We were both tired.
In a week’s time we had been in three different states, crossing the country with our two boys. Plane flights, car rides, planning, packing, unpacking, organizing, and all that had gone into these travels were testing our endurance, but we were making it work. As other parents would understand, we were not on vacation, we were going on a trip.
Many children are oblivious to the incredible amount of work parents put into going on “vacation.” I mean many children don’t understand how much work it takes to simply take them to the park some times. And yes, you have to do this work when you are an adult going on vacation, but it’s nothing like taking kids traveling. In short, a vacation is when you go somewhere to relax, and rejuvenate. Both of these things can happen on a trip with children for yourself, but you put a lot of this aside to make it great for your children.
The day went pretty well. Ollie had a meltdown during dinner, which wasn’t that bad, but it was taxing. The kids both had fun during the day, everyone got fed, the hotel room wasn’t a complete train wreck. After a lot of effort, trust, and team-work, we got the kids to bed. I was planning to go out and meet my brother who was traveling with us with his family for a drink after the kids went to bed.
Before I left, I saw that Diana had set herself up in bed. She had headphones on, and an iPad propped up on her legs. The soft glow of Orange Is The New Black projected on her face, as she relaxed into the bed. I went over to the bed, crawled on top of the it, and leaned over. I tapped her on the shoulder and told her that I was heading out, and we said goodbye to each other. I headed towards the door, paused, and went back to Diana. I tapped her on shoulder again, and she took off her head phones again, and asked if something was wrong. “Nothing, everything is fine, I just wanted to say ‘I love you.’” She smiled, gave me a kiss, and turned her attention back to her iPad.
We are coming up on the anniversary of the day when I first met Diana sixteen years ago. For me this is one of the most significant, if not the most important moment in our relationship. It was when this whole adventure started, it was the first time I saw that smile.
So much has changed in our lives in the past sixteen years. Idealism has been chipped away at, struggles have been faced, and challenges have been overcome. In many ways, Diana has grown in the time that I’ve known her. She’s more intelligent, more worldly, wiser, and stronger. But that smile hasn’t changed.
There’s so much spirit, energy and life in that smile. And the way she looks at me, telling me with that expression how much I make her happy, how much I mean to her, has never changed. I saw it the first time I danced with her, when I held her hands as we walked up to the alter, when she met Buffy for the first time, and when she held Ethan after he was born.
That smile made the work of the trip not seem like a big deal and made the stress of the journey ahead disappear. Because that smile has always brought me into the moment and focused me on what is at the core my life, how we are here with and for each other.
An expression cannot be a vacation, but it can bring peace the world, and it can bring priorities into focus. Diana’s smile does this, and in the hardest of days, in the most difficult moments, it brings rest, rejuvenations, and joy.
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2018
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Conditional Love
A husband promises to love his wife on his wedding day. A mom gazes lovingly at her baby and whispers, “I love you.”
Examples of unconditional love? Maybe, but maybe not.
The husband promises to love his wife assuming that she will be faithful to him. He can’t imagine that she would cheat on him so when she does, it’s a shock to him. The husband promised to love his wife on the condition that she would be monogamous to him. She broke that condition, and the love they share and their marriage is now over.
The mother thinks of her baby as an angel. She does everything she can for him knowing that he is a good person. Then as an adult he does the unthinkable. With a group of friends he rapes and murders a teenage girl. She can’t bring herself to go to the trial or the sentencing, because he has broke the condition of her love. He has caused unimaginable pain to others and she can’t look past his sins.
Unconditional love is something we strive for but few of us ever attain. There are situations and deal-breakers that create conditions for our love to exist and be shared with others.
We need to be aware of our struggles with conditional love. When this kind of love is used to manipulate other people and not honor who they are, it is insidious, hurtful and damaging.
There’s the father who doesn’t let his son who has recently come out of the closet come home for Christmas unless he is willing to be “cured” of his “gayness.” There’s the mother who refuses to help pay for college unless her daughter agrees to not live with her boyfriend. And then there’s the son who refuses to speak to his father because he is in an opposing political party.
Sometimes the way to face this damaging situation is to make conditions of your own. As long as these conditions encourage acceptance over intolerance, then this response will lead to a more open kind of love.
Think about the people that you love. Is there truly nothing that they could do that could make you no longer want to love them? Is your well of belief in your loved one deep enough to overcome any sin and any amount pain they may cause you?
It’s easy to love someone when they treat you well, speak to your respectfully and always do the dishes. How do you feel about your loved one after a stressful situation, after a fight, and a traumatic shared experience? After all the dust has settled do you love that person more or less?
If you love a person more after a challenging situations, then there are fewer conditions to your love. If you love them less, maybe your love isn't as pure as you believed.
We have more conditions to our love than we want to admit and when things get bad we have to face these limitations we have created. We can get scared and run away, or we can find the strength to accept, to put our pain aside and share our love unconditionally.
Examples of unconditional love? Maybe, but maybe not.
The husband promises to love his wife assuming that she will be faithful to him. He can’t imagine that she would cheat on him so when she does, it’s a shock to him. The husband promised to love his wife on the condition that she would be monogamous to him. She broke that condition, and the love they share and their marriage is now over.
The mother thinks of her baby as an angel. She does everything she can for him knowing that he is a good person. Then as an adult he does the unthinkable. With a group of friends he rapes and murders a teenage girl. She can’t bring herself to go to the trial or the sentencing, because he has broke the condition of her love. He has caused unimaginable pain to others and she can’t look past his sins.
Unconditional love is something we strive for but few of us ever attain. There are situations and deal-breakers that create conditions for our love to exist and be shared with others.
We need to be aware of our struggles with conditional love. When this kind of love is used to manipulate other people and not honor who they are, it is insidious, hurtful and damaging.
There’s the father who doesn’t let his son who has recently come out of the closet come home for Christmas unless he is willing to be “cured” of his “gayness.” There’s the mother who refuses to help pay for college unless her daughter agrees to not live with her boyfriend. And then there’s the son who refuses to speak to his father because he is in an opposing political party.
Sometimes the way to face this damaging situation is to make conditions of your own. As long as these conditions encourage acceptance over intolerance, then this response will lead to a more open kind of love.
Think about the people that you love. Is there truly nothing that they could do that could make you no longer want to love them? Is your well of belief in your loved one deep enough to overcome any sin and any amount pain they may cause you?
It’s easy to love someone when they treat you well, speak to your respectfully and always do the dishes. How do you feel about your loved one after a stressful situation, after a fight, and a traumatic shared experience? After all the dust has settled do you love that person more or less?
If you love a person more after a challenging situations, then there are fewer conditions to your love. If you love them less, maybe your love isn't as pure as you believed.
We have more conditions to our love than we want to admit and when things get bad we have to face these limitations we have created. We can get scared and run away, or we can find the strength to accept, to put our pain aside and share our love unconditionally.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Validation
One of the most important things that you learn as a human being is how to validate other people's feelings. This isn't an easy thing to learn now to do, but it is one of the cornerstone of healthy relationships.
Responding to people's emotions is challenging for many different reasons. Often emotions are illogical and irrational. Because of this, many people when faced with other peoples emotions respond by invalidating other people's feelings. Here's the thing, emotions are never wrong. They may seems crazy and fleeting, but they are never wrong.
When you are told that your emotions are wrong, you are being told that your reactions to the world, your perceptions and all of your life that contributed to this emotional reaction don't matter. Our emotions and our feelings are not only a reflections of our perceptions but also our souls.
When you tell someone about the way you feel about something and they tell you that your feelings are wrong, what they are doing in either trying to control you or not deal with you. If you convince someone that what their feelings are wrong then it places you in a position of power. If you can judge someone else's emotions as being good or bad then you must know better than them.
There is no faster way to make someone stop talking about their emotions then telling them that they are wrong. It ends the conversations and leaves the person trying to express themselves feelings at a loss. When you disregard someone's emotions, you make them questions their own self-worth and if you do this enough, you tear them down into a shell of themselves.
Learning how to validate someone else's emotions isn't easy. It takes patience, work and time. You can't fake caring about someone and without opening up yourself and sharing your own emotions, the people in your life will never open up to you.
When someone tells you how they feel about something, don't try to figure out why they are feeling the way they feel or how to make them feel about it differently. Just listen and try to understand what they are saying . Don't focus on how you would feel if you were them, focus on what they are feeling. Don't worry about what to say in response, this isn't about you, just listen.
Repeat back to them what they told you and see if you got it right. Acknowledge any lack of logic in their emotions but tell them that their emotions are important for you to discuss regardless. Try to get them comfortable talking by not interrupting and only responding with supportive language. Take the time to do this, it's important.
The range of human emotion is intimating and uncomfortable sometimes and it's natural for us to want to avoid these emotions. But we have to try and not turn our heads away, but lean into the storm.
