T w e n t y S i d e d
More on that in a minute. I decided to try using Opera on Linux instead of Firefox. My motivation is the influence Google has been exerting on Firefox coupled with suspiciously-rapid “updates” over the last couple of months or so. Of course, I want to be clear: choosing Opera over Firefox because of problems with Google’s influence is a bit like saying “I don’t like how General Motors controls Opel so I’ll buy a Chevy instead.” Firefox is still based on the Gecko engine; Opera is built on Chromium. As in, Chrome. I have, however; accomplished some of the things I needed to do in order to move on to maybe a more secure and less-Google influenced browser, like maybe LibreWolf. Most importantly I broke my dependence on Firefox’s sync settings, and the Linux version of Opera (in my experience so far) WILL NOT import ANYTHING from any external browser. Or rather, at least; the EASY way. It won’t detect that I have Firefox installed. I had to manually export bookmarks to a file then import it. And since I’ve been meaning to move all my Firefox-stored passwords to Bitwarden for a while, I finally went through that process. After some setup Opera works…fine. I have noticed that it slows down after a while doing playlist management in YouTube, but some things work better on Opera than on Firefox, like video redirects on some sites. Certain ones don’t work on Firefox; they do on Opera. Bit of a surprise honestly, because I thought they were just broken. I will likely try LibreWolf sooner rather than later. Firefox works *well* for me, I just want to get further away from Google.
When I talk about songs named “Forever Young” I want to acknowledge there are, of course, more than two. Many songs have the same title. Constraining the list to popular, well-known, successful songs does limit the range a bit more. For instance, Jay-Z released a song in 2010 called “Young Forever” which re-works one of the two songs I’m talking about. In fact, the first-released song has been so extensively covered I wouldn’t be surprised if, especially in America, the original release is barely remembered.
In fact the first song *I* remember called “Forever Young” was released by Rod Stewart in 1988. “Forever Young” was co-written with two band members and was about Stewart’s two children, Sean and Kimberly. Stewart, as a working and, more specifically, *touring* artist had missed most the previous few years of his children’s lives. The lyrics come off as a bit melancholic despite essentially being a litany of well-wishes for his kids. UNFORTUNATELY when the song was done, someone pointed out that it was essentially a recreation of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” from 1973. Not identical, but honestly you can record exactly the same song as Dylan WORD FOR WORD and get something completely different. Case-in-point, parody artist and humorist Don Bowman recorded an effectively identical version of “Alice’s Restaurant” that comes off as pure comedy by Bowman while the original makes its satire and commentary clear. Same words, same structure, same music. Same performance. Different voices. I’m not even sure the intention was different; Don Bowman is just inherently funny, and you expect funny things from him. And “Alice’s Restaurant” *is* funny. Anyway, the point is Rod sent a copy of the lyrics or a recording, the story is different on the source, and told Dylan that honestly, truly, he wasn’t trying to rip Dylan off and they could share songwriting credits, which Bob Dylan agreed to.
The lyrics are as follows:
May the good Lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
Surround you when you’re far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As you’d have done to youBe courageous and be brave
And in my heart, you’ll always stay
Forever young [ECHO-forever young]
Forever young [ECHO-forever young]May good fortune be with you
May your guiding light be strong
Build a stairway to Heaven
With a prince or a vagabondAnd may you never love in vain
And in my heart you will remain
Forever young [ECHO-forever young]
Forever young [ECHO-forever young]
Forever young [ECHO-forever young][Instrumental Break]And when you finally fly away
I’ll be hoping that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime
No one can ever tellBut whatever road you choose
I’m right behind you, win or lose
Forever young [ECHO- forever young]
Forever young [ECHO-forever young]
Forever young [ECHO-forever young]
For, For, ever young
Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while
Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?Let us die young or let us live forever
We don’t have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music’s for the sad menCan you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders, we’re getting in tune
The music’s played by the mad menForever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, and ever
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever youngSome are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later, they all will be gone
Why don’t they stay young?It’s so hard to get old without a cause
I don’t want to perish like a fading horse
Youth’s like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are foreverSo many adventures couldn’t happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
We let them come trueForever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, and ever
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, and everForever young, I wanna be forever young
Do you really want to live forever? (Forever)
- Can you imagine how we won the war?
- Little fascist lady she loves you so
- Following her leader, she’s getting in tune
- The music’s played by the madmen
The producers didn’t like that one, so like an American adaptation of a Japanese monster movie, the lyrics were nebulized a bit. But to be fair to Germany, especially 40 years ago, the original version was likely getting very close to breaking the law. Beyond that, considering they were planning to release the song in Britain that second line may have been the *most* “on the nose” of any of the lyrics. Taken in conjunction with the third line, I can imagine the producers seeing official complaints coming in rather than sales.
