Forget You

[panerd]

Background: I teach 6th grade and there was a project due which involved a multimedia presentation. One of the projects was phenomenal but had the song "Forget You" playing during the background of it. I would like to use it as an example of a great project but wonder if I should do something about the song. Is this version basically accepted by society as being different than the original "Fuck You"? Even if it is, is it acceptable at a school? Are 6th graders even aware of the double song lyrics? I am pretty sure I am being naive about the third question but don't know if I am being prude or diligent about the first two. My only worry is that if I told them to change the song that I may create a problem that didn't exist previously.

[Radii]

A good friend of mine posted this as his facebook status a couple days ago:

Kid: Daddy who is the most hated man in America?
Dad: Well, a month ago I would have said Osama bin Laden.
Kid: Now that he is dead is it Cee-lo Green?
...Dad: Probably.
Kid: I thought so.

Kid is in elementary school. I asked him about it later and he said he has no earthly idea why it came up but that "kid is well aware of both versions of the song"

Take that for whatever you will :D

[Barkeep49]

Putting on my Director of Educational Technology hat,

I would say that most 6th graders, and even 5th graders, know perfectly well both versions of the song, but that alone shouldn't stop you from using it as an example. To me the bigger issue would be whether the kids have a concept of copyright/fair use in this project. The odds are that the project would meet fair use criteria, but did the student consider that before using the material? Either way I would feel OK using it, but I am also at a private school with a history of progressive education. The cultural of your school might dictate otherwise and if it does, I would consider asking the kid to give you a different version of the project with a song that would raise less hackles so you could still use it as an example.

[RainMaker]

They use the song for advertisements on NBC, so I don't think it'd be a problem.

[Ksyrup]

That was one of th songs regularly played before games and between innings during middle school softball games here.

[Ajaxab]

I might go at the issue by asking whether the song fit with the project. Was the project related to revenge, jealousy, turning 60s music into something for 2011? Then the song could make sense in the context of the activity. Or was it background music in the truest sense? If so, why was it there in the first place? Why not some other song that would more accurately reflect what the students were doing? Choosing another more appropriately relevant song would make the project that much better.

As a 6th grader, I probably wouldn't have thought about fitting the song with the content of my work. I would have picked a song because I liked it. But this might be a teachable moment where you could talk about the importance of having every single element of a project fit together tightly. If the song doesn't contribute to the project's overarching goal, then something else can and should be chosen.

[Marc Vaughan]

Background: I teach 6th grade and there was a project due which involved a multimedia presentation. One of the projects was phenomenal but had the song "Forget You" playing during the background of it. I would like to use it as an example of a great project but wonder if I should do something about the song. Is this version basically accepted by society as being different than the original "Fuck You"? Even if it is, is it acceptable at a school? Are 6th graders even aware of the double song lyrics? I am pretty sure I am being naive about the third question but don't know if I am being prude or diligent about the first two. My only worry is that if I told them to change the song that I may create a problem that didn't exist previously.

If the song lyrics have been changed to make them PC/acceptable then whats the problem exactly? ... not really seeing a problem here myself ....

(or are you indicating that they shouldn't have pollute the purity of the original song and you'd prefer them to replace it with the original 'Fuck You'? ;) )

PS - Any links to the song for me ... I'm intruiged now :D

[JonInMiddleGA]

Background: I teach 6th grade and there was a project due which involved a multimedia presentation. One of the projects was phenomenal but had the song "Forget You" playing during the background of it. I would like to use it as an example of a great project but wonder if I should do something about the song. Is this version basically accepted by society as being different than the original "Fuck You"? Even if it is, is it acceptable at a school? Are 6th graders even aware of the double song lyrics? I am pretty sure I am being naive about the third question but don't know if I am being prude or diligent about the first two. My only worry is that if I told them to change the song that I may create a problem that didn't exist previously.

I'd say it's pretty much accepted. A third version (Thank You) is being used by Duracel in an ad campaign (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/cee-lo-records-thank-you-for-volunteer-firefighters-20110509) for crying out loud. Once the song appeared on Glee, I'd say it cleared the "most kids know", since those who didn't were surely told by the ones who did.

So with the possible exception of those whose parents buy them Kids' Bop CD's, the kids know there's more than one version ;)

[Alan T]

So with the possible exception of those whose parents buy them Kids' Bop CD's, the kids know there's more than one version ;)


I fall in this category. With a 6 year old and 4 year old, we definitely go the kids bop route. I didn't even know there was a different version than the forget you one :)

I don't have any idea if my 10 year old knows or not, never even knew or thought to ask her.

[RainMaker]

I second not knowing there was a different version of that song.

[Ksyrup]

Seriously?! The original was huge what, a year or so ago? It kinda went away as novelties tend to do, but I guess they realized it had potential beyond that, regrouped, rerecorded/edited parts of it, and released it again.

I feel like I'm 35 again!

[Sun Tzu]

I had no idea the song existed until AI Season 10 auditions, to be honest. Even then, all I knew was that this one song kept being sung by kids all over the place. Up until about two weeks ago, I had no idea that there was an original un-edited version.

[Ksyrup]

I swear we had a thread about it around here, but maybe not. I know the original video was posted in the YT thread - the one with just the lyrics, not the real video they made later. There were a bunch of articles on CNN and other news outlets at the time, because it was undeniably a popular song, but no radio station could play it.

[Passacaglia]

There was definitely talk of it around here -- I think it was in a what are you listening to thread.

[Rizon]

I thought it was this song. Never heard of any others.

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yem9BXMLv6E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[JonInMiddleGA]

I had no idea the song existed until AI Season 10 auditions, to be honest. Even then, all I knew was that this one song kept being sung by kids all over the place. Up until about two weeks ago, I had no idea that there was an original un-edited version.

And I'm the other end of the spectrum, knowing about the original but having no clue there was a cleaned-up version until months later.

[Ryan S]

Seriously?! The original was huge what, a year or so ago? It kinda went away as novelties tend to do, but I guess they realized it had potential beyond that, regrouped, rerecorded/edited parts of it, and released it again.

I think that both were released at the same time as "Forget You" was a number 1 in the UK last summer.

The unedited original would have been made for the album, with the edited version made for radio/tv. The UK album has both versions of the song.

[gstelmack]

I had no idea the song existed until AI Season 10 auditions, to be honest. Even then, all I knew was that this one song kept being sung by kids all over the place. Up until about two weeks ago, I had no idea that there was an original un-edited version.

Well, until I finally was bored enough to click in this thread, I had no idea either version existed.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Original released 8/19/10 (unofficial YouTube version same day)
Official video released 9/1/10
Forget You version released 9/14/10
"F U" version released 9/21/10
UK Radio version released 10/4/10
"Lady Killer" album released 11/5/10 (US has original only, Int'l version has both versions)

As a single, more than 3.7 million copies sold, just over 2m of those in 2011.

Fuck You - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck_You)!
Wiki is our friend :)

[DanGarion]

This is just like the BEP song, Let's Get Retarded.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I blame Veins of Jenna. It was their cover that I actually saw/heard first, otherwise I was only vaguely aware of the original (or the radio edit of the original).