There is no truer reflection of the way that we treat ourselves than the way we treat others. More important than validating other people's emotions is validating our own emotions. If we don't ever learn to understand our own feelings we have no hope of understanding other people's feelings.
Be open to others and be open to yourself. Don't rush to give advice and don't try to change emotions. Understand others as you wish to be understood yourself. In this way, you will find the moments, the light and connections that turns an existences into a life worth living.
Responding to people's emotions is challenging for many different reasons. Often emotions are illogical and irrational. Because of this, many people when faced with other peoples emotions respond by invalidating other people's feelings. Here's the thing, emotions are never wrong. They may seems crazy and fleeting, but they are never wrong.
When you are told that your emotions are wrong, you are being told that your reactions to the world, your perceptions and all of your life that contributed to this emotional reaction don't matter. Our emotions and our feelings are not only a reflections of our perceptions but also our souls.
When you tell someone about the way you feel about something and they tell you that your feelings are wrong, what they are doing in either trying to control you or not deal with you. If you convince someone that what their feelings are wrong then it places you in a position of power. If you can judge someone else's emotions as being good or bad then you must know better than them.
There is no faster way to make someone stop talking about their emotions then telling them that they are wrong. It ends the conversations and leaves the person trying to express themselves feelings at a loss. When you disregard someone's emotions, you make them questions their own self-worth and if you do this enough, you tear them down into a shell of themselves.
Learning how to validate someone else's emotions isn't easy. It takes patience, work and time. You can't fake caring about someone and without opening up yourself and sharing your own emotions, the people in your life will never open up to you.
When someone tells you how they feel about something, don't try to figure out why they are feeling the way they feel or how to make them feel about it differently. Just listen and try to understand what they are saying . Don't focus on how you would feel if you were them, focus on what they are feeling. Don't worry about what to say in response, this isn't about you, just listen.
Repeat back to them what they told you and see if you got it right. Acknowledge any lack of logic in their emotions but tell them that their emotions are important for you to discuss regardless. Try to get them comfortable talking by not interrupting and only responding with supportive language. Take the time to do this, it's important.
The range of human emotion is intimating and uncomfortable sometimes and it's natural for us to want to avoid these emotions. But we have to try and not turn our heads away, but lean into the storm.
There is no truer reflection of the way that we treat ourselves than the way we treat others. More important than validating other people's emotions is validating our own emotions. If we don't ever learn to understand our own feelings we have no hope of understanding other people's feelings.
Be open to others and be open to yourself. Don't rush to give advice and don't try to change emotions. Understand others as you wish to be understood yourself. In this way, you will find the moments, the light and connections that turns an existences into a life worth living.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Always On My Mind by Willie Nelson
You know one of your friends is really into someone they like when they bring that person up in conversation all of the time. If you’ve been on the other side of this you know what it’s like to have someone always on your mind.
Like the first burst of emotions when you fall in love, the intensity of your thoughts about this other person wanes over time but it never really disappears. What happens after years in being in a relationship with someone isn’t that they leave your thoughts, it's just that you get so used to them being in you thoughts it becomes normal to think of the them all of the time.
“Always on My Mind,” is one of the most famous and beautiful love songs in popular music. It’s as much an apology song as a statement of commitment. Brenda Lee first recorded it in 1972:
This song was a moderate success but it was Elvis Presley’s cover the brought this song into prominence:
My introduction to this song was through Willie Nelson:
Brenda Lee is a fantastic singer but what works with Nelson’s and Presley’s version is the fact that they both exude this feeling of regret and heartache. This song isn’t an open apology. It’s not saying: “I did all of these things wrong,” instead it goes with “maybe. . . I did something bad.” That’s a big deal for this character in this song. You hear that in the desperate voice of Elvis in his later years and the beat-up and battered voice of Willie Nelson.
Willie Nelson really owns this song. It feels like songs that he wrote for himself. There’s a conversational feeling to the verses that opens up into a beautiful chorus. There’s desperation, a feeling that this is the last attempt to bring this person back into his life, yet he can’t just come out and say that he was wrong. It’s tragic on some level how much he just can’t bring himself to open himself up. But you feel like he’s trying and maybe that’s enough.
What consolation is it really that someone who has done you wrong was thinking about you the entire time?
It depends on the situation, but for me it means a lot. It’s a statement that other things in life aren’t as important and through all of stuff they did wrong, they couldn’t help but think of you. The knowledge that someone is thinking about you is comforting. It lets you know that you matter, that you mean something and that you are always with the people who love you.
Like the first burst of emotions when you fall in love, the intensity of your thoughts about this other person wanes over time but it never really disappears. What happens after years in being in a relationship with someone isn’t that they leave your thoughts, it's just that you get so used to them being in you thoughts it becomes normal to think of the them all of the time.
“Always on My Mind,” is one of the most famous and beautiful love songs in popular music. It’s as much an apology song as a statement of commitment. Brenda Lee first recorded it in 1972:
This song was a moderate success but it was Elvis Presley’s cover the brought this song into prominence:
My introduction to this song was through Willie Nelson:
Brenda Lee is a fantastic singer but what works with Nelson’s and Presley’s version is the fact that they both exude this feeling of regret and heartache. This song isn’t an open apology. It’s not saying: “I did all of these things wrong,” instead it goes with “maybe. . . I did something bad.” That’s a big deal for this character in this song. You hear that in the desperate voice of Elvis in his later years and the beat-up and battered voice of Willie Nelson.
Willie Nelson really owns this song. It feels like songs that he wrote for himself. There’s a conversational feeling to the verses that opens up into a beautiful chorus. There’s desperation, a feeling that this is the last attempt to bring this person back into his life, yet he can’t just come out and say that he was wrong. It’s tragic on some level how much he just can’t bring himself to open himself up. But you feel like he’s trying and maybe that’s enough.
What consolation is it really that someone who has done you wrong was thinking about you the entire time?
It depends on the situation, but for me it means a lot. It’s a statement that other things in life aren’t as important and through all of stuff they did wrong, they couldn’t help but think of you. The knowledge that someone is thinking about you is comforting. It lets you know that you matter, that you mean something and that you are always with the people who love you.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Halo by Beyoncé
There’s been a lot of talk about Beyoncé lately. There was the ridiculous controversy surrounding her performance at the Inauguration (ridiculous because any criticism about her lip-syncing reflects a lack of historical perspective and her role as a pop artist). Then there was the amazing halftime show she performed at the Super Bowl.
As I was watching her perform what struck me was the strength and spirit in her music. I’m not talking about “Bootylicious” (which I discussed in this earlier post). I’m talking about her more recent solo work. The song that exemplifies the power of Beyoncé’s music is “Halo.”
When I started hearing Tyra Banks use the term “fierce” on America’s Next Top Model, I was confused and just figured it was another example of Tyra being weird and crazy. Then there’s Sasha Fierce, the name of the album that features “Halo.”
“Halo” is an unconventional love song. It’s not so much about what somebody does for you that makes you fall in love. It’s about letting you love somebody and being loved in return.
This is really mature reflection on relationships that many people don’t understand. Most people struggle with their own role in the weaknesses of the relationships they have and in “Halo,” Beyoncé embraces them and moves past them.
The first verse is about the emotional walls that Beyoncé puts up and later in the song she sings about “every rule I had you breaking, It’s the risk that I’m taking.” This is a person who found comfort keeping people at a distance and setting up rules so that she wouldn’t get hurt. In this way, many people see themselves as being “strong,” or “fierce.”
That’s not strength.
True strength is reflecting on your feelings and having the guts to open yourself up and be vulnerable. This is a fierceness that would scare anyone who dares to mistreat someone because of their own insecurities.
The production of this song features an aggressive beat but also soft heavenly instruments. It modernizes the 1990s era ballad into something more modern. Beyoncé’s voice is strong but also it's honest. You feel that she’s really been through something to get to this point of strength.
The two videos I featured in this post show Beyoncé making “Halo,” something very special, first for the hospital she was visiting and second, this girl who has lived a life with cancer. Look I have no illusions that Beyoncé is some saint. I don’t look to my pop stars to be on a higher moral plane, but there is special about Beyoncé beyond the dancing, the singing and physical beauty.
There’s halos all around us we just need to tear down our walls to see them in the people is our lives.
As I was watching her perform what struck me was the strength and spirit in her music. I’m not talking about “Bootylicious” (which I discussed in this earlier post). I’m talking about her more recent solo work. The song that exemplifies the power of Beyoncé’s music is “Halo.”
When I started hearing Tyra Banks use the term “fierce” on America’s Next Top Model, I was confused and just figured it was another example of Tyra being weird and crazy. Then there’s Sasha Fierce, the name of the album that features “Halo.”
“Halo” is an unconventional love song. It’s not so much about what somebody does for you that makes you fall in love. It’s about letting you love somebody and being loved in return.
This is really mature reflection on relationships that many people don’t understand. Most people struggle with their own role in the weaknesses of the relationships they have and in “Halo,” Beyoncé embraces them and moves past them.
