January 27, 2018

“Money can’t buy love.”

Beatles Can't Buy Me Love 45

THE MEMORABLE BEATLES LYRICS:

“Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”

       The Beatles
       Lyrics from their 1964 song “Can’t Buy Me Love”
       The saying “Money can’t buy love” wasn’t coined by the Beatles. It had been floating around as far back as the late 1800s and is a linguistic offspring of the earlier proverbial saying “Money can’t buy happiness,” which dates back to the early 1700s.
       However, in more recent times, “Money can’t buy love” was popularized and made familiar to millions of people by the Beatles song “Can’t Buy Me Love.”             
       The lyrics and music were written by Paul McCartney. He also sang the vocal alone, making it the first Beatles recording without harmony vocals by the other band members (John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr). It was released as a single in March 1964 and included on the soundtrack album for the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night.

barrett-strong-money-thats-what-i-want

AN EARLIER MUSICAL COUNTERQUOTE:

“Money don’t get everything it’s true
What it don’t get, I can’t use
Now give me money
That’s what I want.”

       Lyrics from the song “Money (That’s What I Want)”
       Writing credits for the song are credited to Motown founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, who started out as a Motown receptionist. It was first recorded in 1959 by Janie’s friend Barrett Strong. His version became Motown’s first major hit song. Strong claimed he helped write the song and his name was originally included on the copyright registration. Three years later, after the song was being covered by various artists and Gordy realized it would continue to generate significant revenues, he had Barrett’s name removed from the copyright.
       Ironically, one of the groups that covered the song was the Beatles. Their version, with John Lennon singing lead vocal, was released as a single in 1963.

Randy Newman Born Again

A LATER MUSICAL COUNTERQUOTE:

“They say that money
Can’t buy love in this world
But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine
And a sixteen-year-old girl
And a great big long limousine
On a hot September night
Now that may not be love but it is all right.”
             
       Randy Newman
       American musician             
       In his satirical song “It’s Money That I Love,” included on his 1979 album Born Again.

Christpher Marlowe

THE MARLOWE MISQUOTE:

“Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.”
       Attributed (wrongly) to Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
       English playwright and poet, also believed to have been a secret spy for Queen Elizabeth            
       This quip is credited to Marlowe by thousands of online posts and books. In fact, he never said it. The history of how it was erroneously attributed to Marlowe was traced by quote sleuth Garson O’Toole in a post on his great Quote Investigator site.
       O’Toole concluded that the remark is of anonymous origin and was in circulation in the 1950s. In 1977, Laurence J. Peter included it in one of the sets of sayings in his highly popular book Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time. It appeared in parentheses above an actual quotation by Marlowe. After that, someone mistakenly cited “Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position” as Marlowe’s line and the misattribution has lived on.

Lucie M. C. R. Guibault          

AN ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT:

“Economists assume that money can buy love, contrary to the Beatles, and will respond that love and other ‘positive’ emotions can be quantified as having an infinite value and hence beat all other interests at stake. Misery can be compensated for with money, and courts do that on a daily basis.”
       Lucie Guibault
       Canadian legal expert and Associate Professor of Law at Dalhousie University
       A comment in a footnote of her book The Future of the Public Domain: Identifying the Commons in Information Law


ogden-nash

OGDEN’S ECONOMIC OBSERVATION:

“The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure,
Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor.
Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny –
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?”

      
Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
       American poet and humorist
       In his poem
“The Terrible People,” which was first published in the February 11, 1933 issue of The New Yorker magazine and included in the book of Nash’s poems published later that year, Happy Days.
     
The poem mocks the way some rich people to downplay the advantages money gives them. It starts with the line “People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it.”

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January 10, 2018

“He can run, but he can’t hide.”

