Of course, music aside, there's another thing that's massively, glaringly wrong with it, and that's the kitsch that results from setting such overly familiar words to that music. It does indeed sound utterly ridiculous.

Composers from the classical sphere who are self-professedly ignorant about pop culture should steer clear of it - they invariably come unstuck.

If all Corigliano wanted was to set some populist poetry, well, there's enough out there without having to nick pop lyrics.

He could have at the very least tried reading Dylan's "Tarantula" book - at least those are words that haven't been set to music.