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Rebel without a cause!

Friday, October 19, 2007

Heaven mustve programmed you

Cat Steven's sings Love/Heaven... a beautiful song.
I was curious of the use of the word 'programmed' in the song though as the song is from the 70s. Maybe a computer geek can have an answer.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZM9zKyDz4ko

2 comments:

nevermind said...

Hi, long time. Hope everything is well with you, Sreekumar. The song's not from the 70s, but was the first single he released as Yusuf Islam in 2006 (2005? not quite sure about the year), which then went onto become part of 'An Other Cup' (funny syntax, that, can't quite figure out what he was trying to say).

However, 'programming' was very much part of the popular lexicon in the 70s. The context stemmed partly from the 60s counterculture's preoccupation with the fear that public in the West was headed towards becoming 'pre-programmed robots/automatons' (both very 70s terms, incidentally) with little capacity to think freely. The wider context included Nixon, McCarthy and Cold War politics which emphasized a 'you're either with us or against us' mentality. Robotics was becoming a preoccupation with scientists, and in fiction, Isaac Asimov was emerging as a force. Check out ' I, Robot' and 'The caves of steel'. Bands preoccupied with such stuff, apart from Floyd, included the Alan Parsons Project. Check out 'Psychobabble', 'Eye in the Sky' etc. You got me on a favourite period in history, sorry:) Could go on and on. Was born in the 70s, you know.

milieu said...

Hi,
Thanks for the comment and I am doing fine. That was a mistake on my part. Was also thinking about another song of his sung in 70s and got confused. Thanks for pointing that out!
Yes, now that you point out, it is indeed true that such words were in lexicon though they might be associated with a slightly different context.
That was a great refresher on the 70s!
Hope you are doing well too.