, feat. T. Hobbes
“Twinkle, Twinkle Evening Star” – Various Artists, feat. G. Frege
“We are the Champions” – Queen (F. Mercury/A.Rand)
Hobbes
“Lose Your Self” – Eminem, f. D. Dennett
“I’m waiting for maximising man” – The Velvet Underground and Adam Smith
“Can’t buy me love (and other things money can’t buy)” – The Beatles feat. Michael Sandel
“Boys don’t perform crying” – The Cure with special guest Judith Butler
“What a possible world” Louis “Leibniz” Armstrong
“Will to Raw Power” – Friedrich and the Stooges
“Let It Be the Value of a Bound Variable” The Beatles feat. W.V. Quine
‘We will rock you’ (Queen/Sysiphus/Camus)
‘A kind of blue’ Miles Davis (Goodman remix)
PS I am insanely proud of the latter
‘Grue, Grue, My Love is Grue’ (Sinatra/Goodman)
And some that actually exist as parodies:
“Make a Talk on the Ryle Side” Lou Reed with Daniel Dennett
“How Do I Mend the Beta Part?” The Bee Gees with Peter van Inwagen
“Good Inductions” The Beach Boys with Alan Hajek
“Two Sides Now” Joni Mitchell with David Chalmers
They’re old hat and pretty lame but just click on my name to see em and many others even worse. . .
BTW I wish I’d parodied “Total Eclipse of Descartes”!
What is it like to be a bat out of hell? (M. Loaf / T. Nagel)
Language Games People Play – Parsons/Woolfson/Wittgenstein
Inference Ticket to Ride – Lennon/McCartney/Ryle
Welcome to the Turing Machine – Waters/Putnam
This Land is Not Your Land, This Land is My Land – W. Guthrie and R. Nozick
Like a Rolling Stone – Dylan/Camus
God Only Knows – Wilson/Asher and Berkeley/Plantinga
“Non, je ne minimax regrette rien” – Dumont/Vaucaire/Savage, performed by Edith Piaf
I Just Can’t Stop Molyneux – Michael Jackson/George Berkeley
I have a long list of songs that WERE co-written by philosophers:
“What’s the matter here?” 10,000 Maniacs/Berkeley
“Feeling yourself disintegrate” Flaming Lips/Hume
“Out of the Shadows” Sarah MacLaghlan/Plato
“Are You Experienced?” Hendrix/Laurie Paul
“Cat Food” King Crimson/Bertrand Russell (OK, that one is a bit obscure)
“No Time” The Guess Who/McTaggart
“Turn, Turn, Turn” Pete Seeger/Newton
“Five to One (No one here gets out alive)” The Doors/Philippa Foot/Judith Thomson
“Spirits in the Material World” The Police/Descartes
“Soul Meets Body” Death Cab for Cutie/Descartes
“Dreamer” Supertramp/Descartes
“Who Are You?” The Who/Locke/Dennett
“The Space Between” Dave Matthews/Zeno
“Que Sera Sera” Livingston/Evans/Calvin
I like your twist on the game! Some very clever ones.
I wracked my brain regarding the King Crimson one; I know the song, but not its relation to Russell. For a moment I thought it was the story about when he thought he had figured out that the ontological argument for God was sound, and threw whatever tin he was carrying at the time up in the air and caught it–but I’m pretty sure it was a tobacco tin? But maybe not. Please enlighten me! (BTW Cat Food is great; a paradigm of ’70s progressive rock with incredibly silly lyrics. Love it. They played it on their most recent tour, too!)
In *The Problems of Philosophy*, Russell offers an argument for the existence of an external world based on the fact that his cat eats at regular intervals, regardless of whether he is observing the cat or not. If the cat exists only in his mind, it shouldn’t continue to get hungry while he is not observing it.
“No Bare Necessities” Gilkyson/Hume/Lewis
“Good Citations” The Beach Boys/Google Scholar
“Stop Believing” Journey/Sextus Empiricus
‘Golden Rule’ (D. Bowie/R.M. Hare and many others)
“I Want to Hold Your Hidden Hand” – Lennon & McCartney & Smith
“One” — Metallica/Parmenides
If “I Wanna Be Sedated” were co-written by G.E. Moore, it might actually sedate you.