"Another day in paradise"

Mpls. homeless encampment (MPR)

Sometimes you'll hear a Minnesotan say to someone as a greeting line in the morning, "another day in paradise." 

We know it's nothing like that of course. So why do we say it? To put on the brave front of being Minnesotan and accepting it with some affected bravado. "Another day in paradise." 

Reminds me of not one but two popular songs from the past. Each had this basic title. One was pop and the other country, if you insist on categorizing these things. 

I heard someone use the greeting line just this morning. It's not common enough to have been preserved in the book "How to Speak Minnesotan" by Howard Mohr. 

Maybe we say it to try to convince ourselves that life in Minnesota really has so much merit. Or to compliment ourselves on how we get through it with more than a semblance of happiness. 

Culture ebbs and flows in so many ways. We can feel more pride living in small town rural Minnesota today. When I was a kid we often sensed "small towns" snubbed in our overall culture as being backwards places. 

There was a time when rural life had such strong appeal in popular TV. Surely you know about the various TV shows that popularized the whole template. At the top of the list would probably be "Andy of Mayberry" or "The Andy Griffith Show." Others built up the whole image, and as with all popular entertainment there were misleading or even disrespectful stereotypes. 

Best way to illustrate: the old "Hee Haw" TV show where there was a recurring little segment that would be a "salute" to a small town somewhere in the U.S., a place that the average person had never heard of. People standing in a corn field would recite the name of the town, its population and then we'd hear a chorus of the word "salute," followed by. . .laughter! 

So, the big minds of the entertainment culture sat ensconced in their big city cosmopolitan settings and passed judgment. This ought to ring familiar for everyone of my generation. But take a look at today: When you find a post on YouTube about "most undesirable places to live" in a particular state, so often if not completely it is the big population centers of that state. I have seen this for Minnesota. 

Look at how the whole George Floyd thing built up the image of the once-great Minneapolis as rather like Gotham City from "Batman." And this is not to say that I take the side of the police entirely in that sordid matter. Because I do not. I think we have seen shades of gray begin to penetrate that whole incident. We can agree it was entirely tragic. 

Maybe we could have used Barney Fife to come along and just be a little more gentle, eh? 

Passing a fake bill? That was the problem? The guy might have been on drugs? We may not find it in us to justify those things, but life has become daunting for a great many people both big-city and rural. How else do you explain this gravitation to the man who leads MAGA, a person who is so obviously disgusting on so many levels? 

I was a Reagan Democrat. Our standards were so much more civilized then, there was a real issue over whether a man who had been divorced should become president. Look at that and then look at the horribly deficient character traits of the man leading MAGA today. Found responsible for sexual assault? Having obviously tried leading an actual insurrection? An attempted violent overthrow of the U.S. government? A true attempt at installing an autocracy? 

Can't we all think a little more about the ramifications of all this for our life in America? For the life that your children and grandchildren can have? We are not thinking enough about that. 

Maybe the nature of the media explains this state of affairs. What I mean, is that we can all easily find ideas and articles in media that reinforce our main impulses. 

In the old days you had to look around pretty widely to find pamphlets and such that presented the extreme right wing view of things. Then we got the extreme proliferation of TV channels. On and on it went. Until we got this thing called "Fox News" that got in all our homes. Those of us with cable TV, which at one time was nearly ubiquitous. Satellite was an extension of that - my God, unlimited choices. 

Tech continued with the proliferation until we essentially became "drunk" with it all. So there was "Newsmax" and many other like choices in this thing called media. Thus all the frustrated souls out there who were inclined to gravitate to a demagogic leader from the political right could absolutely bathe in their favored media. Could shake their fist at the whole world around them. They are most certainly doing that. 

It is no longer enough that we have a Republican congressperson here in western Minnesota, this Fischbach. It isn't enough that she voted to sympathize with the insurrection efforts in 2021. Now she has a challenger from the political right. And these days, do not ever bet against the most MAGA candidate. Such folks are feeling greatly empowered by their Christian churches. 

And it is not "paradise," I assure you."

 

"Another Day in Paradise" (Phil Collins)

So what is this hit song about? It's described as an odd combination of thoughts about homelessness and paradise. I'd like to find some more elucidation. To be honest I think most hit songs latch onto a subject in an arbitrary way, just seeking to provide a pleasing sound with the music. The "message" is like a cover for the song. John Lennon said most pop song lyrics are meaningless. Songwriters often seek words that simply roll of the tongue in pleasing way. The guy who wrote music for Elton John's "Yellow Brick Road" album admitted this straight-out. He was amused by people looking for hidden meanings in lyrics. Let us conclude that music has tremendous power to "lift up" some pretty routine words and make them seem far-reaching. "Imagine" (Lennon)?

"Just Another Day in Paradise" (Phil Vassar)

So we have two "Phils" here, Collins and Vassar. In Vassar's case the song category is country. Most country puts itself forward as just a reflection of "real life." It's something we all experience. So I'm not sure why songs are necessary to reflect it, eh? Again I think the music is most often the thing, i.e. pleasing sounds. The message is "cute" to compliment it. So Vassar's song is about a couple raising a family and dealing with all the mundane domestic distractions. Yawn. But it is a nice-sounding song. I congratulate Vassar on this success.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com