The first verse is about the emotional walls that Beyoncé puts up and later in the song she sings about “every rule I had you breaking, It’s the risk that I’m taking.” This is a person who found comfort keeping people at a distance and setting up rules so that she wouldn’t get hurt. In this way, many people see themselves as being “strong,” or “fierce.”
That’s not strength.
True strength is reflecting on your feelings and having the guts to open yourself up and be vulnerable. This is a fierceness that would scare anyone who dares to mistreat someone because of their own insecurities.
The production of this song features an aggressive beat but also soft heavenly instruments. It modernizes the 1990s era ballad into something more modern. Beyoncé’s voice is strong but also it's honest. You feel that she’s really been through something to get to this point of strength.
The two videos I featured in this post show Beyoncé making “Halo,” something very special, first for the hospital she was visiting and second, this girl who has lived a life with cancer. Look I have no illusions that Beyoncé is some saint. I don’t look to my pop stars to be on a higher moral plane, but there is special about Beyoncé beyond the dancing, the singing and physical beauty.
There’s halos all around us we just need to tear down our walls to see them in the people is our lives.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Badlands by Bruce Springsteen
One of my friends jokingly said that Springsteen doesn’t sing his own songs in his concerts because the audience sings along. People pay big bucks to go to his shows sing in a big group like a live Karaoke band.
Of course, I disagree with this. Springsteen works harder on stage than most musicians, half his age. But I didn't understand how meaningful his music really was until I heard "Badlands" at the end of a funeral service.
Singing along to music can mean very different things to different people. Sometimes it’s nostalgia and other times it’s just loosing yourself in music through euphoric joy. You can have a song that is not that deep or meaningful and sing-along with a stadium full of people and have fun. It’s an amazing thing. But with Bruce Springsteen, it’s more than that.
Imagine yourself at a Black Eyed Peas concert singing these lyrics along with the band:
Springsteen tells the story of a man who through struggles and hardships realizes some truths about life. The first verse talks about being in a figurative “head-on collision” and a “crossfire.” He’s fed up. He doesn’t care for the “same old played out scenes” and he wants something real. It’s the same fear and reservation that is expressed “Thunder Road,” of a life that may go to waste through inaction.
The chorus states that the sorrow and broken hearts of the past as a price that you have to pay to make these badlands, these rough times in our lives to “start treating us good.” The second verse continues these conclusion that the protagonist has made:
From the first opening riff, “Badlands,” is a celebration. The guitar solos and Clarence’s incredible saxophone solo are like the ending of “Thunder Road,” extended out into one amazing feeling of liberation.
Springsteen’s music and songs like “Badlands,” hold profound spiritual meaning for people. Singing along to these songs inspires people with strength and hope.
On my desk is a memorial card for a young man who died at the age of 18. On the front is his picture and on the back is information about the young man and the memorial service. About halfway down the back is a small cross and below the cross are these lyrics:
Of course, I disagree with this. Springsteen works harder on stage than most musicians, half his age. But I didn't understand how meaningful his music really was until I heard "Badlands" at the end of a funeral service.
Singing along to music can mean very different things to different people. Sometimes it’s nostalgia and other times it’s just loosing yourself in music through euphoric joy. You can have a song that is not that deep or meaningful and sing-along with a stadium full of people and have fun. It’s an amazing thing. But with Bruce Springsteen, it’s more than that.
Imagine yourself at a Black Eyed Peas concert singing these lyrics along with the band:
I gotta feeling...Now try to imagine singing these words along with Bruce and the E Street Band:
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night!
Lights out tonight,I’m not making the argument that the Black Eyed Peas are an inferior band (I did that in this earlier post). But they are doing something very different and singing along to “I Gotta Feeling,” means something different than singing along to “Badlands.”
trouble in the heartland.
Got a head-on collision,
smashin' in my guts, man.
I'm caught in a crossfire,
that I don't understand.
Springsteen tells the story of a man who through struggles and hardships realizes some truths about life. The first verse talks about being in a figurative “head-on collision” and a “crossfire.” He’s fed up. He doesn’t care for the “same old played out scenes” and he wants something real. It’s the same fear and reservation that is expressed “Thunder Road,” of a life that may go to waste through inaction.
The chorus states that the sorrow and broken hearts of the past as a price that you have to pay to make these badlands, these rough times in our lives to “start treating us good.” The second verse continues these conclusion that the protagonist has made:
Poor man wanna be richThese are the truths about human nature and greed. In understanding these things we realize that it’s love, faith and hope as Springsteen sings that will raise us up, not wealth. The bridge is a stirring and proud declaration of unity and perseverance:
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
Till he rules everything
For the ones who had a notion,"Badlands" symbolizes all of the people who try to keep us down and Springsteen stirs the spirit inside of us to throw those shackles aside, be glad that we’re alive and search for meaning in the relationships that truly matter.
A notion deep inside.
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive,
I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me,
I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these badlands.
From the first opening riff, “Badlands,” is a celebration. The guitar solos and Clarence’s incredible saxophone solo are like the ending of “Thunder Road,” extended out into one amazing feeling of liberation.
Springsteen’s music and songs like “Badlands,” hold profound spiritual meaning for people. Singing along to these songs inspires people with strength and hope.
On my desk is a memorial card for a young man who died at the age of 18. On the front is his picture and on the back is information about the young man and the memorial service. About halfway down the back is a small cross and below the cross are these lyrics:
Well, I believe in the love“Badlands,” isn’t just another pop song. Bruce Springsteen is not just another rock star. To this young man’s family, his words are an expression of what made this life that is now over, meaningful. As I sat there in the church I couldn't help but softly sing-along, closer to a prayer than a song with grace and thanksgiving.
that you gave me.
I believe in the faith
that could save me.
I believe in the hope and
I pray that some day,
It may raise me
above these Badlands . . .
Monday, January 14, 2013
On My Own by Samantha Barks (from Les Misérables)
“I’m on TEAM EPONINE!”
Like the Edward, Jacob and Bella debate, the Internet erupted in a similar Eponine, Cosette and Marius discussion with the release of the film version of Les Misérables (which I discussed in this earlier post).
Okay, actually there really wasn’t really much of that but I wish there was.
The story of Cosette, Eponine and Marius could be made into a musical or film by itself. Cosette was raised by Eponine’s corrupt parents. As children, Eponine was treated well as Cosette was basically treated like a slave. Cosette sing the heartbreaking “Castle On The Cloud,” song as she dreams of a better life.
Then things flip around dramatically. Cosette gets taken away by Jean Valjean and is raised in luxury while Eponine stays with her parents and is raised on the streets. While Cosette lives in wealth and comfort, Eponine is subject to helping her parents in a life of crime.
Eponine pines after her friend Marius, who then falls in love with Cosette and the once fascinating character becomes an infatuated lover without any true depth (and no interesting songs in the second half). Eponine's story comes forth as one of the most powerful and tragic parts of the musical.
This turn occurs with the song “On My Own.”
So much talk around Les Misérables is focused on Anne Hathaways’s portrayal of Fatine and her performance of “I Dreamed A Dream,” and its well deserved, however Samantha Bark’s Eponine and virtuosic “On My Own,” is just as amazing and deserves as much fanfare.
Samantha Bark’s was discovered on the BBC talent show, I’d Do Anything in 2008. She went on to play Eponine in the London production of Les Misérables and played this part in the 2010, 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Misérables.
She did this part on Broadway and did the jump to the film which is a challenging thing to do as the different mediums require very different skills.
She’s the real deal.
“On My Own,” is a self-reflective and conflicted song full of hope and the harsh realities of life. The song opens with Eponine fantasizing about being with Marius. The world seems beautiful and magical as she lives in this fantasy and Bark’s eye light up as she sings the words, “on my own,” as only her solitude can bring her the joy of this fantasy.
She almost giggles with the lyrics “he has found me.” There’s a teenage-like glee in her voice, but also a dark maturity. In many ways she has been forced to grow up but there is still this girl inside of her.
Then reality sets in. In the middle of the songs, Eponine shakes off the fantasy and she tells herself the truth about Marius and her own life. She hold sback tears as she angrily beats herself down as she sings “talking to my self. . . ” but somehow she feels that there is still hope.
She is renewed with the words, “I love him,” but that is quickly dashed away. The world that once seemed magical, is nothing special, “the river is just a river.” The song climaxes, not with hope, but with sadness of a spirit unfulfilled. By the end of the song the words “on my own,” are no longer a place to find happiness, but a curse, because only on her own can love Marius.
Barks does a remarkable job of hitting the variety of emotions in this song and taking the audience on a journey. We get a sense that her love for Marius is not some teenage infatuation but the representation of something more. Marius is Eponine's hope for a better life, a way out of her misery and for Cosette is something very different.
What Eponine ends up doing for Marius is heart-breaking. Barks’ portrays her Eponine's final moments in the film beautifully creating the most powerful death scene in the film (spoiler: everyone in Les Misérables dies).
