Leck Mich Im Arsch (“Kiss My Ass”): Listen to Mozart’s Scatological Canon in B Flat (1782)

We all know the man­child Mozart of Milos Forman’s 1984 biopic Amadeus. As embod­ied by a man­ic, bray­ing Thomas Hulce, the pre­co­cious and haunt­ed com­pos­er sup­pos­ed­ly loved noth­ing more than scan­dal­iz­ing, amus­ing, or exas­per­at­ing friends and ene­mies alike with juve­nile pranks and scat­o­log­i­cal humor. Sure­ly a fic­tion, eh? Gross exag­ger­a­tion, no? Sure­ly Mozart com­port­ed him­self with more dig­ni­ty? Those famil­iar with the composer’s biog­ra­phy know oth­er­wise.

We have, for exam­ple, a ridicu­lous­ly dirty let­ter the 21-year-old “poop-lov­ing musi­cal genius” wrote to his 19-year-old cousin Marianne—a mis­sive Let­ters of Note pref­aces with the dis­claimer “if you’re eas­i­ly offend­ed, please do not read any fur­ther” (oh, but how can you resist?). This piece of cor­re­spon­dence is but one of many “shock­ing­ly crude let­ters” Mozart wrote to his fam­i­ly. And if these slight­ly insane doc­u­ments don’t con­vince you, we offer as fur­ther evi­dence of Mozart’s exu­ber­ant­ly child­ish sen­si­bil­i­ty the above canon in B flat for six voic­es, Leck Mich Im Arsch, which trans­lates rough­ly to “Kiss My Ass.”

One of three naughty canons com­posed in 1782 with lyrics like “Good night, sleep tight, / And stick your ass to your mouth,” this piece was dis­cov­ered in 1991 at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. Har­vard librar­i­an Michael Ochs, with a clear pen­chant for under­state­ment, said at the time: “These are minor works. They’re not the Requiem, or ‘Don Gio­van­ni.’ They were writ­ten for the amuse­ment of Mozart and his friends, and they show anoth­er side of him.” The first edi­tion of Mozart’s com­plete works, pub­lished in 1804, bowd­ler­ized the texts and removed the racy humor, chang­ing the title of Leck Mich Im Arsch to “Let us be glad!”—likely, writes Lucas Reil­ly at Men­tal Floss, “the com­plete oppo­site of what this tune means.”

Reil­ly also points out that Mozart’s “pot­ty mouth” was prob­a­bly not, as some have sup­posed, evi­dence of Tourette’s syn­drome, but rather of an espe­cial­ly strong cur­rent in Ger­man humor, shared by Johannes Guten­berg, Mar­tin Luther, and Mozart’s equal­ly bril­liant con­tem­po­rary, Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe. In fact, Leck Mich Im Arsch alludes to Goethe’s seri­ous dra­mat­ic work, Götz Von Berlichin­gen. The cho­rus reads as fol­lows in Eng­lish (see the sheet music with lyrics in Ger­man here—some bowd­ler­ized and orig­i­nal lyrics in Eng­lish at Wikipedia):

Kiss my arse!
Goethe, Goethe!
Götz von Berlichin­gen! Sec­ond act;
You know the scene too well!
Let’s sing out now sum­mar­i­ly:
Here is Mozart lit­er­ary!

Hear two addi­tion­al dirty choral pieces—Bona Nox and Dif­fi­cile Lec­tu—at Men­tal Floss. Some oth­er scat­o­log­i­cal canons thought to be Mozart’s, such as Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber (“Lick my ass right well and clean”), have since been attrib­uted to ama­teur com­pos­er and physi­cian Wen­zel Trn­ka, yet it appears that the three fea­tured at Men­tal Floss are gen­uine. And also gen­uine­ly, hilar­i­ous­ly, ado­les­cent, which must be why they appealed to the über ‑juve­nile Insane Clown Posse. In 2011, the clown-rap duo record­ed their own take on Leck Mich Im Arsch in a bizarre col­lab­o­ra­tion with for­mer White Stripe Jack White. It’s not safe for work, of course. I would­n’t rec­om­mend lis­ten­ing to it any­where else either.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New­ly Dis­cov­ered Piece by Mozart Per­formed on His Own Fortepi­ano

