A Farewell from the Dean
And in the end…
My earworm mode these days is not due to insistent Christmas tunes. We keep them fairly restrained in this part of the world compared to the US. “Why is all the Christmas music in English?” Adrienne asks me. The fact is that only Americans, (with a little help of their British ancestors) made the decision to sing the end of the year on popular tunes. Of course some foreign attempts were successful: O Tenenbaum is an illustration of the ability of German Romanticism to produce world hits.
Every country celebrating the end of the year in December probably has some selection of Christmas feel-good-must-to-be-heard-until-you-get-sick songs. Just to share some shameful cultural tips, we have in France an infamously cheesy Petit Papa Noël (Little Father Christmas). It has been decades this Little Red Guy has brought “toys by the thousands” to a kid who asks him not to get a cold (Thank you Santa for not contributing to the deficit of the French Healthcare system). This being said, if you like a good debunking of seasonal festivities, French have in stock the far more enjoyable Instant X (the kind of enjoyment we take in the lyrics is unquotable here). You can top it with watching the French movie Le Père Noël est une ordure (Father Christmas is a scum) if you are really in a search-and-destroy mode as regards to the end of the year.
My current earworm is far more peaceful. My head replays a dreamy old tune from the mythical Beatles’ album Abbey Road. John Lennon once misquoted the lyrics in a way that corresponds to my mood these days: “And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give”.
Whether it is about love, excitement, experience, classes lessons or life lessons, thank you for what you gave. I am sure you have gotten a lot too.
