The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure was the father of modern linguistics. My best guess as to why he's referred to here is his idea of "the arbitrariness of the sign" -- the link between a word and the concept it signifies is arbitrary and relational. That is, it exists not on its own terms but as part of a complex and varied system: "in language there are only differences, and no positive terms." So a word like 'love' -- or, for that matter, 'game' or 'bird' -- simply can't have a universal meaning by itself. No understanding, no closure.

Holland-Dozier-Holland were the great songwriting team behind tons of Motown hits (You Can't Hurry Love, Stop in the Name of Love) that spent little time wondering whether 'love' had meaning and more time wondering why it hurt so bad.

The handclaps!

It sounds like the two men talking in this song are struggling to deal with the reality and the magnitude of love. The speaker, the unnamed 'great composer', grew up on pop music much like the kind that Holland-Dozier-Holland would have written for the Pretenders and the like, can't handle the concept that love isn't as trite and simple as music has brought him to believe. This is what leads him to kill Mr. Saussure, the great philosopher.

It's a narrative of the disillusionment that pop culture creates about what love really is, the way it cheapens and skews the ambiguous concept of love in modern society. Even pop music cannot simply love for it's beautiful complexity.

I was looking for Saussurre's cause of death and find this song

Pedantic note: that should be "Holland Dozier Holland", a reference to the Motown Records songwriting team. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland%2C_Dozier_and_Holland

downhillracer, this one is for you:

I'm just a great composer clap clap clap clap!!!

and the oscar for: best claps ever goes to.........

The sound is reminiscent of The Cars's song "Let's Go". It must be the violin and the hand claps.

"So we don't know anything You don't know anything I don't know anything about love But we are nothing You are nothing I am nothing Without love"

So fucking true. I love it.