Beauty and Ugliness

I was reflecting last night, as to our world and what a crazy time this is.  Listening to any news of the day and you hear any number of reasons to believe that all these bad things – you know the things that I'm talking about – are causing the perception of madness and mental angst.  I wonder, however, if perhaps we don’t have cause and effect reversed.  Perhaps something is pervading our thinking, our soul, or our spirit with, for lack of a better word, an ugliness, and this, having persisted for so long, is projecting a force that is leading to all the bad things we see happening.
Take art for example – even more specifically, popular music.  Here is a list of "best song lyrics of the last decade", which was prompted by a question to the Twitter community:


https://www.buzzfeed.com/terrycarter/best-song-lyric-of-the-decade

OK, so, maybe I'm being overly judgmental, or maybe this really isn't the best representation of what is really the best of the last decade in pop music (my favorite was Lana Del Rey's "My p***y tastes like Pepsi Cola").  But here is my challenge to all of you - contrast the music and lyrics of these George and Ira Gershwin tunes below that were written and made popular during times of great economic depression, distress, and the world wars of the last century (not exactly perfect times) with anything written during your lifetime.  Tell me then that we haven't almost entirely divorced beauty from art and vice versa in recent times.

But Not For Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIB6ujTWXA

It started off so swell
This "let's pretend"
It all began so well
But what an end 
 
The climax of a plot
Should be a marriage knot
But there's no knot for me

Someone To Watch Over Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDhF-PsDuCw

Although he may not be the man some 
girls think of as handsome
to my heart he carries the key

Our Love Is Here To Stay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0tSLsHMbqg

In time the Rockies may crumble
Gibraltar may tumble
There're only made of clay
But our love is here to stay

They All Laughed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytDMtn8pylI

They all laughed at Rockefeller Center
Now they're fighting to get in
They all laughed at Whitney and his cotton gin
They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat
Hershey and his chocolate bar
Ford and his Lizzie
Kept the laughers busy
That's how people are
They laughed at me wanting you
Said it would be, "Hello, goodbye."
But oh, you came through
Now they're eating humble pie
They all said we'd never get together
Darling, let's take a bow
For ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh now?

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