Reconsider Samantha Barks. She's a young, talented singer and actress who has an incredible potential.
Maybe it's not so much that I'm on TEAM EPONINE, but rather TEAM SAMANTHA!
Like the Edward, Jacob and Bella debate, the Internet erupted in a similar Eponine, Cosette and Marius discussion with the release of the film version of Les Misérables (which I discussed in this earlier post).
Okay, actually there really wasn’t really much of that but I wish there was.
The story of Cosette, Eponine and Marius could be made into a musical or film by itself. Cosette was raised by Eponine’s corrupt parents. As children, Eponine was treated well as Cosette was basically treated like a slave. Cosette sing the heartbreaking “Castle On The Cloud,” song as she dreams of a better life.
Then things flip around dramatically. Cosette gets taken away by Jean Valjean and is raised in luxury while Eponine stays with her parents and is raised on the streets. While Cosette lives in wealth and comfort, Eponine is subject to helping her parents in a life of crime.
Eponine pines after her friend Marius, who then falls in love with Cosette and the once fascinating character becomes an infatuated lover without any true depth (and no interesting songs in the second half). Eponine's story comes forth as one of the most powerful and tragic parts of the musical.
This turn occurs with the song “On My Own.”
So much talk around Les Misérables is focused on Anne Hathaways’s portrayal of Fatine and her performance of “I Dreamed A Dream,” and its well deserved, however Samantha Bark’s Eponine and virtuosic “On My Own,” is just as amazing and deserves as much fanfare.
Samantha Bark’s was discovered on the BBC talent show, I’d Do Anything in 2008. She went on to play Eponine in the London production of Les Misérables and played this part in the 2010, 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Misérables.
She did this part on Broadway and did the jump to the film which is a challenging thing to do as the different mediums require very different skills.
She’s the real deal.
“On My Own,” is a self-reflective and conflicted song full of hope and the harsh realities of life. The song opens with Eponine fantasizing about being with Marius. The world seems beautiful and magical as she lives in this fantasy and Bark’s eye light up as she sings the words, “on my own,” as only her solitude can bring her the joy of this fantasy.
She almost giggles with the lyrics “he has found me.” There’s a teenage-like glee in her voice, but also a dark maturity. In many ways she has been forced to grow up but there is still this girl inside of her.
Then reality sets in. In the middle of the songs, Eponine shakes off the fantasy and she tells herself the truth about Marius and her own life. She hold sback tears as she angrily beats herself down as she sings “talking to my self. . . ” but somehow she feels that there is still hope.
She is renewed with the words, “I love him,” but that is quickly dashed away. The world that once seemed magical, is nothing special, “the river is just a river.” The song climaxes, not with hope, but with sadness of a spirit unfulfilled. By the end of the song the words “on my own,” are no longer a place to find happiness, but a curse, because only on her own can love Marius.
Barks does a remarkable job of hitting the variety of emotions in this song and taking the audience on a journey. We get a sense that her love for Marius is not some teenage infatuation but the representation of something more. Marius is Eponine's hope for a better life, a way out of her misery and for Cosette is something very different.
What Eponine ends up doing for Marius is heart-breaking. Barks’ portrays her Eponine's final moments in the film beautifully creating the most powerful death scene in the film (spoiler: everyone in Les Misérables dies).
Reconsider Samantha Barks. She's a young, talented singer and actress who has an incredible potential.
Maybe it's not so much that I'm on TEAM EPONINE, but rather TEAM SAMANTHA!
Monday, January 7, 2013
8th Grade Playlist: 9 - Everything Has Changed by Taylor Swift featuring Ed Sheeran
Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand and now there’s Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
There’s this amazing tradition in popular music of artist joining together to do duets. It’s a dream team kind of idea where two people at the top of their game come together and create something amazing. Taylor Swift, a still rising pop star, and Ed Sheeran who recently broke big (I talked about him in this earlier post) are huge right now.
Taylor and Ed are the Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand of their generation. They are central figures in their genre representing the best in popular music right now.
No, they are not singing a break-up song about the lack of flowers in their lives (check out this post if you missed this reference). Instead they are singing about the beginning of a relationship, that special spark in “Everything Has Changed.”
Taylor and Ed lay down a peaceful and intimate track. The opening dialogue breaks down any sense of formality. You really feel like you are in a living room hearing them perform this song.
“Everything Has Changed” is a very gentle and unassuming song. It doesn’t really insist on a strong meaning or narrative. Instead it reflective and honest capturing a certain innocents that we sometimes overlook and forget about when we get to know the people around us.
The phrase “all I know,” appears throughout this song. This phrase expresses a sense of humility. They don’t fully understand their own feelings but they do know that they want to know each better.
There are beautiful and subtle descriptions as Ed sings about a wall painted blue coming down and Taylor’s butterflies in her stomach taking flight. These are the lines that really show the strength of these two song writers. They are short but meaningful and full of emotion.
There’s no turn around or twist in this song. Unlike other Taylor Swift songs like “Love Story,” this song is really about a single moment and not the way a relationship develops over time. It’s tough to have a song talk about such a small moment but this song does it really well.
Initially this song feels like teenagers singing about their first love. That mix of hormones and infatuation that rarely leads to a long-term relationship, but it's more than that. The older I get the more I realize how much I need people in my life and how much of the meaning in my life lies I share my life with others.
When I first met Diana everything in my life didn't change, but it felt like it did because my perspective changed. Every person you meet changes the way you look at the world sometimes in very small ways but in other times in very significant ways.
When you meet that person and all you want to do is get to know them better you're entering a journey that leads you to truly know yourself. This is what life is really about.
There’s this amazing tradition in popular music of artist joining together to do duets. It’s a dream team kind of idea where two people at the top of their game come together and create something amazing. Taylor Swift, a still rising pop star, and Ed Sheeran who recently broke big (I talked about him in this earlier post) are huge right now.
Taylor and Ed are the Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand of their generation. They are central figures in their genre representing the best in popular music right now.
No, they are not singing a break-up song about the lack of flowers in their lives (check out this post if you missed this reference). Instead they are singing about the beginning of a relationship, that special spark in “Everything Has Changed.”
Taylor and Ed lay down a peaceful and intimate track. The opening dialogue breaks down any sense of formality. You really feel like you are in a living room hearing them perform this song.
“Everything Has Changed” is a very gentle and unassuming song. It doesn’t really insist on a strong meaning or narrative. Instead it reflective and honest capturing a certain innocents that we sometimes overlook and forget about when we get to know the people around us.
The phrase “all I know,” appears throughout this song. This phrase expresses a sense of humility. They don’t fully understand their own feelings but they do know that they want to know each better.
There are beautiful and subtle descriptions as Ed sings about a wall painted blue coming down and Taylor’s butterflies in her stomach taking flight. These are the lines that really show the strength of these two song writers. They are short but meaningful and full of emotion.
There’s no turn around or twist in this song. Unlike other Taylor Swift songs like “Love Story,” this song is really about a single moment and not the way a relationship develops over time. It’s tough to have a song talk about such a small moment but this song does it really well.
Initially this song feels like teenagers singing about their first love. That mix of hormones and infatuation that rarely leads to a long-term relationship, but it's more than that. The older I get the more I realize how much I need people in my life and how much of the meaning in my life lies I share my life with others.
When I first met Diana everything in my life didn't change, but it felt like it did because my perspective changed. Every person you meet changes the way you look at the world sometimes in very small ways but in other times in very significant ways.
When you meet that person and all you want to do is get to know them better you're entering a journey that leads you to truly know yourself. This is what life is really about.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Thunder Road - Part 3: Magic In The Night
There are things that haunt us in our lives. Regret chases away our dreams and petrifies our motions.
Throughout “Thunder Road,” we get a sense that Mary has some thing that is holding her back from joining the protagonist in his car but we aren’t sure what it is. While we never hear the details, the last part of “Thunder Road” focuses on how much bravery it takes to move beyond the ghosts of the past into the possibilities of the future.
Mary has made promises that she has broken. These boys that she has hurt and sent away haunt the “skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolet." Mary can’t escape all of the mistakes she has made, all the sins of her past and in the darkness of the night they overtake her. Her graduation gown, the symbol of what she worked so hard for, is in rags. What she thought would bring her liberation is just an illusion.
As the night ends, there is a “lonely cool before dawn.” The engines of the burned out Chevrolet's filled with her broken dreams, start to roar like an animal heading towards her soul. But when Mary steps out onto the porch and sees him standing there, all her regret and fears, disappear on the wind.
The perspective switches one more time and as Mary climbs in, he thinks, “it’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win.” This line is about leaving everything behind, moving on with one’s life and taking a chance to make something happen. As Springsteen sings “win” we hear the music rev up like an engine and in the sailing saxophone line we see the car drive out onto thunder road.
