May 5, 2025 • 18 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: neuroscientist, musician, and best-selling author of This is Your Brain on Music, Dan Levitin!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. What word
might come before dump, rot, fart, or freeze? What is
a word the same word in all four cases that
might precede the words dump, rot, fart, and freeze. I
know it sounds a little naughty, but it's not the answer.
(00:24):
And more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, and
welcome back to the Puzzler Podcast. The shark tooth hanging
from your puzzle Puuka shell Necklace. I'm your host, AJ Jacobson.
I'm here with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Fliska. Greg. Before
(00:47):
the break, we asked the following brain teaser, what word
might proceed dump, rot, fart, or freeze? And the answer
to that, I.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Don't know, but it's happened in my house today. Whatever
it is, Yes, it's an interesting collection of things dump rot, fart,
or freeze, And even my eleven year old could tell
you the answer is brain brain dump, brain rot, brain fart,
brain freeze. Brain rot is the thing my kids are
really obsessed with, because that's the term for all the
(01:19):
Internet slang. They use skibbitty and ohio and phantom tax
and all that jen Alpha internet based slang is now
under the title of brain rot.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Right, brain rod is what we're all And the way
to fight brain rot is to read our guest book
and listen to the puzzler, of course. And with that,
I am going to bring in our expert because he is.
He is an expert on the very organ we're talking about,
and he's an esteemed scientist, author of several best selling books,
(01:51):
including This Is Your Brain on Music and The Organized Mind.
Welcome Dan Levitton, Thank.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You, thank for having me. I answered the question differently.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh what do you got?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Dry?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Dry rot, dry duck? You know when a dump truck
goes away from a site empty, right, it's a dry duck. Okay,
dry fart, which is better than the opposite. And then
dry freeze, which we talk a lot about in Canada
where I live part of the time, because it can
(02:26):
freeze without there being rain or moisture and the ground
becomes dry frozen and you can't shovel during the winter
there when the ground is minus thirty five degrees.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, that is great, you get extra bonus points. Look
at that, well done.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I bet there's another thing you could stick in front
of those four words too. I bet We've got listeners
right now thinking what about Lasagna, Lazagna.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Work, Lasagna rocks. And that's what happened to me yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
There we go, Lazania dump.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean, come on, well, send them in people. We
need your ideas of the puzz dot com. But in
the meantime, Daniel, we are delighted to have you. It's
nice to be had, Yeah, indeed, and we are. You're
a former musician. You've written a lot about how music
affects the brain. Have you looked into how puzzles affect
(03:18):
the brain?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I mean a little bit actually so in my book
Successful Aging, a neuroscientist explores the power and potential of
our lives, I was interested in the well known trope
that you should do crossroad puzzles when you get older.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yes, And it turns out that.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It's sort of partly right, and it applies to other
puzzles like Sudoku or wordle or what have you, if
you have never done them before, and you start when
you're older. By older, I mean I don't know, fifty five, sixty,
seventy eighty, you're exercising brand new brain muscles and it's
neuroprotective it's healthful, healthful as well as helpful. It can
(04:02):
fend off the effects of Alzheimer's. But if you've been
doing them all along, really all that you're doing. If
you can keep doing crossword puzzles as well, you're amusing yourself.
You're getting a little bit better at crossword puzzles. But
it's not mind stretching in the way that a new
puzzle would be.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, that's why our podcast is so helpful. We have
new kinds of puzzles every day. So yeah, everybody, we
are help in the world.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm really intrigued by this though, So it means if
I've been doing puzzles all my life, I need to
find something else to do with the new puzzles. I mean,
they're everything. I mean.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
The way I think about it, Greg is I approach
life as a series of puzzles. So I've got a
hydranger that I love and it's not doing so well,
and I wanted to take a clipping from it and
see if I could generate a new hydrangea. And so
the puzzle is, can you do that? What's the best
way to do it? Is that better than buying a hydrangea? Well,
(04:58):
I've already bought one and didn't do well.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That is the motto of the Puzzler Book and the
Puzzler Podcast is life is a puzzle. Yes, And Quincy Jones,
the great, late great music producer, said I don't have problems,
I have puzzles. Yes, so he reframed his problems as puzzles.
