96. 10 Mathematical Songs

Mathematics - Mos Def
The Magic Number - De La Soul
The Calculation - Regina Spektor
Black Math - The White Stripes
Mathletics - Foals
Music is Math - Boards of Canada
Mathematics - Cherry Ghost
One Plus One is One - Badly Drawn Boy
I Believe in Symmetry - Bright Eyes
When I Argue I See Shapes - Idlewild

To begin with, a 1965 quote from Bob Dylan
"Well, you know my songs are all mathematical songs. You know what that means so I'm not going to have to go into that specifically here. It happens to be a protest song ... and it borders on the mathematical ... It's sort of a North Mexican thing, uh, very protesty. Very very protesty. And, uh, one of the protestiest things I ever protested against in my protest years."

So many wonderful things in that, but the main thing is that there are plenty of mathematical songs. All songs are mathematical, some more obviously so than others.
I suppose mathematical can often mean formulaic and formulaic is seen as a bad thing, but it depends what the formula is - The Motown Formula was just fine, the Westlife Formula less so.

I have a funny, unfulfilled relationship with Mathematics. As people know, i'm pretty obsessed with numbers and statistics and was pretty capable with the basics of mathematics when I was younger, but I let it go before I believe it got interesting and turned into the real thing.
I tend to feel those that really pursue their mathematics are much closer to knowing what's really going on than the rest of us, so I rather regret that I began to find it boring and unworthwhile. I was wrong.
And once you let it go, it's one of those things you definitely won't get back. Even if I wanted to reengage with something I did well when i was younger, if it was Latin, French, History say, that would be possible to some extent, with Maths that opportunity has gone for ever. We get worse and worse at Maths the older we get, and, for me, it's not just a case of not remembering trigonometry and calculus, it's the basic stuff which you find yourself struggling with, which is incredibly annoying.
There are times now where I, like many people, find myself haunted by numbers and puzzles. I suspect a lot of people have this worse than me.
Furthermore, in attempting to establish truths about life, sport, culture, politics, the worth of anything, I do think there are algorithms that exist that reveal everything, and i feel like my capacity for numbers ought to put me, in a good position here, but these days my maths feels imprecise and speculative, to the extent to which I can't really prove a lot of things I know to be true. The other side to this is that people who aren't numerical often dismiss the use of statistics in argument (lies, lies, statistics etc - hate that shit). Dare I say one of the areas where this is enormously vexing is sports punditry, where so few experts who get paid for their opinions have any grasp on even the basic numbers. A recent example of this was Alan Shearer talking about Jon-Dahl Tomasson after he'd missed a couple of first-half chances. Shearer said "Jon was with me at Newcastle and he wasn't prolific then and you can tell from these missed chances he's not a prolific type of striker" Ok, Al, have you checked his record? 52 goals in 112 international games. Prolific. This man gets paid to talk about this stuff, it's unacceptable.
And, less sportily, maths and people not understanding numbers properly impacts on loads of things, like my continuing blood-thinning treatment requires an INR (thinness) level kept between 2 and 3 (with 1 as the norm) but it varies so needs to be checked and dosage changed from time to time, and whenever my dosage needs to be changed, they always get it wrong, obviously wrong, so my blood often sinks below the level it should be, which results in unneccessarily regular checks, and if i was just left to look after my own dosage (which really i suppose i should do, and sometimes do, but whatever), i'd keep it just right. It's not medicine, its maths. Everywhere.
But the thing is some people just aren't numerical and have intelligence which lies in other areas. And there's only so much you can do about that. Of all the things I was terrible at teaching when I was terrible at teaching, I was most terrible at teaching Maths - I had no clue how to even explain how and why 2 + 2 = 4 to children who couldn't simply grasp that that was true. It was utterly tortuous, both for me and, no doubt, for my intended victims.

I wish I could have made this more of a mathematical song. It does start off like that. Anyway, there's not much in it which hasn't been dealt with above.

THE TRIANGLE GAME
I sang my sums when I was younger for golden stars and cold Mars Bars
built unending towers of number with bold mastery of old dark arts.
Then I played a game of trains which never reached their destinations -
the game plagued deep sleepless migraines with bleak answer-free calculations.

Every week i'd build a maze and set my sore self at its centre
then lose the plans within two days until no human soul would enter.
I'm building simple shapes and trainlines but never can complete the angle,
collecting wires to connect cables impossible to ever untangle.