“Thunder Road,” like many of Springsteen’s songs works through a simple arrangement of chord progressions. If you know the basic I-IV-V chords on a guitar you can work through most of this song. Combined with the harmonica at the beginning of the song has a folk-like sensibility. Springsteen mixes this with the grandeur of Phil Spector’s symphonic pop songs like “Unchained Melody.”
“Thunder Road,” lacks a clear verse and chorus structure. Instead it unravels with a stream of consciousness, slowly building and evolving across a musical landscape that reflects the nostalgia in all of our hearts.
When Springsteen broke into this song in the pouring rain at Wrigley Field, I pulled my wife close to me. As the harmonica line sailed into the night, I felt tears welling up. You could feel the entire stadium begin to sing with Bruce. Then Bruce put his mic down and let the audience sing “ . . . young anymore, show a little faith, there’s magic in the night, you ain’t a beauty but hey you’re alright.”
Then Bruce responded approvingly “well, that’s all right with me.”
With these words, the audience is singing about Springsteen himself. He’s not the twenty-something he was when he first sang “Born To Run,” but he’s still our man. These lines are about what is the most important things in life, faith, love and the belief that there is magic out there. There is wonder in the unknown and if we believe in something hard enough and take a chance, we can all find our own “Thunder Road.”
Throughout “Thunder Road,” we get a sense that Mary has some thing that is holding her back from joining the protagonist in his car but we aren’t sure what it is. While we never hear the details, the last part of “Thunder Road” focuses on how much bravery it takes to move beyond the ghosts of the past into the possibilities of the future.
Mary has made promises that she has broken. These boys that she has hurt and sent away haunt the “skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolet." Mary can’t escape all of the mistakes she has made, all the sins of her past and in the darkness of the night they overtake her. Her graduation gown, the symbol of what she worked so hard for, is in rags. What she thought would bring her liberation is just an illusion.
As the night ends, there is a “lonely cool before dawn.” The engines of the burned out Chevrolet's filled with her broken dreams, start to roar like an animal heading towards her soul. But when Mary steps out onto the porch and sees him standing there, all her regret and fears, disappear on the wind.
The perspective switches one more time and as Mary climbs in, he thinks, “it’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win.” This line is about leaving everything behind, moving on with one’s life and taking a chance to make something happen. As Springsteen sings “win” we hear the music rev up like an engine and in the sailing saxophone line we see the car drive out onto thunder road.
“Thunder Road,” like many of Springsteen’s songs works through a simple arrangement of chord progressions. If you know the basic I-IV-V chords on a guitar you can work through most of this song. Combined with the harmonica at the beginning of the song has a folk-like sensibility. Springsteen mixes this with the grandeur of Phil Spector’s symphonic pop songs like “Unchained Melody.”
“Thunder Road,” lacks a clear verse and chorus structure. Instead it unravels with a stream of consciousness, slowly building and evolving across a musical landscape that reflects the nostalgia in all of our hearts.
When Springsteen broke into this song in the pouring rain at Wrigley Field, I pulled my wife close to me. As the harmonica line sailed into the night, I felt tears welling up. You could feel the entire stadium begin to sing with Bruce. Then Bruce put his mic down and let the audience sing “ . . . young anymore, show a little faith, there’s magic in the night, you ain’t a beauty but hey you’re alright.”
Then Bruce responded approvingly “well, that’s all right with me.”
With these words, the audience is singing about Springsteen himself. He’s not the twenty-something he was when he first sang “Born To Run,” but he’s still our man. These lines are about what is the most important things in life, faith, love and the belief that there is magic out there. There is wonder in the unknown and if we believe in something hard enough and take a chance, we can all find our own “Thunder Road.”
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) by Meat Loaf
Somewhere between Broadway show tunes, 1970s rock, and the melodrama of opera there is Meat Loaf.
I genuinely love Meat Loaf as a musician and actor. Sometimes articles about Meat Loaf and reviews look at him as a guilty pleasure, something that you know is not very good but you enjoy regardless.
The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea of a guilty pleasure. It implies that you are ashamed of liking something. The only way that you can explain your love of a guilty pleasure is by admitting to people it isn’t very good so you aren’t embarrassed. But you should never feel embarrassed for enjoying a piece of art. And if someone makes fun of you for liking something they think is garbage, it’s there loss.
I’m here to say that Meat Loaf is a fantastic singer and his music, most of which was written by Jim Steinmen (who was also responsible for “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”) creates masterful, remarkable and powerful pop music. I don’t us the term “pop music” as a derogatory term but rather as a way approach this piece of art. Art needs to be analyzed for what it is, not what it’s not. The strength of a song is determined by uncovering the intention of an artist and then, figuring out how well they did that.
If someone is making a horror film and it’s really scary, it’s a great movie. If someone intends to make a romantic comedy and you analyze it as a horror movie, it’s not going to get very good reviews.
The reason why I’m starting my look at Meat Loaf with “I Would Do Anything For Love” is because this was my introduction to Meat Loaf and the world of Jim Steinmen. I agree that Bat Out Of Hell is a better album, but it was Bat Out Of Hell II and the lead single “I Would Do Anything For Love” that captured my imagination as an 11-year-old as one of the most influential albums in my life.
Let me get the obvious and over-discussed question out of the way. When Meat Loaf sings, “I would do anything for love but I won’t do that,” he is saying he would do anything to feel love and be loved except for cheat on his girlfriend and have an affair. Meat Loaf played around with this during interviews of the time but it doesn’t really take much explication to figure out what this song is about.
The lyrics are very straightforward. In other songs like “Bat Out Of Hell,” Steinmen layers imagery and symbolism to create passionate melodrama. In this song, it’s just one person stating his commitment to love and the lines he’s not willing to cross. In describing there’s something he wouldn’t do for love, it defines what love truly is and the relationship that he holds sacred.
Yes, this is a long song. The trimmed down single version is about eight minutes and the album version is twelve minutes long. Is that too long? I find it interesting when people talk about how big a deal a song longer than five minutes is in pop music when movements in classical music often are at longer lengths. Yes, it can be reasonably argued that there are places that this song could be cut down, but if you put aside any expectations of length and let this song reveal itself, it really works at its longer length.
Meat Loaf is a powerful singer and a magnetic performer. Here is a performer who can’t possibly put more into every note he sings. His rich, intense, tortured voice is unlike anything in pop music. “I Would Do Anything For Love” is the perfect marriage of a song to a performer. There’s no one else who could really sell the melodrama of this song. When Meat Loaf sings “no one else can save me now but you,” it’s heartbreaking.
I’m convinced that often we stand in the way of letting ourselves enjoy art. We tell ourselves that things aren’t good, or that because something fits within a stereotype that we won’t like it. When we do this we make it so that we can’t enjoy something. If all you do in life is focus on the multitude of reason to not enjoy something, than that’s all you are left with.
If you don’t like this song. That’s fine, but make sure that you don’t like it for the right reasons.
People didn’t want to admit that they loved this song when it was out. I didn’t understand back then why people couldn’t celebrate their love of this song and I still don’t quite get it. Be proud. Music is not about being cool or going with the crowd. It’s about reveling in your own passion and through someone else’s expression, experiencing part of yourself.
I’m proud to say that Meat Loaf’s music continues to take me to that beautiful place where passion and love reigns supreme. There’s no social commentary and there’s no instruments or musical techniques that draw attention to themselves as musical innovations. It’s a fantasy world where all you need is love and the power of melodrama sweeps away cynicism and leaves you with the grandeur and magic of rock music.
I genuinely love Meat Loaf as a musician and actor. Sometimes articles about Meat Loaf and reviews look at him as a guilty pleasure, something that you know is not very good but you enjoy regardless.
The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea of a guilty pleasure. It implies that you are ashamed of liking something. The only way that you can explain your love of a guilty pleasure is by admitting to people it isn’t very good so you aren’t embarrassed. But you should never feel embarrassed for enjoying a piece of art. And if someone makes fun of you for liking something they think is garbage, it’s there loss.
I’m here to say that Meat Loaf is a fantastic singer and his music, most of which was written by Jim Steinmen (who was also responsible for “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”) creates masterful, remarkable and powerful pop music. I don’t us the term “pop music” as a derogatory term but rather as a way approach this piece of art. Art needs to be analyzed for what it is, not what it’s not. The strength of a song is determined by uncovering the intention of an artist and then, figuring out how well they did that.
If someone is making a horror film and it’s really scary, it’s a great movie. If someone intends to make a romantic comedy and you analyze it as a horror movie, it’s not going to get very good reviews.
The reason why I’m starting my look at Meat Loaf with “I Would Do Anything For Love” is because this was my introduction to Meat Loaf and the world of Jim Steinmen. I agree that Bat Out Of Hell is a better album, but it was Bat Out Of Hell II and the lead single “I Would Do Anything For Love” that captured my imagination as an 11-year-old as one of the most influential albums in my life.
