Today’s Pearls Before Swine:
The idiom golden throat ‘a widely admired singing or speaking voice’ is both metonymic (throat for ‘voice’) and metaphorical (golden ‘like gold in value’), but it’s complex enough that someone could not see that. Rat, of course, just turns things to his own ends.
Then there’s the sarcastic or ironic use of golden throat in the series of Golden Throats recordings:
Golden Throats is Rhino Records’ series of humorous compilations of critically lambasted cover versions of songs, performed mostly either by celebrities known for something other than musical talent or musicians not known for the genre from which the song they are covering comes. For example, William Shatner sings (or, more precisely, does a dramatic reading of the lyrics to) “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Leonard Nimoy sings “If I Had a Hammer,” and Muhammad Ali sings “Stand by Me.” Other examples include the Bing Crosby cover of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and the Mel Tormé cover of Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman,” as both were rock songs being covered by musicians of an older generation. In most cases, the songs appear to be performed sincerely, rather than in a spirit of irony or intentional goofiness. (link)
(There were four volumes, originally released in 1988, 1991, 1995, and 1997.)
Wonderful stuff, but best appreciated in small doses.
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