We are big, big fans of that, so we are
delighted that you are too. But we also have a
(05:24):
literal puzzle, or a musical puzzle in this case, and
I'm going to turn it over to Greg who is
going to give it to you.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Doesn't involve a B flat major seven sharp eleven with
the suspended thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Oh, you know it can if you have an instrument
near by and you want to play along with yourself,
you could certainly do that. I don't think any of
these songs have that chord in them though. Now this
is actually inspired by your book. This is your Brain
on Music, But instead of looking at how music affects
your brain, we're putting your brain, or really anyone's brain,
(05:57):
into pieces of music. So each of the answers is
a famous song with a body part in the title,
but you replace body part with brain, okay, and I'll
give you a clue to the altered song and you
give me the title. So, for example, if I said
there's a Beatles song about a medical examiner who loves
lifting out the gray matter of her subjects, that would
(06:20):
be I want to hold your brain. All right, here's
your first one. Huey Lewis and the News wrote this
song celebrating New York, Los Angeles and the smart music
that is made in those cities.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
The brain of rock and roll is still beating.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
The brain of rock and roll exactly. The old boy
may be barely thinking, but the brain of rock and
roll is still beating, all right. The who sang this
ballad about what's going on on the other side of
very very cold cerebellums, and it's about the lyric is
(06:56):
no one knows what it's like.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Ahh to be the sad man behind a blue brain, behind.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Blue brains exactly instead of behind blue eyes. Yeah, very good.
Neil Young once sang I've been to USC, I've been
to Mi t I crossed the ocean for this.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Huh oh, I got this one.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah for a brain of gold exactly. I was gonna
sing it, but you got it. Instead of Heart of Gold. Yeah,
very good. You actually went to MIT am I right,
I did? Weah, very good. Did you ever participate in
the MIT Mystery Hunt?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
No, but I sang with the MIT a cappella group
the logarhythms A very good.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Very appropriate, very appropriate. Well, you know, do you know
the Mystery Hunt. It's the giant puzzle event that takes
place my I don't know when you graduated. That started
in the seventies, and it's could have.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Been before my time, or I just didn't know about it.
I started there in seventy five, got it?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Got it? So it's it's and it started sometime in
that span. But now thousands of people to send on
the campus and it takes a whole weekend of Yeah,
that sounds fun. Well, you're welcome anytime to come join
my team, remotely or in person. All right, let's do
another one of these. This song is sung by Albert
Einstein as he goes down with the Titanic. It's in
(08:24):
the movie of the same name.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Actually the most famous song.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I don't know those songs. It's in the movie. It's
a it was a Celene Dion hit.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
It's the same, isn't it the same body part as
the previous question.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
But we know it's a brain. It's going to be
a brain.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's going to be a brain. It was real.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
It's really a heart.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah, I have to.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I don't know the Selene dion Ouvre, okay, and I
don't know the Titanic soundtrack.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I'm sorry to disappoint. Well, that's all right, ag Do
you know this one?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I am guessing it is my brain will go on,
not my heart.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Brain will go on, My heart will go on, all.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right, which is interesting. I mean, the brain gets screwed
because everyone says, oh, the emotions are in the heart,
but mostly they're in the brain. So the poor brain,
I guess it's not as it's hard to say. You
gotta choose between your brain and your brain as opposed
to your heart and your brain.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Remember the old George Carlin song what's that? I'll send
my sinuses to air Arizona. I'll send my liver to
per Rue, I'll send my lungs and my kidneys for
the summer to Sydney. But I'm sending my heart to you.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Oh lovely, I love it.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
All right. Here's another one for you. This is a
raspy voiced Kim carn song about the actress who starred
in Whatever Happened to Baby Cranium.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, she had Betty Davis brains.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Betty Davis brains exactly instead of Betty Davis eyes. So
I asked my family to help out with some songs
because I didn't want them to be all songs that
an old guy like me knows. So here's one. This
is a Destiny's Child song that celebrates someone's beautiful round
(10:24):
skull and has the lyrics I don't think you're ready
for this gray matter? Do you know this song? I
don't think you're ready for this gray matter. I don't
think you're read for this gray I don't think you're
ready for Well, it's not the brain, it's at the
other end of the body. Booty booty. Yes, do you
know the song booty Delicious becomes rainy delicious? Nice? I
(10:49):
thought that was a good one. What about ROBERTA flax
Ode to a New Patience mri.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Oh, okay, killing me softly with his brain?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Good? No, a different vert of flak song?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Okay, because where is the where is the brain you
said you gave to me?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
No, it's got to start with a it's gotta have
a body part in it, to begin with the changes
to brain. Oh okay, and I don't trying to think
of another lyric.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
How about.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, I don't know if I can. It's the first.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Time, first time ever, I saw your brain.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Exactly instead of your face. There you go. Do you
remember the Sir Mix a Lot classic that opens with
the line, oh my god, Becky, look at her cerebral cortex.