Let me get the obvious and over-discussed question out of the way. When Meat Loaf sings, “I would do anything for love but I won’t do that,” he is saying he would do anything to feel love and be loved except for cheat on his girlfriend and have an affair. Meat Loaf played around with this during interviews of the time but it doesn’t really take much explication to figure out what this song is about.
The lyrics are very straightforward. In other songs like “Bat Out Of Hell,” Steinmen layers imagery and symbolism to create passionate melodrama. In this song, it’s just one person stating his commitment to love and the lines he’s not willing to cross. In describing there’s something he wouldn’t do for love, it defines what love truly is and the relationship that he holds sacred.
Yes, this is a long song. The trimmed down single version is about eight minutes and the album version is twelve minutes long. Is that too long? I find it interesting when people talk about how big a deal a song longer than five minutes is in pop music when movements in classical music often are at longer lengths. Yes, it can be reasonably argued that there are places that this song could be cut down, but if you put aside any expectations of length and let this song reveal itself, it really works at its longer length.
Meat Loaf is a powerful singer and a magnetic performer. Here is a performer who can’t possibly put more into every note he sings. His rich, intense, tortured voice is unlike anything in pop music. “I Would Do Anything For Love” is the perfect marriage of a song to a performer. There’s no one else who could really sell the melodrama of this song. When Meat Loaf sings “no one else can save me now but you,” it’s heartbreaking.
I’m convinced that often we stand in the way of letting ourselves enjoy art. We tell ourselves that things aren’t good, or that because something fits within a stereotype that we won’t like it. When we do this we make it so that we can’t enjoy something. If all you do in life is focus on the multitude of reason to not enjoy something, than that’s all you are left with.
If you don’t like this song. That’s fine, but make sure that you don’t like it for the right reasons.
People didn’t want to admit that they loved this song when it was out. I didn’t understand back then why people couldn’t celebrate their love of this song and I still don’t quite get it. Be proud. Music is not about being cool or going with the crowd. It’s about reveling in your own passion and through someone else’s expression, experiencing part of yourself.
I’m proud to say that Meat Loaf’s music continues to take me to that beautiful place where passion and love reigns supreme. There’s no social commentary and there’s no instruments or musical techniques that draw attention to themselves as musical innovations. It’s a fantasy world where all you need is love and the power of melodrama sweeps away cynicism and leaves you with the grandeur and magic of rock music.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Breakthru by Queen
When I first started to go out with Diana I made mix CDs for her. I put a lot of thought into each of these CDs (I talked about this process in this earlier post). I don’t really remember the reasons why I picked most of the songs for those CDs I made for her almost ten years ago but for some of the songs I do. And one of those songs is “Breakthru.”
This late masterpiece by Queen was released in 1989, two years before the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury. While most people think of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You,” when the think of Queen, I think of later songs like this and “Under Pressure” (which I discussed in this earlier post). With “Breakthru,” and many of these later songs, Queen wrote music that really spoke to the spirit of liberation and freedom. Instead of being an anthem for the sake of rocking out, these songs were anthems that talked about the deeper meaning of life.
At the time that this song was recorded, Mercury was feeling the effects of AIDs and lead guitarist Brian May was suffering from depression. Instead of creating music that reflected these feelings, Queen rallied and created a song that aimed to lift others out of these dark feelings. Starting with a slower, almost improvised vocalization, Mercury creates a dark and eerie musical landscape and out of that like the train in the music video comes a driving and pulsating beat.
The lyrics are beautiful expressions of love and adoration. Mercury delivers them with a level of intimacy and charm. At first you feel that he isn’t so much singing but talking straight to you and as the chorus hits, his voice soars. You can feel the joy that this band had in creating this music. It’s in Freddie’s voice, the amazing groove and the ease at which Brian May play his guitar solo. While Mercury sings about trying to make “you” smile, you can’t help but smile yourself.
I put this song on that mix CD for Diana because I wanted to tell her how much I wanted to get to know her better. I wanted her to know how excited I was to make that breakthrough, make her smile and know her. I wanted to her to know that the uncontrollable smile I feel when I listened to “Breakthru” was the same one I had on my face when I thought of her.
Ten years later “Breakthru” brings me back to that early part in our relationship, and the excitement of getting to know someone. Are there still breakthroughs to make in our relationship? Not in the same sense as in the beginning of our relationship. Instead of the breakthroughs being in getting to know each other, it's in sharing new experiences in life. The same excitement I felt with wanting to get to know Diana, I feel whenever Diana and I enter a new adventure in life together.
As I got to know Diana, everything I found out about her made me want to get to know her even better and with every adventure we share together it makes me look forward to each breakthrough we share.
This late masterpiece by Queen was released in 1989, two years before the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury. While most people think of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You,” when the think of Queen, I think of later songs like this and “Under Pressure” (which I discussed in this earlier post). With “Breakthru,” and many of these later songs, Queen wrote music that really spoke to the spirit of liberation and freedom. Instead of being an anthem for the sake of rocking out, these songs were anthems that talked about the deeper meaning of life.
At the time that this song was recorded, Mercury was feeling the effects of AIDs and lead guitarist Brian May was suffering from depression. Instead of creating music that reflected these feelings, Queen rallied and created a song that aimed to lift others out of these dark feelings. Starting with a slower, almost improvised vocalization, Mercury creates a dark and eerie musical landscape and out of that like the train in the music video comes a driving and pulsating beat.
The lyrics are beautiful expressions of love and adoration. Mercury delivers them with a level of intimacy and charm. At first you feel that he isn’t so much singing but talking straight to you and as the chorus hits, his voice soars. You can feel the joy that this band had in creating this music. It’s in Freddie’s voice, the amazing groove and the ease at which Brian May play his guitar solo. While Mercury sings about trying to make “you” smile, you can’t help but smile yourself.
I put this song on that mix CD for Diana because I wanted to tell her how much I wanted to get to know her better. I wanted her to know how excited I was to make that breakthrough, make her smile and know her. I wanted to her to know that the uncontrollable smile I feel when I listened to “Breakthru” was the same one I had on my face when I thought of her.
Ten years later “Breakthru” brings me back to that early part in our relationship, and the excitement of getting to know someone. Are there still breakthroughs to make in our relationship? Not in the same sense as in the beginning of our relationship. Instead of the breakthroughs being in getting to know each other, it's in sharing new experiences in life. The same excitement I felt with wanting to get to know Diana, I feel whenever Diana and I enter a new adventure in life together.
As I got to know Diana, everything I found out about her made me want to get to know her even better and with every adventure we share together it makes me look forward to each breakthrough we share.
Friday, June 22, 2012
One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men
To mourn the death of my goldfish Winston Tang, my brother and I posted songs about death on his facebook page. Buffy’s contribution to this remembrance was “One Sweet Day” by Mariah Care & Boyz II Men.
SRY, I HAS NEVR TOLD U,
ALL I WANTD 2 SAY
AN NAO IZ 2 LATE 2 HOLD U
CAUSE UVE FLOWN AWAY SO FAR AWAY
You know how there are songs that if you don’t know means that you literally lived under a rock during a certain time period? “One Sweet Day” is one of those songs. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men joined forces at the peak of their popularity to record this unforgettable song of mourning in 1995. “One Sweet Day” topped the charts for a record 16-weeks making it the longest running number 1 song ever. It sold over two million units making it one of the most successful pop songs of the year and the decade.
Carey, Boyz II Men and Walter Afanasieff wrote this song about people in their lives they had lost to AIDs. Instead of creating a depressing song focusing on the sorrow of death, Carey and Boyz II Men made a joyous expression about looking forward to that “One Sweet Day” when they would be reunited with the ones that they loved.
The production of this song is slick and clean. It has that 1990s sheen that so much pop music had back then. Sometimes this comes off as cheesy and dated but something about this song makes it work. Mariah does a beautiful job of adapting her voice to this song stripping away any level of sensuality to a more personal and soulful performance.
Three of the Boyz II Men take solos. The one that always gets to me is Wanya. Usually I prefer Nathan’s, who opens this song, but there’s something about Wanya’s bridge. I’m not a big fan of huge gospel glissandos between phrases but Wanya makes it work. He never looses sight of the main melody and the way he ends the phrase is a perfect transition into Carey’s voice.
Yeah, I used this song as a joke. This probably was due to the overexposure I experienced listening to this song in the 90s. Coming back to this song years later, after loosing people in my life, I am grateful for this song. The best music doesn’t always rise to the top in the music industry but “One Sweet Day” is an example of a song that did. The song is well-crafted, the singing is strong and the meaning behind the song is beautiful.
SRY, I HAS NEVR TOLD U,
ALL I WANTD 2 SAY
AN NAO IZ 2 LATE 2 HOLD U
CAUSE UVE FLOWN AWAY SO FAR AWAY
You know how there are songs that if you don’t know means that you literally lived under a rock during a certain time period? “One Sweet Day” is one of those songs. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men joined forces at the peak of their popularity to record this unforgettable song of mourning in 1995. “One Sweet Day” topped the charts for a record 16-weeks making it the longest running number 1 song ever. It sold over two million units making it one of the most successful pop songs of the year and the decade.
