Who are these people?: Neil Diamond and the lasar guns

Do you ever have a moment where you suddenly feel utterly and completely out of place? All of a sudden you don't know the person to your right or left, the people you thought you knew from last semester throw you for a loop with some comment and you don't feel like you belong anymore. Welcome to Written theory, January 12, 2007.
The topic for class today was non-chord tones, or notes in a melody that don't fit into the chord which is accompaning them. Sounds fun right? Well, we started out with an example from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and this particular song only had one chord. So just about every other note was a non-chord tone. We moved on to a different aspect of non-chord tones and he put our next example in the cd player: Neil Diamond's Song Sung Blue. Now, to be completely honest- this was a welcome change in my mind. We usually analyze "classical" music written way before this century, so I was thinking that good ol' Neil brought the whole lesson together very nicely. We only listened to about half the song and then the professor took the cd out, and laughingly appologized for exposing us to this inferior music (my paraphrase, not his exact words).
He then said he would make up for it by using Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde as his next example. My inner groans were drowned up by the rejoicing emerging from the very souls of my classmates. What? They actually would rather listen to Wagner than Neil Diamond? The man wrote Sweet Caroline! I quickly realized that I am quite different than my peers in the school of music and while they savor their Filet Mignon, I am much happier eating a chili dog and fries. I'm not claiming to be better than them, and I'm not saying that they are better or smarter than me (most of them are smarter), I am just realizing the differences in musical taste and my great appreciation for my musical past and upbringing.
As I sat there and pondered these differences, my stomach began to tell me that it was hungry and proceeded to growl. However, this wasn't your everyday, average, run of the mill growl. No no. I have never heard this sound come from my stomach before (or anyone elses for that matter). It sounded, no lie, like a lasar gun preparing to fire. I'm not even sure I've ever heard a lasar gun preparing to fire, but that is exactly what it sounded like. It scared me a little, to be honest. I know that this last story about my stomach isn't quite as interesting as some other anecdotes, but I was pretty amused so I felt like sharing it. Back to class.