Read an 18th-Cen­tu­ry Eye­wit­ness Account of 8‑Year-Old Mozart’s Extra­or­di­nary Musi­cal Skills

The Recy­cled Orches­tra: Paraguayan Youth Play Mozart with Instru­ments Clev­er­ly Made Out of Trash

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Hattie McDaniel, Star of Gone with the Wind, Gives a Moving Academy Award Acceptance Speech (1940)

In 1940, Hat­tie McDaniel became the first African Amer­i­can to win an Acad­e­my Award, tak­ing home the Best Sup­port­ing Actress Oscar for her turn as Mam­my in Gone with the Wind. To quote a friend, there’s a lot hap­pen­ing in the 1:40 min­utes that doc­u­ment her accep­tance speech.

1939’s state­ly Best Sup­port­ing Actress Fay Bain­ter intro­duced the his­toric moment by not­ing, “It opens the doors of this room, moves back the walls, and enables us to embrace the whole of Amer­i­ca….”

At which point, co-star Olivia de Hav­il­land and fel­low nom­i­nees Geral­dine Fitzger­ald, Edna May Oliv­er, and Maria Ous­pen­skaya no doubt loos­ened their gir­dles and began con­tem­plat­ing their next mar­ti­nis.

McDaniel’s emo­tion­al, and inspir­ing­ly brief, remarks above don’t allude to the fact that she and her escort were seat­ed at a table near the kitchen, far from the podi­um and her fel­low Gone with the Wind cast mem­bers’ table. Two months pri­or, Geor­gia’s seg­re­ga­tion­ist laws pre­vent­ed her from attend­ing the Atlanta pre­miere. Pro­test­ers out­side the Coconut Grove awards cer­e­mo­ny decried Gone with the Wind’s depic­tion of peo­ple of col­or, McDaniel’s suc­cess­ful efforts to get the “n” word strick­en from the script notwith­stand­ing.

It would take the Acad­e­my over two decades to sin­gle out anoth­er African-Amer­i­can actor’s per­for­mance—Sid­ney Poiti­er, 1963’s Best Actor for his per­for­mance in Lilies of the Field.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Screen Tests for Gone with the Wind: What Could Have Been

Spiel­berg Reacts to the 1975 Oscar Nom­i­na­tions: ‘Com­mer­cial Back­lash!’

33 Free Oscar Win­ning Films Avail­able on the Web

80 Years of Acad­e­my Award Win­ning Films in Posters

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is spend­ing the week­end at the NYC Fem­i­nist Zine­fest. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Free App Lets You Play Chess With 23-Year-Old Norwegian World Champion Magnus Carlsen

Chess has been expe­ri­enc­ing a sur­pris­ing revival as of late, with the World Cham­pi­onships mak­ing head­lines for the first time in  years. As it was dur­ing the days of Bob­by Fis­ch­er and lat­er Gar­ry Kas­parov, the resur­gence is large­ly the doing of one man: Norway’s 23-year-old chess phe­nom, Mag­nus Carlsen. After hav­ing attained the lev­el of a grand­mas­ter at the age of 13, Carlsen had a string of spec­tac­u­lar vic­to­ries that cul­mi­nat­ed in his win over India’s Viswanathan Anand in the world cham­pi­onships this past Novem­ber. Carlsen also holds the high­est rat­ing in the game’s his­to­ry. Oh, and he beat Bill Gates in 79 sec­onds (here’s a video). What’s next for the reign­ing king of chess? A free iOS chess app, of course.

The Mag­nus Plays app, which allows users to play against a sim­u­lat­ed Carlsen, was  released this past Tues­day. If you’re wor­ried that your tech­ni­cal prowess may not stack up against the new face of chess, don’t wor­ry: the app relies on a vast data­base of moves that Carlsen used through­out the years, allow­ing you to play him any­where from the ages of 5 to 23. I’m not a par­tic­u­lar­ly adept chess play­er, but I didn’t have too much trou­ble with Carlsen at his youngest. The vic­to­ry bol­stered my con­fi­dence, so I decid­ed to skip to Carlsen’s cur­rent 23-year-old self. As much as I’d like to dis­cuss the out­come of the sec­ond game, it’s prob­a­bly best to skim over the results. Suf­fice it to say that I have room for improve­ment. Luck­i­ly, the app also has a “Train With Me” sec­tion, where Carlsen pro­vides video tuto­ri­als (some free, and some paid) on how to improve your game. If you’re feel­ing like you’ve lost a few IQ points after repeat­ed bouts with Flap­py Bird, Mag­nus Plays is a great alter­na­tive.