She looks like one of those rap guy's girlfriends.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
I like Sir Mix a Lot, but I don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
It's I think that's the only thing I do remember
from Sir Mix a Lot. I could not name any
of his other one.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Give me a clue for the first word.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
First word is baby, and it's just another booty song.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It's another booty song, but it's a different term for booty.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
It's not booty, it's a heiney.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It's actually a term for a different part of the body,
but in this case it refers to the booty.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So oh interesting. So it's not heinee or bum.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
No, but a little higher, higher, little higher right here,
if you go from the bomb and just go straight nor.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Straight north of the bum and it also referres a
it's a word like neck or shoulder, but.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
A bag area there the cad.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yes, oh she got she got back, baby got baby
got back, baby got brain.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Exactly you got back? Is the original baby got brain?
All right, let's do one more of these body rate
sings about when the moon passes in front of your head. Oh,
celestial event, right, so big celestial I normally when the
moon passes in front of them.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Oh any clips? Yeah, so you don't mean Bonnie Rae.
You mean Bonnie Tyler.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We'll just totally totally clips of the brain.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Totally clips of the brain, and we'll just edit it
to make it sound like I said, Bronnie Tayler.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
No, I think if I get to make mistakes, you get.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
To back out of and the clips of his brain
a little brain, far brain.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I was like, totally clips of the brain. Very good though.
I like that one.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Can I ask the doctor one quick question which I've
always wondered, how much of harmony is culturally relative and
how much is innate? Like, are there other cultures where
something that sounds harmonious to us would be they would
find really cacophonous? Or is it that everyone finds harmony
(13:56):
the same great question.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
You know, it's entirely culturally relative. And Greg can tell
you that even within our own culture, what we today
might consider the most beautiful of chords a major seven, say,
played by Bill Evans on the piano, in any voicing
where maybe the seventh in the octave and the seventh
and the root are next to each other in the
middle in a first and version or even a second
(14:21):
version where it's spread out, and the time of bach
that was considered dissonant.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh interesting, And so our ears have changed.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And if you listen to the music of the Cameroon pygmies,
which sounds very dissonant to our ears, they find that
very consonant. So it's entirely cultural. And I would I
would say by analogy, AJ, it's like language.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
To our ears.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
French sounds like a beautiful language. Russian tends to sound
a little less beautiful.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Part of that is cultural.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Association with France being a seed of culture and high
art and taste, and Russia being kind of Cold War
carryover of Russian being an enemy of the United States.
But you know, I think Russians find their language beautiful
and the French may find Portuguese are Italian more beautiful
(15:21):
than theirs?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Interesting?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I was just kind of add agent. I did a
what it used to do, a workshop with teachers from
around the world on creating original opera with kids, and
we would have them write pieces of music to convey
different emotions. And it was a fascinating exercise because they
would then play the music, people would guess the emotions.
