So I realized as I was flipping thru my music Collection the other day, exactly how many songs were no more than revisions of older songs, or otherwise songs based strongly on other ones. The first example of this is when I remembered that Rammstein's son g "Dalai Lama" was based on a much older tune "Erlkönig" or the Elf King, which was an old German song/ poem dating back to the 1800's. The poem was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and was later turned into a Leider (musical piece) by Schubert. The story was definitely rewritten by Rammstein, however after reading a straight translation the similarities of the story stands out. In both of them a fathers fear of his sons omens of death but is unable to save him, and possibly fulfills the omens himself.

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It occured to me in our discussion of new forms of mediums (computers, virtual games, etc) that we are losing some very important ones along the way. While importance is relative, it is important to understand how we used to tell stories. THe best example of this i thought of was Ballads. Most people don't think of this term singularly anymore, but only in context, such as when discussing"the Ballad of John and Yoko" (which is no ballad) or "Rock Ballads" (which Generally aren't ballads either). THe truth is that anymore it is rare to hear a story told thru song.

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