The title is the first joke on «Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar... Philosophy Through Jokes» that introduces us to the concept of philosophy of Language. It encapsulates one of the most intriguing authors of the XX century - Ludwig Wittgenstein. For him, every philosophical problem was just a linguistic imprecision and if we could solve those imprecisions, there was no longer a problem.
His work is complex and touches on an overlooked reality that we all use on a day-to-day basis. We think and communicate with each other by language. In «Sapiens», Harari describes writing as the big cogntive revolution that gave us the possibility to store data for future generations. Language became the steering wheel of a fast evolution and survival.
There are many kind of languages and linguistic games that we constantly play and intertwine with eachother. Two of those languages are <social natural language> and <music>. Social natural language is the reality we use on a day-to-day basis, created by the society we live in - for example, english is a language constructed socially. But there are more formal languages, like mathematics. Music is an hybrid reality that has some social constructions but also lives from the formal language of mathematics.
For music theorists it´s easy to say that there are some strict rules that we must obey, like tempo, scales, harmony. If musicians don´t respect those a concert becomes the fall of the Babel Tower. But at the same time, many artists have defied this primal rules and we still call it music - infamous for this is Captain Beefhart. The musical evolution began to connect our social language with music and those turn into a popular method nowadays.
This mix of languages turn the meaning and the knowledge expressed in something new that can not be replicated. My favourite example is maybe "Here Comes Your Man" by the Pixies. the song has an happy and catchy jingle with simple chords. But if we take a closer look into the lyrics we see a harsh reality:
Outside there's a box car waiting
Outside the family stew
Out by the fire breathing
Outside we wait till face turns blue
The lyrics describs the place we usually find homeless people living and their activities - Staying outdoors freezing, waiting for a friendly handout, seeing people ignoring them or being nervous near them. This is not a happy environment for them who sometimes are just waiting to die and not be noticed. But along that sad description, there´s still this friendly jingle on the background that contradicts the lyrics and bring us to ignore the sad reality. We know that the problem is there, but we still sing happily "Here Comes Your Man", even if it means the death of that person. I think the song is genius for representing not only how a pop song works, but how the society deals with this problem.
The point is, the mix of languages is not a new thing, but is a very powerful tool to bring creativity to our culture. Music already can send a feeling to the listener, but adding lyrics brings a totally new meaning never used before. Prometheus stole this fire of the gods, now use it (carefully).
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