And these two Jordanian teachers got up and played the
(15:45):
thing they'd written, and all the American teachers were like, oh,
that sounds that sounds suspicious. That sounds, you know, maybe evil,
but certainly not entirely trustworthy. And of course the two
Jordanian teachers meant the music to sound sympathetic and friends
and write in their cultural context. What they had written
was meant to be welcoming, and a lot of the
(16:07):
Western ears heard it totally fascinating. Yeah, yeah, there are
a lot of cases of that.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
In the film Apocalypse Now you see a cultural divide
in facial expressions where the Vietnamese villagers or Lautians, Cambodians,
whatever it is who are their huts are being invaded
by American soldiers. They're making a facial and body gesture
of conciliation, but the soldiers misinterpreted as defiance.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well fascinating, I love it. We're going to talk more
about music, and about your own music because you started
as a musician, I believe, yeah. And what instruments did
you play?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I started on piano and then moved to clarinet, and
then in seventh grade, the teacher wanted to start a
jazz band stage band, you know, twenty piece stage band,
and he asked me to take up tenor sacks, which
I played for many years. In fact, my first professional
(17:09):
gig was on tenor sacks, backing up mel Tormet in
his big band.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Wow nice, I love it all right, Greg, Do you
have an extra credit for the folks at home?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I do. I do, actually have two, I'm saying for
the extra credits. First one is the Weekend Sings and
I know she'll be the death of me. My head
is going numb and she'll always get the best of me.
The worst is yet to come? And what's the title
of that song? And the second one is Tony Braxton
(17:41):
R and B ballad about someone who's head was metaphorically
shattered by some tough math problems and she wants it
put back together.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Okay, now, both of those are songs with brain in them.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
To remind both songs with other body parts, and you've
got to replace those with brain.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Excellent. Well, come back tomorrow to find out the answer.
And in the meantime, if you have thirty seconds, check
out our Instagram feed. You'll be on there for four
than thirty. It's full of fun stuff. At Hello Puzzlers,
we post original puzzles and other fun stuff, and of
course we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles
that will puzzle you personally.
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. What word
might come before dump, rot, fart, or freeze? What is
a word the same word in all four cases that
might precede the words dump, rot, fart, and freeze. I
know it sounds a little naughty, but it's not the answer.
(00:24):
And more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, and
welcome back to the Puzzler Podcast. The shark tooth hanging
from your puzzle Puuka shell Necklace. I'm your host, AJ Jacobson.
I'm here with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Fliska. Greg. Before
(00:47):
the break, we asked the following brain teaser, what word
might proceed dump, rot, fart, or freeze? And the answer
to that, I.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Don't know, but it's happened in my house today. Whatever
it is, Yes, it's an interesting collection of things dump rot, fart,
or freeze, And even my eleven year old could tell
you the answer is brain brain dump, brain rot, brain fart,
brain freeze. Brain rot is the thing my kids are
really obsessed with, because that's the term for all the
(01:19):
Internet slang. They use skibbitty and ohio and phantom tax
and all that jen Alpha internet based slang is now
under the title of brain rot.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Right, brain rod is what we're all And the way
to fight brain rot is to read our guest book
and listen to the puzzler, of course. And with that,
I am going to bring in our expert because he is.
He is an expert on the very organ we're talking about,
and he's an esteemed scientist, author of several best selling books,
(01:51):
including This Is Your Brain on Music and The Organized Mind.
