Among Warning Signs On The Road To Serfdom – Change The Meaning Of Words

“… The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognised before. The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretence that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed …”

– From “The Road To Serfdom” by F. A. Hayek, first published in 1944 by George Routledge & Sons, pages 161-162 of Chapter 11, “The End Of Truth”.

Songs That Remind Me Of My Dad

The funny thing is, in reflecting on this (and I speak in past tense because I'm reminscing on times that are yester-gone), that none of these songs remind me of my dad because of the lyrics themself (with the obvious exception of Paul Petersen's "My Dad") ...

"Silly Love Songs" ... because one of the first (maybe the only) album my dad won playing a radio call in contest was "Wings At The Speed Of Sound".

Any song from the "Calypso" album by Harry Belafonte ... .

"Whipped Cream" ... alright, not actually any song but the album cover itself ... anyone of a certain age knows this Herb Alpert/Tijuana Brass album was part of the homescape.

"Yesterday, When I Was Young" by Roy Clark - never asked why, exactly, but Dad really liked this song.

"Spirit In The Sky" (Norman Greenbaum) ... He simply thought, from what I can tell, it was a good song ... no different than a "good song" of Guy Lombardo, Harry James, etc. ... it was just a "good song" with a good message.

David Bowie "heyday" songs ... "Fame" or "Golden Years" ... I remember Dad saying he liked David Bowie because he (Bowie) seemed to do what he liked whether it was going to be popular/a hit or not ... I wondered about this for years.  I wondered if I misremembered it ... did he mean Alice Cooper (local boy) or David Bowie ... so I asked Dad about it ... He shared almost verbatim what I recalled ... "No, not Alice Cooper (good golfer) - David Bowie ... I've always liked him".  The funny thing to me was that I remember listening to, I think, an AT40 episode - or something - wherein it was shared that David Bowie (through all his enterprises) was the first billionaire rockstar ... I thought it funny of all the "rock" performers my dad would pick to single out as someone he admired he'd pick the first one to become a billionaire.

"If I Were A Rich Man" from "Fiddler On The Roof" ... Dad always, I think like anyone that grew up in (or in the shadow of) the Great Depression, wealth as an attainable reality to any virtuous individual.

"My Dad" ... obvious (the sad thing is that this song DOES remind me of my dad ... to many people don't know this "dad").

I've kept the list short, intentionally ... what songs remind you of your dad, if even for silly reasons?