Ode to wine-like beverages and monster trucks

Sunday, Dec. 16, is the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven. Some scholars say it’s the 17th – the recording of vital statistics was spotty back in 1770 – but it is certain that Ma and Pa van B brought their bouncing baby genius into the world about this time 231 years ago. His career as a composer lasted until March 27, 1827, when (to borrow from a very old joke) he took up decomposing.

Reasonable people may disagree on such things as the greatest writer, painter or NFL quarterback (Wodehouse, van Gogh and Joe Montana here), but in music Beethoven stands alone. Any credible list of the Top 10 compositions in human history would be so Beethoven-heavy the uninformed observer might think the contest was rigged. Of those compositions, his Ninth Symphony holds a special place.

It is his last symphony, written in his final years of failing health, a towering work of size, power, poignancy and mysticism unimaginable before and unsurpassed since. It also is the first major piece he wrote after the hearing impediment that afflicted him most of his adult life turned to total deafness. One critic was so astonished at this accomplishment he speculated that “God himself walled up the doorways through which the noise of the world would have penetrated into him, so as to purify and spiritualize his ideas.”

The fourth and final movement is the most astonishing. A chorus and quartet of vocal soloists join the orchestra for the composer’s setting of Schiller’s poem, “An die Freude,” Beethoven’s celebrated “Ode to Joy.” The gist of the text is that Creation is pretty wonderful and the best way people can show some appreciation to the Creator is to be friends and have fun. The tune you know – pardon my voice, I’ve a bit of a cold – Dum-dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum, dumm-da-dum.

So I’m in the car he other day and on the radio comes a most unusual performance. The singing, by a male chorus, is fine – pear-shaped tones and all that – but the original German text lost something in the translation. Instead of singing about universal brotherhood and abiding friendship, these guys are going on and on about how they like a certain brand of inexpensive wine, or wine-like alcoholic beverage, even better than they like monster trucks.

This isn’t first time the Ode has been so odiously appropriated. There’s a cable TV channel that uses Beethoven’s magnificent music to remind you they’ve got movies, movies, movies, movies, movies, movies, moo-oo-vies. And locally, I’m very sorry to report, a truck dealer sings that if-you-want-to-buy-a truck, we’ve-got-the-truck-you- waaant-to-buy.

There’s a line in Schiller’s text asserting, in regards nature’s bounty, that “even the worm can feel contentment.” Some worms, it seems, are feeling greedy.

Great music of other genres is not safe from being hijacked for crass purposes. Those of us old enough to know why The Beatles mattered also remember the outrage we felt some years ago when Nike used “Revolution” in a commercial. Beatles lyrics could be cryptic, but it’s a safe bet that whatever “Revolution” means, it does not endorse using Third World sweatshop labor to build $200 basketball shoes.

Currently, an equally egregious offense against the best rock has to offer is taking place. “Fortunate Son” by Credence Clearwater Revival is one of the all-time great protest songs. In 1969, it was a timely, angry and dead-on accurate observation that the best way to avoid getting killed in Vietnam was to be a senator’s son, a member of the silver spoon set. Today, it’s being used to push blue jeans.

Nor are other arts safe. An entire field of academic study is devoted to the many ways Mona Lisa has been turned into a hooker of goods and services. A very abridged list of stuff Leonardo’s La Gioconda has been caught hustling ranges from computers, copiers and photographic film to – yep – orthodontia.

Even the most uplifting and eloquent words are fair game for the commercializers. Cingular is a company that sells something to do with wireless communications. A recent TV ad by these folks is a collage of snippets by famous voices. An excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is immediately followed by Homer Simpson saying “Doh.” Now, I love Homer Simpson like a brother (I have, in fact, a brother who bears an uncanny resemblance), but juxtaposing the exalted thoughts of a true hero with the inane gruntings of a cartoon character degrades one far more than it elevates the other.

Consider the Taliban. After years of tormenting Afghanistan with little or no notice paid by the civilized world, these barbarians first came to widespread infamy last spring when it was learned they were demolishing Buddhist statues to further their twisted version of Islam. Suddenly, civilized people who wouldn’t know a Buddhist statue if it fell on them were furious at this wanton destruction of noble expressions of the human spirit. How is what the Taliban did to those statues different from what advertisers are doing to Beethoven’s Ninth? Was the Taliban’s mistake only that it trashed culture for perverted religious reasons and not to sell booze and horsepower?

It could be argued that the difference is that those statues are gone whereas the Ninth remains. That is true for those lucky enough not to have heard the commercials, but we the luckless are plagued by the persistence of bad ideas and bad lyrics – they stick to the brain like dog poop to a sneaker. I listened to the Ninth as I wrote this. When the chorus got to the part where “All creatures drink of joy at nature’s breast,” I swear I heard the tenors making monster truck noises.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.