Welcome Dan Levitton, Thank.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You, thank for having me. I answered the question differently.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh what do you got?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Dry?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Dry rot, dry duck? You know when a dump truck
goes away from a site empty, right, it's a dry duck. Okay,
dry fart, which is better than the opposite. And then
dry freeze, which we talk a lot about in Canada
where I live part of the time, because it can
(02:26):
freeze without there being rain or moisture and the ground
becomes dry frozen and you can't shovel during the winter
there when the ground is minus thirty five degrees.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, that is great, you get extra bonus points. Look
at that, well done.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I bet there's another thing you could stick in front
of those four words too. I bet We've got listeners
right now thinking what about Lasagna, Lazagna.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Work, Lasagna rocks. And that's what happened to me yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
There we go, Lazania dump.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean, come on, well, send them in people. We
need your ideas of the puzz dot com. But in
the meantime, Daniel, we are delighted to have you. It's
nice to be had, Yeah, indeed, and we are. You're
a former musician. You've written a lot about how music
affects the brain. Have you looked into how puzzles affect
(03:18):
the brain?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I mean a little bit actually so in my book
Successful Aging, a neuroscientist explores the power and potential of
our lives, I was interested in the well known trope
that you should do crossroad puzzles when you get older.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yes, And it turns out that.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It's sort of partly right, and it applies to other
puzzles like Sudoku or wordle or what have you, if
you have never done them before, and you start when
you're older. By older, I mean I don't know, fifty five, sixty,
seventy eighty, you're exercising brand new brain muscles and it's
neuroprotective it's healthful, healthful as well as helpful. It can
(04:02):
fend off the effects of Alzheimer's. But if you've been
doing them all along, really all that you're doing. If
you can keep doing crossword puzzles as well, you're amusing yourself.
You're getting a little bit better at crossword puzzles. But
it's not mind stretching in the way that a new
puzzle would be.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, that's why our podcast is so helpful. We have
new kinds of puzzles every day. So yeah, everybody, we
are help in the world.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm really intrigued by this though, So it means if
I've been doing puzzles all my life, I need to
find something else to do with the new puzzles. I mean,
they're everything. I mean.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
The way I think about it, Greg is I approach
life as a series of puzzles. So I've got a
hydranger that I love and it's not doing so well,
and I wanted to take a clipping from it and
see if I could generate a new hydrangea. And so
the puzzle is, can you do that? What's the best
way to do it? Is that better than buying a hydrangea? Well,
(04:58):
I've already bought one and didn't do well.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That is the motto of the Puzzler Book and the
Puzzler Podcast is life is a puzzle. Yes, And Quincy Jones,
the great, late great music producer, said I don't have problems,
I have puzzles. Yes, so he reframed his problems as puzzles.
We are big, big fans of that, so we are
delighted that you are too. But we also have a
(05:24):
literal puzzle, or a musical puzzle in this case, and
I'm going to turn it over to Greg who is
going to give it to you.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Doesn't involve a B flat major seven sharp eleven with
the suspended thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Oh, you know it can if you have an instrument
near by and you want to play along with yourself,
you could certainly do that. I don't think any of
these songs have that chord in them though. Now this
is actually inspired by your book. This is your Brain
on Music, But instead of looking at how music affects
your brain, we're putting your brain, or really anyone's brain,
(05:57):
into pieces of music. So each of the answers is
a famous song with a body part in the title,
but you replace body part with brain, okay, and I'll
give you a clue to the altered song and you
give me the title. So, for example, if I said
there's a Beatles song about a medical examiner who loves
lifting out the gray matter of her subjects, that would
(06:20):
be I want to hold your brain. All right, here's
your first one. Huey Lewis and the News wrote this
song celebrating New York, Los Angeles and the smart music
that is made in those cities.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
The brain of rock and roll is still beating.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
The brain of rock and roll exactly. The old boy
may be barely thinking, but the brain of rock and
roll is still beating, all right. The who sang this
ballad about what's going on on the other side of
very very cold cerebellums, and it's about the lyric is
(06:56):
no one knows what it's like.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Ahh to be the sad man behind a blue brain, behind.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Blue brains exactly instead of behind blue eyes. Yeah, very good.
Neil Young once sang I've been to USC, I've been
to Mi t I crossed the ocean for this.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Huh oh, I got this one.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah for a brain of gold exactly. I was gonna
sing it, but you got it. Instead of Heart of Gold. Yeah,
very good. You actually went to MIT am I right,
I did? Weah, very good. Did you ever participate in
the MIT Mystery Hunt?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
No, but I sang with the MIT a cappella group
the logarhythms A very good.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Very appropriate, very appropriate. Well, you know, do you know
the Mystery Hunt. It's the giant puzzle event that takes
place my I don't know when you graduated. That started
in the seventies, and it's could have.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Been before my time, or I just didn't know about it.
