Comment by filmgirlcw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by filmgirlcw | Hacker News Reader

I was in high school when this came out so I can recite this song word-for-word because in 1999, it was all over MTV, the radio, and most importantly, on Napster. I remember the original 1997 edit (even though I first heard it in 1999), because that was the version I downloaded off of Napster as a 15 year old.

Even back then, there were all sorts of weird attributions to it (I think that my Napster copy had a Kurt Vonnegut credits, though the author was Baz Luhrmann in the meta data) and conspiracies about it. But I remember learning fairly early that it was some newspaper column.

The other part of this is that the 7:10 version has the “Everybody’s Free” sample from Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” — which like every other 13 year old girl in 1997, was a soundtrack I knew backwards/forwards/upside down/verbatim.

Like the people on the podcast, this has remained a weird earworm that I can just recall instantly in weird places.

What a weird but great song. And as I am now in my late 30s, the advice is good!

I was also inundated with this song late in highschool. It was one of the songs that made it from whatever illicit file-sharing system into my personal library as "Baz Luhrman - Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)." I also remember the discovery process of learning that he didn't write the words. Learning that he didn't speak the text either. Learning that it was speech given to a graduating class. And learning that it wasn't a speech to a graduating class, but a column written.

We still have a library full of mislabeled music like that.

I'm in my early 40s, "Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone" comes to mind not infrequently.

I was in highschool when I first heard it too - class of 2000. I loved the song and Kurt Vonnegut. I have even played it for some friends within the last year.

I had absolutely no idea about the true origin until today.

I remember first hearing it in college, a few years after it came out. It was around the time I'd first heard of Baz Luhrmann for other reasons (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge, all of which I loved at the time), so I feel like he was in the collective consciousness of my social circles, and that increased its popularity. I remember not finding out the true origins of the prose until quite a few years later.

I hadn't known about the sampling from "Everybody's Free" from R+J! Always something new to learn.

Listening to it again today... the parts about getting to know your parents before they're gone for good (mine have both passed since I first heard the song), and being kind to your knees (I'm still recovering from a knee injury from back in January), really resonated with me. One major thing I am pleased about is that I have managed to hold on to those "precious few" close friends over the years; my life would be very different without them.

Ha, amusing to see a fan of this song. I'm class of '99 and definitely remember that this song exists now that I see this thread, but had forgotten up until today and do not remember a single word. Still love Romeo+Juliet, though, and make my wife watch Quindon Tarver (RIP) singing When Doves Cry on YouTube every few months when I think about him.

The misattribution to Vonnegut was indeed pervasive, and stupid.

You have to be a maladjusted no-lifer to get your jollies from "pranks" like that.

I mean, you just described 99.99999% of the population, especially those that participate in a discussion of a 25 year old pop song on a technical community board, or more broadly, teenagers.

More jollies and harmless pranks, I say!

But on a serious note, I reflect a lot on that song and empathize with being kinds to knees (I broke mine at 18 and decades later still feel it).

99.99999% of the population takes a work and deprives its author of credit by attributing it to someone else?

Bullfuckingshit. Don't make excuses for assholes.

You stole that last comment. ;-)

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