Imagine That

I’ve never heard of the dude until he (insert what evah you feel here) to the song.

Kriss

“If Mr. Green deserves this much scrutiny for his trespass, then Weird Al must be history’s greatest villain.”

Uh, no. This is just a stupid thing to say. Weird Al does parody. Green committed sabotage. Parody (which requires the audience to be aware of the changes, creating a new and separate piece) and sabotage (which does not require the audience to be aware of the changes, and attempts to alter an *existing* piece) are *not* the same thing.

“I’m honestly more offended as a Beatles fan than as an atheist, but not very.”

I honestly don’t understand why the two have been placed in competition, as especially in the case of Lennon, skepticism is integral to a lot of lyrics. What made me a Beatles fan (a generation after they broke up) was watching their maturing transitions through their lyrics, and what makes me a *bigger* Lennon fan is his risky, critical, even occasionally bitter but poignant lyrics, like those in ‘I Found Out,’  ‘Working Class Hero,’ and ‘God.’

“At the end of the day, Cee Lo is the figurative walrus. An artist who can sing whatever he wants.”

Sure, he *can.* That doesn’t mean it’s not a dick move to edit such a poignant and culturally relevant piece of music.

Still think we’re missing out on a win here. He sang, “Imagine all religions true”, which implies they’re currently false.

I’d think religious leaders would be bleating out their displeasure right now.

Nah, I thought the comic was great. 🙂

You don’t have to ask permission to perform cover songs live on stage. You can alter the lyrics, music, etc to your liking. The performer doesn’t even have to pay royalties for playing cover songs during concert, the venue that hired the musician holding the concert has already paid such dues the copyright holder will be paid with.

There’s a difference when you’re recording an album to sell like Al does and when a musician plays a cover song during concert.
You clearly don’t understand the music industry rules.  😉

People do have the right to complain about it but I feel there are more pressing issues to get all bent up about than a silly musician (silly as in Cee Lo’s music sucks anyways) singing a song while changing up a few lyrics. It’s not really a big deal in my opinion. Be offended if you’re a Beatles fan but don’t act like the religious-right in how they respond to such things.  😉

It doesn’t imply that they’re currently false. Who said religions are “all true” or “all false”? The implication is, instead, that all religions are true as opposed to any particular listener’s religion being the only true one.

I was always under the impression C Lo Green was a considering agnostic. I know he was raised by two preachers in Georgia, but some of his song lyrics make me think he’s asked the big questions. I wasn’t bothered by his changing the lyrics, because if all the religions are true then the argument still exists about which god is the best and we’d be no better forward than we are now and in fact it would be completely worse. I think it’s more a disrespect to John Lennon’s intended message with that song. I also think C Lo didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I found the whole thing shrug worthy and have been watching the atheist community’s reaction with curiosity. 

However – C Lo is no Weird Al. Al is a parody genius who goes to great lengths to get permissions from artists to do his songs. You should read what he went through with Lady GaGa to get his version of “Perform This Way” done.

Actually, Weird Al is not required to ask permission to parody songs. Parody is protected speech, even for profit. He does ask permission, but only out of personal courtesy. He’s really rather awesome.

Changing that specific message in the lyrics the way he did was either poor form, a show of cowardice, or a little of both.

Well, sure permission to the artist isn’t totally necessary, but Weird Al still pays and has to pay royalty fees to the artists he parodies. If you plan to parody a song by using the tune of their lyrics and their music that happens to be owned by a copyright holder, you better ask for permission or you might have a suit handed to you before you can even hand over any royalty payments owed to the copyright holder.

So yeah, if you’re an artist, let another artist like Weird Al parody you, it’s easy money in your pocket on work you’ve already done.

I like the art

You clearly didn’t understand my point. 

 The OP makes the comparison between what Cee Lo did and what Weird Al does, I was point out the Al shows respect for the original artist and their material, nothing to do with industry rules, which are irrelevant to both in initial post, and my comment.

Er, it was nixed by her MANAGER before she even got word of it. When she heard about the song, she personally gave the go-ahead.

And by the way, I think this is perfectly illustrative of why Weird Al is an irrelevant example to point out at this point:  I bet you there is not a SINGLE PERSON who was offended by Cee Lo’s lyric but who would be offended by my little parody above.  It’s because, even though I wrote altered lyrics for Imagine, I didn’t pretend it was true to the original.  Duh.

Is it just me, or is the atheist community becoming just as big a bunch of knee-jerk reactionaries as the fundies these days?

False equivalency.

The religious right gets infuriated at the fact that things they don’t like have the temerity to exist at all, or worse to exist openly without apology.  They get angry at things like the fact that atheists were allowed to march in a holiday parade and now they have to have a talk with their children about how not everyone is exactly like them–the horror!  They get angry at the fact that it’s called a “holiday” parade and not a “holy jesus is the only reason for the season and all non-christians can suck it” (aka,  Christmas, but with the accent on CHRIST), as if acknowledging other people exist is somehow the polar opposite of only acknowledging that they exist.  They get infuriated at the idea that maybe making someone’s life a living hell to the point they commit suicide just because they are same-sex attracted may be a bad thing.  They get mad at any depiction of LGBT people that doesn’t demonize them or dismiss them.

We are getting irritated at someone selectively changing a single lyric in a famous song–the atheistic lyric–for the purpose of reversing the original artist’s intent.  It’s as if someone decided to get up and recite some poem the religious people love, but change the one or two lines about “God’s love” to something atheistic, thus flipping the intent of the poem to the polar opposite of the original poet’s intent.  They’d have a very good reason to be peeved at that.  If you don’t the original intent of the song with its original lyrics, don’t sing it.  Find something that can reflect your views without any selective editing to reverse the original intent of the song.  It’s dishonest and disrespectful, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on–but it only really ever happens to atheistic lyrics, as people bend over backward to pander to delicate religious sensibilities and are far too eager to toss all atheists, including Lennon, on the grenade to spare those sensibilities.

When we’re upset because someone was Christian and chose to sing a song that references God in a positive way (and was originally written that way and intended that way by the original artist, and not being sabotaged) at a New Year’s Celebration (that is not sponsored or funded by the government), then that will be a legitimate point.  Unfortunately for that point, we encounter the fact that believers exist every day without losing our shit at that simple fact.

You’d be amazed at how they can band together when they are beating back the Atheist Scourge.  We’re way worse because there are areas of debate that no religious person will talk about–those common areas of nonsense they all share.  Once they defeat those horrible people who ask uncomfortable questions no one else does, they can get back to destroying each other.

Equivalent to painting over Mona Lisa’s smile!

It can be.

Well, yeah, there’s a difference between “I’m going to take this song and have fun with the lyrics” and “I’m going to change this specific word/line/whatever to change the meaning of the song.”

Just… sometimes it’s fun to play.

The Supreme Court has held up parody cases before. Al just has to pay for it, he doesn’t have to ask permission.

Laughed out loud.  Good one!