I started there in seventy five, got it?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Got it? So it's it's and it started sometime in
that span. But now thousands of people to send on
the campus and it takes a whole weekend of Yeah,
that sounds fun. Well, you're welcome anytime to come join
my team, remotely or in person. All right, let's do
another one of these. This song is sung by Albert
Einstein as he goes down with the Titanic. It's in
(08:24):
the movie of the same name.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Actually the most famous song.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I don't know those songs. It's in the movie. It's
a it was a Celene Dion hit.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
It's the same, isn't it the same body part as
the previous question.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
But we know it's a brain. It's going to be
a brain.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's going to be a brain. It was real.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
It's really a heart.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah, I have to.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I don't know the Selene dion Ouvre, okay, and I
don't know the Titanic soundtrack.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I'm sorry to disappoint. Well, that's all right, ag Do
you know this one?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I am guessing it is my brain will go on,
not my heart.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Brain will go on, My heart will go on, all.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right, which is interesting. I mean, the brain gets screwed
because everyone says, oh, the emotions are in the heart,
but mostly they're in the brain. So the poor brain,
I guess it's not as it's hard to say. You
gotta choose between your brain and your brain as opposed
to your heart and your brain.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Remember the old George Carlin song what's that? I'll send
my sinuses to air Arizona. I'll send my liver to
per Rue, I'll send my lungs and my kidneys for
the summer to Sydney. But I'm sending my heart to you.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Oh lovely, I love it.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
All right. Here's another one for you. This is a
raspy voiced Kim carn song about the actress who starred
in Whatever Happened to Baby Cranium.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, she had Betty Davis brains.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Betty Davis brains exactly instead of Betty Davis eyes. So
I asked my family to help out with some songs
because I didn't want them to be all songs that
an old guy like me knows. So here's one. This
is a Destiny's Child song that celebrates someone's beautiful round
(10:24):
skull and has the lyrics I don't think you're ready
for this gray matter? Do you know this song? I
don't think you're ready for this gray matter. I don't
think you're read for this gray I don't think you're
ready for Well, it's not the brain, it's at the
other end of the body. Booty booty. Yes, do you
know the song booty Delicious becomes rainy delicious? Nice? I
(10:49):
thought that was a good one. What about ROBERTA flax
Ode to a New Patience mri.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Oh, okay, killing me softly with his brain?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Good? No, a different vert of flak song?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Okay, because where is the where is the brain you
said you gave to me?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
No, it's got to start with a it's gotta have
a body part in it, to begin with the changes
to brain. Oh okay, and I don't trying to think
of another lyric.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
How about.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, I don't know if I can. It's the first.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Time, first time ever, I saw your brain.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Exactly instead of your face. There you go. Do you
remember the Sir Mix a Lot classic that opens with
the line, oh my god, Becky, look at her cerebral cortex.
She looks like one of those rap guy's girlfriends.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
I like Sir Mix a Lot, but I don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
It's I think that's the only thing I do remember
from Sir Mix a Lot. I could not name any
of his other one.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Give me a clue for the first word.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
First word is baby, and it's just another booty song.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It's another booty song, but it's a different term for booty.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
It's not booty, it's a heiney.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It's actually a term for a different part of the body,
but in this case it refers to the booty.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So oh interesting. So it's not heinee or bum.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
No, but a little higher, higher, little higher right here,
if you go from the bomb and just go straight nor.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Straight north of the bum and it also referres a
it's a word like neck or shoulder, but.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
A bag area there the cad.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yes, oh she got she got back, baby got baby
got back, baby got brain.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Exactly you got back? Is the original baby got brain?
All right, let's do one more of these body rate
sings about when the moon passes in front of your head. Oh,
celestial event, right, so big celestial I normally when the
moon passes in front of them.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Oh any clips? Yeah, so you don't mean Bonnie Rae.