Joe Louis vs Billy Conn poster-8x6 (1)
THE BROWN BOMBER’S IMMORTAL WORDS:

“He can run, but he can’t hide.”             
       Joe Louis (1914-1981)             
       American heavyweight boxing champion, nicknamed “The Brown Bomber”  
       This was Joe’s famous comment about boxer Billy Conn, shortly before their heavyweight title rematch at Yankee Stadium in New York City on June 19, 1946.             
       Louis was known for his devastating punches and had defeated Conn in a previous fight in 1941. But Conn, “The Pittsburg Kid,” was lighter and faster, creating speculation that he could win their rematch.             
       On June 8, 1946, during one of the daily interviews he had with reporters in the days leading up to the fight, a reporter asked Louis: “If he [Conn] runs, will you chase him?”             
       Joe gave the memorable response: “He can run, but he can’t hide.” It appeared in news stories the next day in papers throughout the country. 
       Louis ended up winning the fight by a knockout in the eighth round. The next day, a headline in the New York Times said: “Louis Proves His Own Prediction: Conn Could Run, but Couldn’t Hide.”             
       Joe’s quip became and remains a commonly-used taunt in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries and he is generally assumed to have coined it. However, quotation expert Ralph Keyes speculated in his book The Quote Verifier that Louis may have been repeating a line that was already circulating as “street talk.” And, language maven Barry Popik discovered that Louis had made a similar remark in 1939. Speaking to a reporter about an upcoming fight with Bob Pastor in Detroit, Louis said: “It’s all right to have good legs but remember one thing—when you’re in the ring you can run, but you can’t hide.”             
     What does seem clear is that Louis deserves credit for popularizing the saying “He can run, but he can’t hide” and he uttered the most famous use of those words before his 1946 fight with Billy Conn.

Grateful Dead Built to Last
THE GRATEFUL DEAD VERSION:

“We can run but we can’t hide from it
Of all possible worlds we only got one, we gotta ride on it
Whatever we’ve done we’ll never get far from what we leave behind
Baby we can run, run, run but we can’t hide.”

       Lyrics by Grateful Dead band member John Barlow for the Dead song “We Can Run”
       Music by band member Brent Mydland
      “We Can Run” is included on the Grateful Dead’s 1989 album Built To Last and several later Dead compilations.

One Foot in the Grave book
THE LIVING DEAD VERSION:
        

“You can run from the grave, but you can’t hide.”
       Headline on the back cover of Jeaniene Frost’s vampire novel One Foot in the Grave (2008)

Amy Harmon, The Song of David
THE GLOOMY SONG OF DAVID VARIATION:

“You can run, hide, or die. But wherever you go, there you’ll be.”
       Amy Harmon
       American novelist
       In her novel The Song of David (2015)

Songs of the Humpback Whale
THE GLOOMY WHALE SONG VARIATION:

“You can run but you can't hide...but I can try. I feel air catch in my lungs and I get a cramp in my side and this pain, this wonderful physical pain that I can place, reminds me that after all I am still alive.”
       Jodi Picoult
       American novelist
       In her book Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices (2001)

Reagan Run But Can't Hide quote
REAGAN’S FAMOUS TERRORIST TAUNT:

“I am proud to be the commander-in-chief of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who deployed, supported and played the crucial role in the delivery of these terrorists to Italian authorities...These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere. A message ‘you can run but you can’t hide.’”
       Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)             
       40th President of the United States
       Remarks to the press on October 11, 1985 after American troops captured the terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and brutally murdered passenger Leon Klinghoffer.

One-legged man can't run but can hide-8x6
THE KINDA CRAZY ONE-LEGGED MAN VERSION:

“He can’t run, but he can hide.”
       Ben Muessig
             
       American journalist
       This is Muessig’s punny opening line in an article he wrote for the Huffington Post in 2010
about a one-legged man who successfully evaded the police in Orange County, Florida on foot (literally one foot in this case) after driving recklessly through a residential community and smashing his car into a power pole.

Chicken Soup for the Fisherman's Soul
THE KINDA CREEPY GEORGE W. BUSH FISHING VERSION:

“I want to teach Gigi my young granddaughter, how to fish...Out on the boat she is captive. She can squirm, but she can’t hide. I will tell her I love her. And when she asks, ‘Are you crying?’ I’ll say, ‘Yes, but these are tears of joy. Older guys do that, Gigi.’ You can do that kind of thing when you go mackerel fishing.”
      
George H.W. Bush             
       41st President of the United States  
       An excerpt from a letter Bush wrote in September 1998, included in the book Chicken Soup for the Fisherman’s Soul
(2000), edited by Mark Victor Hansen, Ken McKowen and Dahlynn McKowen

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