via Kottke.org

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Bill Gates Lose a Chess Match in 79 Sec­onds to the New World Chess Cham­pi­on Mag­nus Carlsen

A Famous Chess Match from 1910 Reen­act­ed with Clay­ma­tion

Chess Rivals Bob­by Fis­ch­er and Boris Spassky Meet in the ‘Match of the Cen­tu­ry’

Oxford’s Free Course Critical Reasoning For Beginners Will Teach You to Think Like a Philosopher

Oxford_University,_Radcliffe_Camera,_a_Reading_room_of_Bodleian_libraryWhen I was younger, I often found myself dis­agree­ing with some­thing I’d read or heard, but could­n’t explain exact­ly why. Despite being unable to pin­point the pre­cise rea­sons, I had a strong sense that the rules of log­ic were being vio­lat­ed. After I was exposed to crit­i­cal think­ing in high school and uni­ver­si­ty, I learned to rec­og­nize prob­lem­at­ic argu­ments, whether they be a straw man, an appeal to author­i­ty, or an ad hominem attack. Faulty argu­ments are all-per­va­sive, and the men­tal bias­es that under­lie them pop up in media cov­er­age, col­lege class­es, and arm­chair the­o­riz­ing. Want to learn how to avoid them? Look no fur­ther than Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing For Begin­ners, the top rat­ed iTune­sU col­lec­tion of lec­tures led by Oxford University’s Mar­i­anne Tal­bot.

Tal­bot builds the course from the ground up, and begins by explain­ing that argu­ments con­sist of a set of premis­es that, log­i­cal­ly linked togeth­er, lead to a con­clu­sion. She pro­ceeds to out­line the way to lay out an argu­ment log­i­cal­ly and clear­ly, and even­tu­al­ly, the basic steps involved in assess­ing its strengths and weak­ness­es. The six-part series, which was record­ed in 2009, shows no sign of wear, and Tal­bot, unlike some phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sors, does a ter­rif­ic job of mak­ing the con­tent digestible. If you’ve got some time on your hands, the lec­tures, which aver­age just over an hour in length, can be fin­ished in less than a week. That’s peanuts, if you con­sid­er that all our knowl­edge is built on the foun­da­tions that this course estab­lish­es. If you haven’t had the chance to be exposed to a class on crit­i­cal thought, I can’t rec­om­mend Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing For Begin­ners with enough enthu­si­asm: there are few men­tal skills that are as under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed, and as cen­tral to our dai­ly lives, as crit­i­cal think­ing.

Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing For Begin­ners is cur­rent­ly avail­able on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford web­site in both audio and video for­mats, and also on iTune­sU and YouTube. You can find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, part of our col­lec­tion of 1100 Free Online Cours­es.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life: A Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps – Peter Adamson’s Pod­cast Still Going Strong

Phi­los­o­phy Bites: Pod­cast­ing Ideas From Pla­to to Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Since 2007

Gaze at Global Movie Posters for Hitchcock’s Vertigo: U.S., Japan, Italy, Poland & Beyond

Vertigomovie_restoration

Alfred Hitch­cock’s Ver­ti­go might have been a crit­i­cal dis­ap­point­ment when it came out in 1958, but it def­i­nite­ly had one of the most eye-catch­ing poster designs in cin­e­ma his­to­ry.

The poster was designed by Saul Bass who also did the movie’s ground­break­ing title sequence. It fea­tures hand-drawn male and female fig­ures that are stand­ing before a mas­sive white spi­ral against a strik­ing orange back­ground. It might be one of the few movie posters out there that you can iden­ti­fy from 100 yards away.

Japan-Movie-Poster-Vertigo-1958

Ver­ti­go played around the world and, as you can see below, the movie’s poster changed great­ly to appeal to a local audi­ence. The dif­fer­ences are fas­ci­nat­ing.