Carey, Boyz II Men and Walter Afanasieff wrote this song about people in their lives they had lost to AIDs. Instead of creating a depressing song focusing on the sorrow of death, Carey and Boyz II Men made a joyous expression about looking forward to that “One Sweet Day” when they would be reunited with the ones that they loved.
The production of this song is slick and clean. It has that 1990s sheen that so much pop music had back then. Sometimes this comes off as cheesy and dated but something about this song makes it work. Mariah does a beautiful job of adapting her voice to this song stripping away any level of sensuality to a more personal and soulful performance.
Three of the Boyz II Men take solos. The one that always gets to me is Wanya. Usually I prefer Nathan’s, who opens this song, but there’s something about Wanya’s bridge. I’m not a big fan of huge gospel glissandos between phrases but Wanya makes it work. He never looses sight of the main melody and the way he ends the phrase is a perfect transition into Carey’s voice.
Yeah, I used this song as a joke. This probably was due to the overexposure I experienced listening to this song in the 90s. Coming back to this song years later, after loosing people in my life, I am grateful for this song. The best music doesn’t always rise to the top in the music industry but “One Sweet Day” is an example of a song that did. The song is well-crafted, the singing is strong and the meaning behind the song is beautiful.
Although, the sun will never shine the same,
I'll always look to a brighter day.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
How To Define Marriage
When people ask me for marriage advice, or when I have to sign a guest book at a wedding, one of my favorite piece of marriage advice is: "Make your marriage
what you want it to be."
A lot of people these days are trying to define marriage. My issue with this is that people historically and even in our modern society have very different ideas of what a marriage means. I'm not even talking about the issue of gay marriage. You don't have to look to that deep into "traditional" heterosexual relationships to find wide variations in marriage.
My great grandfather had a concubine. This was an acceptable social practice at the time in Taiwan. While there are historical and literary accounts of wives having issues with concubines, my great grandmother had no issues with this issue. As she put it having a concubine meant that her husband "bothered her less." This was part of their marriage and they were fine with it.
A couple that I know who have been married for about four years has no intention to have kids. This is a position they both feel strongly about and discussed before they got married and they are fine with that fact.
Another one of my close friends spent the first year of their marriage living across the country from each other. And one of my uncles commuted from Tokyo to Texas leaving his family for months at a time for work. For these people, marriage was not something that meant they had to be physically in the same space all of the time.
My marriage to Diana doesn't involve a concubine, we are committed to having kids and it would take something pretty extraordinary for me to live apart from my wife. We've chosen to define our marriage a certain way that works for us. Who am I to say that a marriage that doesn't have children in the future is less legitimate?
Marriage means so many different things to different people. What's important is not that you subscribe to a type of marriage defined by other people but rather one that is defined by the spirituality, love and values that you share with your partner.
We've come such a long way accepting plurality in marriage. Last weekend I was in Nashville, at a cafe with my wife. Sixty years ago, if I walked into that same cafe holding hands with my wife, people would look at us with disapproval and today, no one even looked twice.
Divorce, wider age gaps, interracial relationships, interfaith unions, long distance relationships, changing gender roles, number of children, are all variations in marriage that our society have accepted in a wider definition of marriage.
Some of these things may not work in your marriage and you may disagree with some of these variations in marriage, but they are there and it's important we learn to not judge different definitions of marriage and accept them as reflections of the diversity in our culture.
So make your marriage what you want it to be. Don’t get bogged down by people telling you how their marriage works. Figure it out for yourselves and make it what you want it to be. As the priest said in the sermon I heard at my friends wedding I recently attended, marriage is a sacrament that is ordained by the people getting married, not the church. You are in control of your marriage.
The definition of marriage has evolved for thousands of years in different cultures all across the world and will continue to change. Everyone deserves to define marriage the way they want to, without prejudice and judgment.
The slippery slope is not "let gay people get married and then people will want to marry animals," it is "if you ban gay marriage, then you can ban marriage between people of different religions, and races." Providing more freedom for people begets happiness and more rights for all. And as we've seen in the darkest periods of human history, taking away rights leads to atrocities.
Let's stop trying to define marriage as a list of requirements, a cage. Instead, let's define marriage with the fundamental framework of human companionship and build upon it with our own individual expression of who we are and what we believe.
A lot of people these days are trying to define marriage. My issue with this is that people historically and even in our modern society have very different ideas of what a marriage means. I'm not even talking about the issue of gay marriage. You don't have to look to that deep into "traditional" heterosexual relationships to find wide variations in marriage.
My great grandfather had a concubine. This was an acceptable social practice at the time in Taiwan. While there are historical and literary accounts of wives having issues with concubines, my great grandmother had no issues with this issue. As she put it having a concubine meant that her husband "bothered her less." This was part of their marriage and they were fine with it.
A couple that I know who have been married for about four years has no intention to have kids. This is a position they both feel strongly about and discussed before they got married and they are fine with that fact.
Another one of my close friends spent the first year of their marriage living across the country from each other. And one of my uncles commuted from Tokyo to Texas leaving his family for months at a time for work. For these people, marriage was not something that meant they had to be physically in the same space all of the time.
My marriage to Diana doesn't involve a concubine, we are committed to having kids and it would take something pretty extraordinary for me to live apart from my wife. We've chosen to define our marriage a certain way that works for us. Who am I to say that a marriage that doesn't have children in the future is less legitimate?
Marriage means so many different things to different people. What's important is not that you subscribe to a type of marriage defined by other people but rather one that is defined by the spirituality, love and values that you share with your partner.
We've come such a long way accepting plurality in marriage. Last weekend I was in Nashville, at a cafe with my wife. Sixty years ago, if I walked into that same cafe holding hands with my wife, people would look at us with disapproval and today, no one even looked twice.
Divorce, wider age gaps, interracial relationships, interfaith unions, long distance relationships, changing gender roles, number of children, are all variations in marriage that our society have accepted in a wider definition of marriage.
Some of these things may not work in your marriage and you may disagree with some of these variations in marriage, but they are there and it's important we learn to not judge different definitions of marriage and accept them as reflections of the diversity in our culture.
So make your marriage what you want it to be. Don’t get bogged down by people telling you how their marriage works. Figure it out for yourselves and make it what you want it to be. As the priest said in the sermon I heard at my friends wedding I recently attended, marriage is a sacrament that is ordained by the people getting married, not the church. You are in control of your marriage.
The definition of marriage has evolved for thousands of years in different cultures all across the world and will continue to change. Everyone deserves to define marriage the way they want to, without prejudice and judgment.
The slippery slope is not "let gay people get married and then people will want to marry animals," it is "if you ban gay marriage, then you can ban marriage between people of different religions, and races." Providing more freedom for people begets happiness and more rights for all. And as we've seen in the darkest periods of human history, taking away rights leads to atrocities.
Let's stop trying to define marriage as a list of requirements, a cage. Instead, let's define marriage with the fundamental framework of human companionship and build upon it with our own individual expression of who we are and what we believe.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper is so much more than a girl who wants to
have fun.
After releasing her iconic hit “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,”
she released “Time After Time” as a single, which became her second most successful song.
When I was growing up Cyndi Lauper and Madonna seemed similar. They both had the same dyed hair and clothing style. Now if you compared the two, they could not be more
different. While Madonna has continued
to work hard to be in the public eye and up with trends in pop music, Lauper
has taken a quieter route.
This artist in this acoustic performance of “Time After
Time,” is who Cyndi Lauper has evolved into and there’s hints of this
sensitivity and maturity in “Time After Time.”
Lauper takes the cliché of “time after time,” the idea that
someone does something persistently, often with a negative feeling into a
feeling of reassurance. With gentle
imagery in the first verse and the feeling of longing and sadness she reassures
in the chorus that she will be there.
With unforgettable and thought-provoking lines like “the
second hand unwinds,” and “the drum beats out of time,” Lauper paints a
beautiful picture of insecurity, hope and love. Lauper has an almost child-like voice. It’s small, but powerful like Lauper
herself. Within her small stature there
is a powerful artists and within her gentle voice there is great expression and
depth.
I grew up with this song and never thought anything of it until seeing it featured in an 8th grade play I went
to last weekend.
The promise of this song is not something that you
understand early in life. When you are
young you have parents, friends and sibling and you don’t think that they
will ever not be there.
Then you grow up and people pass away, friends move away and
you realize how everything in life doesn’t last forever. You can’t know for sure that you can always
be there for someone but you can promise.
When you do this, it’s not about lying or being unrealistic,
it’s about expressing a feeling. It’s
saying that against the odds, against reality, you will be there. That desire and commitment to do whatever you can, time after time to be there, is what connects us to the ones we love and motivates us to be not for ourselves but for each other.
