I'm speechless!
Yeh, I know, it's not often. But this reply from Arno Carstens to an email I sent to Honda about the hilarity (and disparity) of using Blue Eyes in their Civic TV ad, has left me thus.
Hell, I'm under no illusions about what musicians need to do to make money - I just didn't expect Arno to actually use the "I have no artistic integrity" defense, ha ha ha!
This is what he wrote, as forwarded by Honda SA to me:
"With regard to Arno Carstens’ original meaning behind the song, Arno writes:
The song’s lyrics do not speak of any specific incidence or endorse violence in any way. ‘Blue Eyes’ was written as a lament to the tragedy of family murder, a relevant issue in South Africa when we first released the song in 1997. The intention in the song is to describe the tragic emotion that ensues in a family through the intensity of facing its own destruction. ‘Blue Eyes’, as with all other Springbok Nude Girl songs, does not attach any fixed meaning to any specific phrases or wording in the song, we express all of our songs with an element of ambiguity subject to personal interpretation; which is why we have never printed lyrics in any of our releases.
Now in 2007, ‘Blue Eyes’ has evolved substantially from what it was when we originally wrote it. It has become an anthem and one of our most successful songs; we perform it at the end of any SNG show as the climax of the show.
‘Blue Eyes’, over its 10 years, has clearly taken on a life of its own and seems to constitute more importance to the identity of South Africans, or what it is to be a South African, than anything else . We haven’t discussed the songs original meaning since we released it (although we did at the time), because, as we perform it every time we do a show, we don’t believe that its original meaning is relevant to it anymore."
Hell, I'm under no illusions about what musicians need to do to make money - I just didn't expect Arno to actually use the "I have no artistic integrity" defense, ha ha ha!
This is what he wrote, as forwarded by Honda SA to me:
"With regard to Arno Carstens’ original meaning behind the song, Arno writes:
The song’s lyrics do not speak of any specific incidence or endorse violence in any way. ‘Blue Eyes’ was written as a lament to the tragedy of family murder, a relevant issue in South Africa when we first released the song in 1997. The intention in the song is to describe the tragic emotion that ensues in a family through the intensity of facing its own destruction. ‘Blue Eyes’, as with all other Springbok Nude Girl songs, does not attach any fixed meaning to any specific phrases or wording in the song, we express all of our songs with an element of ambiguity subject to personal interpretation; which is why we have never printed lyrics in any of our releases.
Now in 2007, ‘Blue Eyes’ has evolved substantially from what it was when we originally wrote it. It has become an anthem and one of our most successful songs; we perform it at the end of any SNG show as the climax of the show.
‘Blue Eyes’, over its 10 years, has clearly taken on a life of its own and seems to constitute more importance to the identity of South Africans, or what it is to be a South African, than anything else . We haven’t discussed the songs original meaning since we released it (although we did at the time), because, as we perform it every time we do a show, we don’t believe that its original meaning is relevant to it anymore."
Labels: Arno Carstens, Blue Eyes, honda, springbok nude girls
posted by Zapruder | 01:34
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