Vertigo_Italy_4f_EnzoNistri

Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries tend­ed to keep Bass’s spi­ral while for­eign-lan­guage mar­kets large­ly did not. The Japan­ese poster plays up the roman­tic ele­ments of Ver­ti­go while the Ital­ian poster focus­es on the psy­cho­log­i­cal weird­ness of the movie. And the Pol­ish poster – which ditch­es all ref­er­ences to Saul Bass’s design and, real­ly, any­thing from the film itself – is pret­ty damned awe­some.

tumblr_mx1nuirpOe1qhsqm1o1_1280

Of course, in the years since Vertigo’s release, its rep­u­ta­tion has only grown. And in a 2012, Sight and Sound mag­a­zine put Ver­ti­go at the top of their list for Great­est Films of All Time, unseat­ing Cit­i­zen Kane. Maybe the poster had some­thing to do with that.

Bonus Poster from Bel­gium

Vertigo POSTER Alfred Hitchcock -MUST SEE- James Stewart Kim Novak BELGIAN Art

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Who Direct­ed the Psy­cho Show­er Scene?: Hitchcock’s Film & Saul Bass’ Sto­ry­boards Side by Side

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rules for Watch­ing Psy­cho (1960)

Hitch­cock (Antho­ny Hop­kins) Pitch­es Janet Leigh (Scar­lett Johans­son) on the Famous Show­er Scene

A Brief Visu­al Intro­duc­tion to Saul Bass’ Cel­e­brat­ed Title Designs

21 Free Hitch­cock Movies Online

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

Enter the Hannah Arendt Archives & Discover Rare Audio Lectures, Manuscripts, Marginalia, Letters, Postcards & More

EichmanJerusalem

The work of Han­nah Arendt has been in the press recent­ly for two rea­sons in par­tic­u­lar: first, the 50th anniver­sary of her book Eich­mann in Jerusalem, pub­lished in 1963 from reports she filed for The New York­er on the 1961 tri­al of the arche­typ­al Nazi bureau­crat. Then there is Mar­garethe von Trotta’s 2012 biopic Han­nah Arendt, star­ring Ger­man actress Bar­bara Sukowa as the Ger­man Jew­ish philoso­pher. Recent cov­er­age of the book and the film have focused on Arendt’s rep­u­ta­tion as a philo­soph­i­cal jour­nal­ist most close­ly iden­ti­fied with the famous descrip­tive phrase “the banal­i­ty of evil,” a com­ment on Adolf Eich­mann as an exem­plar of geno­ci­dal mur­der­ers who, as the well-worn defense goes, were “just fol­low­ing orders.”

Arendt schol­ar Roger Berkowitz argues that this read­ing of Arendt’s book is a pro­found mis­read­ing. Eich­mann in Jerusalem was divi­sive, set­ting crit­ics against each oth­er in efforts to vin­di­cate or cas­ti­gate its author. The con­tro­ver­sy, how­ev­er, at the time of pub­li­ca­tion and again in the recent re-eval­u­a­tion, has the unfor­tu­nate effect of obscur­ing the breadth of Arendt’s philo­soph­i­cal think­ing apart from Eich­mann and Nazism. Those inter­est­ed in con­nect­ing with Arendt’s life, schol­ar­ship, and philo­soph­i­cal insight can find a wealth of archival mate­ri­als online from the col­lec­tions of Bard Col­lege and the Library of Con­gress. Today, we high­light sev­er­al items in those col­lec­tions that may be of inter­est, includ­ing the Library of Congress’s scanned copy of the final type­script of Eich­mann in Jerusalem.

Part 1:
Part 2 (Q&A):

First, direct­ly above, hear Arendt’s speech “Pow­er & Vio­lence.” The lec­ture re-iter­ates ideas Arendt expressed more ful­ly in a lengthy 1969 essay pub­lished by the New York Review of Books as “Reflec­tions on Vio­lence” and as a book titled On Vio­lence. In the lec­ture and the essay, Arendt ref­er­ences the work of thinkers like Friedrich Engels and, espe­cial­ly, Frantz Fanon in a crit­i­cal dis­cus­sion of the roles racism and ide­ol­o­gy play in state vio­lence.

