Verse 1 Spearman ran his numbers, found a factor in the noise Called it general intelligence, gave the reifiers their voice But a correlation isn't causes, and a label isn't real Just a statistical extraction dressed up like a thing you feel Chorus It's not a thing you have or lack Not a weight you carry or a gift you got It's behavior in a context, nothing more than that The myth is just a noun we learned to stop Verse 2 Gardner counted seven, Sternberg counted three Goleman added feeling, said emotional makes free But every time you name it, you have named it into place And the actual behavior disappears without a trace Chorus It's not a thing you have or lack Not a weight you carry or a gift you got It's behavior in a context, nothing more than that The myth is just a noun we learned to stop Verse 3 The garbage man in Tallahassee solved it in a day Wheeled the empty cans ahead instead of back the other way They called it practical intelligence, some special inner light But the variables that shaped him just stayed hidden out of sight Chorus It's not a thing you have or lack Not a weight you carry or a gift you got It's behavior in a context, nothing more than that The myth is just a noun we learned to stop Verse 4 Hart and Risley watched the families, counted every word Diversity of language was the sharpest thing they heard Not a fixed and given quantity, not written in the blood Just the talk that filled the hours in the early neighborhood Chorus It's not a thing you have or lack Not a weight you carry or a gift you got It's behavior in a context, nothing more than that The myth is just a noun we learned to stop Verse 5 Binet knew it first — he called it intellectual skill Where skill meant what you do, not what you are or never will So stop asking what you have and start asking what you've done The behavior is the thing, and the behavior can be learned Chorus It's not a thing you have or lack Not a weight you carry or a gift you got It's behavior in a context, nothing more than that The myth is just a noun we learned to stop