Good grief, breaking out of that embedding was a nightmare. So, Rod Stewart’s “Forever Young” is a whimsical blessing for good fortune to his young children, and Alphaville’s release is a Cold War anti-fascist protest song about the destruction of the world through Nuclear War. I feel even more foolish for spending so many years dismissing them as “the same song, somehow.” That shows what not listening to the lyrics can do. They’re both catchy, and both only had one or two lines that stuck with me; not enough to judge either song. I mean, I kinda got the point of Stewart’s just from the era it was released in…most of his stuff sounded like that at the time. And again, I will remind the reader that even though I had likely heard Alphaville’s version, or at least a cover; I didn’t start paying attention until after 2011, at least. The Tiffany cover struck me almost immediately as “different, somehow” but I didn’t start looking into that difference until years later.
So, you know; *do* that. You never know what you may find.
The Best of 2011
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2011.
Silver Sable Sucks
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
Trusting the System
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
Rage 2
The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.
The Best of 2019
I called 2019 "The Year of corporate Dystopia". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Alphaville’s song is the one I think of when hearing the title. I watched the video of Rod Stewart’s you embedded, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.
For context, I’ve lived in France pretty much all my life, and you can still regularly hear Alphaville’s on the radio.
On the other topic: I loved Opera until ~15 years ago, but now it is on my list of banned browsers along with Brave and Arc.
Outside of the 4 big ones (firefox, chrome, edge & safari) there are not many good alternative, so my browser of choice for a few years now has been Vivaldi. Another webkit based browser, but one I trust much more than the other alternatives.
That matches what I’ve read of the popularity of the two songs. Alphaville’s version is STILL big in Europe; Rod Stewart’s in America.
Opera got deleted this morning. I was on Opera for the few days I researched and wrote this post, and the playlist management in YouTube was just awful. The browser kept getting bogged down quickly. Single-page browsing was fine; in fact I shared that somethings worked that don’t in Firefox. But not being able to comfortably run YouTube playlists is a big modifier of my workflow.
I’m back on Firefox for now, but will likely try LibreWolf as I mentioned.
What’s wrong with Brave?
They did very shady things related to ads right from the start (replacing website ads with ones that gave them revenue), and since then they went full cryptobro mode which is a no-go for me.
Ah fair enough. I use the android version on my phone to avoid ads, which seems to work. Not noticed anything else out of the ordinary.
I had heard that myself, but never tried it. Good to know.
Alphaville’s version is also where my mind immediately went (and now I have it stuck in my head, thank you). To be fair, I am of a Certain Demographic and Alphaville’s Forever Young is consistently in my top 5 favorites list of New Wave music.
I’ve not seen commentary like this in quite a while. I’m glad to see it again.
Comes and goes. I was browsing through what I’ve written and seems to cycle in and out. Kind of weird that the current round of inspiration hits right as the heat does. I’ve actually got another new game going, too. (Next to Sable, which hasn’t warranted further comment. Yet.)
Well, this brings up a bit of High School trauma… I was initially pleased when I heard that the theme of our prom in 86/87 was going to be “Forever Young” – that was a nice light-hearted song, even if it was Rod Stewart. But, as this article reveals, it was the other one… So, for a prom for people graduating high school, a somber song about war and death. Whee.
Hey, chances are they heard the song like many people did, as a dance number.
If they *did* understand the song, that is indeed a bit of a bummer. But impressive.
I grew up in Canada in the 80s and I only know the Alphaville version, although I was vaguely aware that there are other songs of the same name.
Firefox quietly removing the “we promise not to sell your data” line from their TOS was extremely disappointing to me. I’m still going back and forth on what browser to use. Good luck with your own search (This is posted from work, so Chrome is in use, but I only use Chromium for Youtube on my home Linux PCs – yes, I use separate browsers for separate purposes. That’s how much of a nerd I am.)
Oh, and as I am from Europe, Alphaville’s song was the one I thought of when reading the title. It was on the nose then, but also relevant now. History sure rhymes.
Exactly what I was thinking reading the lyrics.
Oh, is that what’s happened with firefox? Well crap.
And *so far* no has proved they ARE selling anything. But it’s a very notable change, especially since Google was literally pressuring them to do exactly that.
And that’s why I’m (slowly) disconnecting myself from any “official” Firefox utilites and functions.