Originally published June 11, 2011. Updated, revised and republished May 29, 2025
Google gets kudos for their “doodle” tribute to Les Paul recently.
Not just for paying homage to someone who so richly deserves it, though that’s a part of it.
No, Google gets kudos for paying homage to someone in the arts first and foremost. To say the arts are under fire is an understatement. The very foundation of the arts as it has been most of my life is changing and eroding. Just yesterday, the Bellevue Symphony announced it was closing up shop after 43 years. A friend of mine has speculated that the concert music world is headed to a two-tiered system of just a few large, professional orchestras and a number of amateur community orchestras.
I think he may be right.
So Google deserves credit for paying homage to someone in the arts like this.
They also deserve credit for paying homage in a way that sparks individual creativity. If you do a quick search on YouTube you’ll see that people have posted clips of them using the “doodle” to play songs (and yes, “Stairway to Heaven” is one of them, I guess they didn’t see the sign).
Seriously though, every little bit helps. We’re in a society now that devalues arts and creativity so much that seeing a large company take a public stand to remind us of the importance of music and encourage us to make some ourselves is a wonderful thing. And clearly the world is hungry for more things like this: the doodle was so popular that it ran for an extra day.
Thanks Google for the doodle.