I Know Why Mary Travers Died

"And how exactly are you privy to this knowledge?" you ask.

Because I'm the Ruler of the Interwebs, that's why.

"But why must you pollute our minds with non-tech related drivel such as hippy folk music?" you implore.

Patience, young Interwebs. All will be clear soon.

I was listening to the radio this morning when the DJ announced the passing of the folk musician Mary Travers. She was the Mary of Peter, Paul, and Mary, if you hadn't known that already. The DJ's spoke some words of eulogy and comfort as music from the folk group played in the background. One of those songs was "Leaving on a Jetplane," and apparently it was a big hit (I had never heard the song before). Something was triggered in the back of my mind as I listened to the small snippet of song. I recognized it from somewhere, and it was bothering me that I couldn't scratch that unscratchable brain itch.

It slowly dawned on me that I knew that song from a commercial. A very bad commercial.

Here's a clip of the original.

It's a nice little song, isn't it? Simple, sweet, typical frolicking-in-a-field-of-flowers hippy folk.

And now, the ad.

I was appalled. I knew I hated the song from that ad, but I did not know it was a cover of a venerable hippy anthem of Peter, Paul, and Mary. That's almost as bad as Target putting up an ad where the Jonas Brothers are covering Hello Goodbye by the Beatles! It bothers me that someone would want to take a song that is perfectly OK as it is, "enhance" the sound to meet the current tastes of young America, and play a horrible, hollow, cover of it, so bad it makes me laugh. We really didn't need that horrifying "garage metal" cover of a piece of music known and loved my so many shoved down our throats by some big corporation that thinks we'll like it better.

But wait, isn't that just what Bing really is? It's a sham of a "decision engine" claiming that the previous generations of search engines just aren't good enough for the young, hip Americans on the Interwebs. It's taking tried and true methods of the search engine foundations (I speak of Google and WolframAlpha here), and releasing a horrible "hip" version of it that might snag the naive young. They broadcast this drivel through all media outlets, cramming their inadequacy down our throats, and when you type in "Windows is expensive," it returns "Macs are expensive" as the first result.

I'm convinced Mary Travers died when she realized her lovely music was being pillaged by a ruthless organization willing to sacrifice her handiwork for the sake of advertising a bad search engine.

Bing killed Mary Travers. Shame on you, Bing. I hope you've learned your lesson.