You mean Bonnie Tyler.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We'll just totally totally clips of the brain.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Totally clips of the brain, and we'll just edit it
to make it sound like I said, Bronnie Tayler.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
No, I think if I get to make mistakes, you get.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
To back out of and the clips of his brain
a little brain, far brain.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I was like, totally clips of the brain. Very good though.
I like that one.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Can I ask the doctor one quick question which I've
always wondered, how much of harmony is culturally relative and
how much is innate? Like, are there other cultures where
something that sounds harmonious to us would be they would
find really cacophonous? Or is it that everyone finds harmony
(13:56):
the same great question.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
You know, it's entirely culturally relative. And Greg can tell
you that even within our own culture, what we today
might consider the most beautiful of chords a major seven, say,
played by Bill Evans on the piano, in any voicing
where maybe the seventh in the octave and the seventh
and the root are next to each other in the
middle in a first and version or even a second
(14:21):
version where it's spread out, and the time of bach
that was considered dissonant.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh interesting, And so our ears have changed.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And if you listen to the music of the Cameroon pygmies,
which sounds very dissonant to our ears, they find that
very consonant. So it's entirely cultural. And I would I
would say by analogy, AJ, it's like language.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
To our ears.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
French sounds like a beautiful language. Russian tends to sound
a little less beautiful.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Part of that is cultural.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Association with France being a seed of culture and high
art and taste, and Russia being kind of Cold War
carryover of Russian being an enemy of the United States.
But you know, I think Russians find their language beautiful
and the French may find Portuguese are Italian more beautiful
(15:21):
than theirs?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Interesting?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I was just kind of add agent. I did a
what it used to do, a workshop with teachers from
around the world on creating original opera with kids, and
we would have them write pieces of music to convey
different emotions. And it was a fascinating exercise because they
would then play the music, people would guess the emotions.
And these two Jordanian teachers got up and played the
(15:45):
thing they'd written, and all the American teachers were like, oh,
that sounds that sounds suspicious. That sounds, you know, maybe evil,
but certainly not entirely trustworthy. And of course the two
Jordanian teachers meant the music to sound sympathetic and friends
and write in their cultural context. What they had written
was meant to be welcoming, and a lot of the
(16:07):
Western ears heard it totally fascinating. Yeah, yeah, there are
a lot of cases of that.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
In the film Apocalypse Now you see a cultural divide
in facial expressions where the Vietnamese villagers or Lautians, Cambodians,
whatever it is who are their huts are being invaded
by American soldiers. They're making a facial and body gesture
of conciliation, but the soldiers misinterpreted as defiance.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well fascinating, I love it. We're going to talk more
about music, and about your own music because you started
as a musician, I believe, yeah. And what instruments did
you play?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I started on piano and then moved to clarinet, and
then in seventh grade, the teacher wanted to start a
jazz band stage band, you know, twenty piece stage band,
and he asked me to take up tenor sacks, which
I played for many years. In fact, my first professional
(17:09):
gig was on tenor sacks, backing up mel Tormet in
his big band.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Wow nice, I love it all right, Greg, Do you
have an extra credit for the folks at home?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I do. I do, actually have two, I'm saying for
the extra credits. First one is the Weekend Sings and
I know she'll be the death of me. My head
is going numb and she'll always get the best of me.
The worst is yet to come? And what's the title
of that song? And the second one is Tony Braxton
(17:41):
R and B ballad about someone who's head was metaphorically
shattered by some tough math problems and she wants it
put back together.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Okay, now, both of those are songs with brain in them.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
To remind both songs with other body parts, and you've
got to replace those with brain.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Excellent. Well, come back tomorrow to find out the answer.
And in the meantime, if you have thirty seconds, check
out our Instagram feed. You'll be on there for four
than thirty. It's full of fun stuff. At Hello Puzzlers,
we post original puzzles and other fun stuff, and of
course we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles
that will puzzle you personally.
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.