That same year Arendt deliv­ered a series of lec­tures for a Spring semes­ter course at The New School for Social Research called “Phi­los­o­phy and Pol­i­tics: What is Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy.” This fas­ci­nat­ing inves­ti­ga­tion grap­ples not only with polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, but phi­los­o­phy in gen­er­al as a mean­ing­ful activ­i­ty. You can view the full type­scripts of her course lec­tures here.

The Library of Con­gress has also dig­i­tized much of Arendt’s cor­re­spon­dence and uploaded images of her let­ters, includ­ing some to and from such well-known fig­ures as W.H. Auden, Lionel Trilling, and Alfred Kazin (most of Arendt’s let­ters are only avail­able for view­ing onsite at the Library of Con­gress, The New School Uni­ver­si­ty, or the Uni­ver­si­ty of Old­en­burg).

Bard College’s Han­nah Arendt Col­lec­tion show­cas­es many of Arendt’s per­son­al books. We can see dig­i­tized images of her copies of—among many others—Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Leo Strauss, her friend poet Robert Low­ell, Carl Schmitt, and, of course, her one­time men­tor and lover, Mar­tin Hei­deg­ger. Each of the uploads shows the pages in which Arendt under­lined or marked key pas­sages and left mar­gin­al notes.

Benjamin-Arendt

In addi­tion to the “Arendt Mar­gin­a­lia” sec­tion, Bard hosts a gallery that includes “inscribed books, jour­nals & man­u­scripts,” “art­work & pho­tographs,” and “post­cards and oth­er cor­re­spon­dence” (such as the above post­card from Wal­ter Ben­jamin, addressed to “Han­nah Stern,” her mar­ried name at the time).

Last­ly, for an excel­lent overview of Arendt’s life and work that puts all of the above mate­ri­als in con­text, see the Library of Congress’s “Bio­graph­i­cal Note” and be sure to read “Three Essays: The Role of Expe­ri­ence in Han­nah Arendt’s Polit­i­cal Thought” by Jerome Kohn, direc­tor of the New School’s Han­nah Arendt Cen­ter. As many know, Arendt, and many oth­er Ger­man Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­als who fled the Nazis, found a home at New York’s New School for Social Research (now New School Uni­ver­si­ty). And we have the New School (and an Andrew W. Mel­lon Foun­da­tion grant) to thank for the Library of Congress’s vast, dig­i­tized col­lec­tion of Arendt’s papers, which pre­serves her lega­cy for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Han­nah Arendt Dis­cuss­es Phi­los­o­phy, Pol­i­tics & Eich­mann in Rare 1964 TV Inter­view

Han­nah Arendt’s Orig­i­nal Arti­cles on “the Banal­i­ty of Evil” in the New York­er Archive

The Tri­al of Adolf Eich­mann at 50

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Rare Audio: William Faulkner Names His Best Novel, And the First Faulkner Novel You Should Read

Faulkner1

Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

My two favorite William Faulkn­er nov­els are, with­out a doubt, Absa­lom, Absa­lom! and The Sound and The Fury. After read­ers get thrust into the nar­ra­tors’ dizzy­ing streams of con­scious­ness, both books mount in ten­sion to a fright­ful, almost unbear­able pitch, before reach­ing their grim, cathar­tic cli­max­es. I’ve always felt that the white-hot inten­si­ty of the nov­els meant that, some­how, they had meant more to Faulkn­er than his oth­er writ­ings. Accord­ing to an audio record­ing of Faulkn­er him­self, it turns out that I was half right.

In 1957 and 1958, Faulkn­er served as the Writer-in-Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia at Char­lottesville, and today the school retains what is like­ly to be the largest Faulkn­er archive in the world. In addi­tion to Faulkner’s pri­vate library, orig­i­nal man­u­scripts, let­ters, and per­son­al effects, the archive also con­tains hours upon hours of Faulkner’s Q & A ses­sions, speech­es, and read­ings. In April of 1957, dur­ing a class lec­ture, a stu­dent asked Faulkn­er about his favorite nov­el. Lis­ten to the audio clip here:

Uniden­ti­fied par­tic­i­pant: Mr. Faulkn­er, what do you con­sid­er your best book?

