Since the advent of rock 'n' roll, most teenagers and dumb people have learned about sex through music. This has been proved recently by some researchers somewhere. I won't insult you by citing the exact study — you probably know the one I'm talking about. It was done in America. It was an excellent study. One of the very best.

The report's chief finding was that music is highly educational and, like many citizens, I think a regular regimen of intense listening to the more literary or even pretentious songwriters should replace standard education. There is legislation in the works to this effect, and I entreat you to send your friends urgent pleas to sign email petitions that will be sent to our elected representatives and promptly deleted by their aides.

Six months ago I finally read Albert Camus' 1942 novel The Stranger, and at last — this would be very funny to the gothier types from my high school — I connected the book to the 1978 Cure song Killing an Arab. Though the song has taken on unfortunate connotations, originally it was an innocent enough reference to an existential crisis that drives a man to kill a stranger standing on a beach. The effect on a generation's reading was enormous. According to another study — this one with Dutch night-school students — legions of susceptible youth came to Camus via Killing an Arab, and it's time we said thanks to those lyricists who, through reference or tribute, sent us to books, causes and the sweet cocktail of birth control and hot pants...