William Faulkn­er: The one that—that failed the most trag­i­cal­ly and the most splen­did­ly. That was The Sound and the Fury—the one I worked at the longest, the hard­est, that was to me the—the most pas­sion­ate and mov­ing idea, and made the most splen­did fail­ure. That’s the one that’s my—I con­sid­er the best, not—well, best is the wrong word—that’s the one that I love the most.

The record­ings them­selves are a fas­ci­nat­ing resource, with Faulkn­er com­ment­ing wide­ly on his nov­els and sto­ries. Where else could one hear, for exam­ple, what the author con­sid­ered the best book to start with when read­ing him? Lis­ten here.

Uniden­ti­fied par­tic­i­pant: Do you think that there’s a par­tic­u­lar order in which your works should be read […]? Many peo­ple have offered a sequence. Do you think there’s a par­tic­u­lar sequence that your books should be read in?

William Faulkn­er: Prob­a­bly to begin with a book called Sar­toris. That has the germ of my apoc­rypha in it. A lot of the char­ac­ters are pos­tu­lat­ed in that book. I’d say that’s a good one to begin with.

For those inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about Faulkn­er and his writ­ing, the South­east Mis­souri State University’s Cen­ter for Faulkn­er Stud­ies is offer­ing a promis­ing MOOC called Faulkn­er 101, led by the Center’s founder, Dr. Robert Ham­blin, as well as its cur­rent direc­tor, Dr. Chris Rieger. You can sign up now. Or find count­less oth­er MOOCs in our big, ever-expand­ing list of MOOCs.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William Faulkn­er Reads from As I Lay Dying

William Faulkn­er Audio Archive Goes Online

The Art of William Faulkn­er: Draw­ings from 1916–1925

The Lyrics of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” Charted on a Dynamic Google Map

johnny cash mapped

The coun­try music clas­sic “I’ve Been Every­where” was first record­ed by Lucky Starr in Aus­tralia in 1962, then lat­er adapt­ed by Hank Snow, var­i­ous oth­er artists, and even­tu­al­ly the great John­ny Cash. The lyrics begin:

I was tot­ing my pack along the dusty Win­nemuc­ca road
When along came a semi with a high an’ can­vas-cov­ered load
“If you’re goin’ to Win­nemuc­ca, Mack, with me you can ride.”
And so I climbed into the cab and then I set­tled down inside
He asked me if I’d seen a road with so much dust and sand
And I said, “Lis­ten, I’ve trav­eled every road in this here land!”

I’ve been every­where, man
I’ve been every­where, man
Crossed the desert’s bare, man
I’ve breathed the moun­tain air, man
Of trav­el I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been every­where

I’ve been to:
Reno, Chica­go, Far­go, Min­neso­ta
Buf­fa­lo, Toron­to, Winslow, Sara­so­ta
Wichi­ta, Tul­sa, Ottawa, Okla­homa
Tam­pa, Pana­ma, Mat­tawa, La Palo­ma
Ban­gor, Bal­ti­more, Sal­vador, Amar­il­lo
Tocopil­la, Bar­ran­quil­la, and Padil­la, I’m a killer

I’ve been to:
Boston, Charleston, Day­ton, Louisiana
Wash­ing­ton, Hous­ton, Kingston, Texarkana
Mon­terey, Fara­day, San­ta Fe, Tal­lapoosa
Glen Rock, Black Rock, Lit­tle Rock, Oskaloosa
Ten­nessee, Ten­nessee, Chicopee, Spir­it Lake
Grand Lake, Dev­il’s Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete’s sake

And that’s not all of the loca­tions the nar­ra­tor trav­els to. If you chart and con­nect all of the des­ti­na­tions men­tioned in the song — as Iain Mul­lan has done in this handy, dynam­ic map — you’ll find that the singer cov­ers some 112,515 miles (or 181,075 kilo­me­ters). Even bet­ter, you can watch the trav­els take place in real-time on a Google map. Just click play, and you will be on your way.

For more trav­els on a Google map, don’t miss our recent post:

Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Turned Into Google Dri­ving Direc­tions & Pub­lished as a Free eBook

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