Monday, April 16, 2012
What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction
"One Direction?"
The older I get the more I rely on my students to keep me in touch with what's going on in pop music. After hearing rave reviews about One Direction from my 8th graders girls, I caught them performing on Saturday Night Live.
My wife, Diana's first comment was “these guys are cute and they kind of look like your students.” I had to agree (with the looking like my students part, I mean I guess they are cute. . ). There appearance is friendly and harmless with a mix of modern fashion with traditional sensibilities.
My first reaction was: “wow, these guys are having fun.” Everything from the light choreography to the way the moved on stage exuded relaxation and enjoyment. There’s an idea that musicians need to be serious and I understand there is an appeal to the silent type, but I like to see my musicians smiling on stage.. Some of my favorites artists Taylor Swift, genuinely seem to enjoy their job and that you a long way. And their performance got me all the way through “What Makes You Beautiful” without skepticism and cynicism.
I mentioned the choreography which isn’t so much dancing but well timed movements across the stage into different formations. These moves are smooth and work well with the song. I’d rather them perform this way and focus on their singing. Now, the most immediate question when people seem to ask out of boy bands are whether or not they can sing. Well, here’s your answer:
Just voices, not doubled up with backing and guitar and the result is: yes they can sing. “What Makes You Beautiful” doesn’t push any of them into their falsetto like other songs on their album, so we don’t see their full range here. But they do pull it off. They have harmony, they sing in tune. No, they aren’t Freddie Mercury or Aretha, but for a boy band, the vocals are very strong.
The song itself is a great first single. It’s keying into the same Taylor Swift teenage perspective fantasies and realities. The music doesn’t talk down the way young feel and it doesn’t over sexualize teenage situations with ideas that are beyond their age.
“What Makes You Beautiful,” has one the sweetest sentiments I’ve heard in a song in a long time. They are singing about how a girl doesn’t think she’s beautiful and he’s trying to convince her of that fact. What’s really nice is that the things that make her beautiful to our protagonist are not superficial things. He likes the way she flips her hair not the way her butt looks in her jeans. What really makes her beautiful is the fact that she doesn’t see herself as beautiful, which reflects her character and her personality.
No, it’s not the fact that she has a low self-esteem that makes her beautiful, it’s that she’s not someone who flaunts her good looks. She’s a girl who doesn’t spend forever on her make-up. She just doesn’t see herself as a beauty queen. This is a girl you can relate to.
Boy bands are an important tradition in pop music. Yes, everything that One Direction is doing here has been done before. But that’s okay, because this kind of music needs to keep coming back to make us smile and have fun with music. What I respect about One Direction is that they are continuing a tradition. That little hiccup thing during the verse, that’s a musical reference to Buddy Holly, and that’s awesome.
I have no clue how long these boys will be around. Is there a Justin Timberlake in that crowd, maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that this group is a refreshing, fun and harmless. There will be inevitable backlash from men because they don’t understand why girls like them and adults who take themselves way too seriously.
Get over yourselves and take a moment to have some fun with One Direction and you might just figure out what makes this music so beautiful.
The older I get the more I rely on my students to keep me in touch with what's going on in pop music. After hearing rave reviews about One Direction from my 8th graders girls, I caught them performing on Saturday Night Live.
My wife, Diana's first comment was “these guys are cute and they kind of look like your students.” I had to agree (with the looking like my students part, I mean I guess they are cute. . ). There appearance is friendly and harmless with a mix of modern fashion with traditional sensibilities.
My first reaction was: “wow, these guys are having fun.” Everything from the light choreography to the way the moved on stage exuded relaxation and enjoyment. There’s an idea that musicians need to be serious and I understand there is an appeal to the silent type, but I like to see my musicians smiling on stage.. Some of my favorites artists Taylor Swift, genuinely seem to enjoy their job and that you a long way. And their performance got me all the way through “What Makes You Beautiful” without skepticism and cynicism.
I mentioned the choreography which isn’t so much dancing but well timed movements across the stage into different formations. These moves are smooth and work well with the song. I’d rather them perform this way and focus on their singing. Now, the most immediate question when people seem to ask out of boy bands are whether or not they can sing. Well, here’s your answer:
Just voices, not doubled up with backing and guitar and the result is: yes they can sing. “What Makes You Beautiful” doesn’t push any of them into their falsetto like other songs on their album, so we don’t see their full range here. But they do pull it off. They have harmony, they sing in tune. No, they aren’t Freddie Mercury or Aretha, but for a boy band, the vocals are very strong.
The song itself is a great first single. It’s keying into the same Taylor Swift teenage perspective fantasies and realities. The music doesn’t talk down the way young feel and it doesn’t over sexualize teenage situations with ideas that are beyond their age.
“What Makes You Beautiful,” has one the sweetest sentiments I’ve heard in a song in a long time. They are singing about how a girl doesn’t think she’s beautiful and he’s trying to convince her of that fact. What’s really nice is that the things that make her beautiful to our protagonist are not superficial things. He likes the way she flips her hair not the way her butt looks in her jeans. What really makes her beautiful is the fact that she doesn’t see herself as beautiful, which reflects her character and her personality.
No, it’s not the fact that she has a low self-esteem that makes her beautiful, it’s that she’s not someone who flaunts her good looks. She’s a girl who doesn’t spend forever on her make-up. She just doesn’t see herself as a beauty queen. This is a girl you can relate to.
Boy bands are an important tradition in pop music. Yes, everything that One Direction is doing here has been done before. But that’s okay, because this kind of music needs to keep coming back to make us smile and have fun with music. What I respect about One Direction is that they are continuing a tradition. That little hiccup thing during the verse, that’s a musical reference to Buddy Holly, and that’s awesome.
I have no clue how long these boys will be around. Is there a Justin Timberlake in that crowd, maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that this group is a refreshing, fun and harmless. There will be inevitable backlash from men because they don’t understand why girls like them and adults who take themselves way too seriously.
Get over yourselves and take a moment to have some fun with One Direction and you might just figure out what makes this music so beautiful.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Would You Go With Me by Josh Turner
“Would you like to go out with me?”
This is one of the hardest questions I’ve ever had to ask. The funny thing is that I’ve only had to ask this question once when I wasn’t sure of the answer and that was to Diana. I didn’t go out on many first dates because most of them were put together through circumstance or the girl asked me out.
I remember trying to change the wording to make it seem less formal (“you want to hang out sometime?”) but the meaning is the same. Believe it or not, the first time I asked, Diana said no. She was busy dealing with some stuff and her rejection wasn’t a reflection of her feelings on me. I didn’t know that at the time, so I kept trying.
As most people would advise, our first date was meeting at a public place like a restaurant. Slowly the degree of trust worked up to a point where went on adventures into Chicago and day trips up to Wisconsin.
Now besides work we go together to almost everything we do. Whether it’s something that is for both of us like going to the library or accompanying Diana on a trip to Walgreens, we go with each other. We go together. We don’t have to, it’s just nice because having her with me even with the most mundane errands turns it into an adventure.
Josh Turner’s “Would You Go With Me,” is about asking somebody out not just for a date but for life. It’s about sharing the experiences, as unpredictable as they can be and being okay with going wherever with your partner just as long as they are there with you.
Turner continues the grand country tradition of Baritone singing. Probably the most notable country singer to sing in a low voice is Johnny Cash. While most male mainstream male pop singers sing in a high tenor voice like Justin Timberlake, country music is filled with low singing legends.
Straining through high notes creates a great sense of desperation and drama in music, which fits a lot of pop and soul music. While people who sing high with good training don’t need to strain to hit higher notes, many people who can easily sing high notes often make it sound like they are reaching.
The thing about singing low is that you can’t really force it. Low range is limited while the high vocal range can be expanded through training. To get good low tones you have to be relaxed. The sound that great low voices like Turner expresses relaxed and laid back feeling. Turner does a nice job of keeping this feeling as he moves up to his tenor range during the chorus.
Along with a beautiful Mandolin, banjo and guitar backing, “Would You Go With Me,” quickly sets a mood that is relaxed like an endless Sunday afternoon but gently flowing like a stream through a forest.
Turner asks his love is she will go with him through moments of excitement “streets of fire, “ and experiences of uncertainty “would it be okay if I didn’t know the way.” He speaks about optimism “could you not look down forever?” and the freedom they can experience together. In the center of this this song is a simple confession of love with a simple question. While the song never provides an answer the feeling of the song does and you know that he is asking her this question in middle of a journey she is happy to go on with him.
Diana, in my life, is knowing that there will always be someone to go with me if I need it and even when I don’t. It’s security and it’s trust. It’s something that is important, something we all need. There are time when I hesitate to go somewhere with Diana. Here’s the thing, sometimes I regret not going with Diana but I never regret going along with Diana.
Be brave, ask someone to go with you and next time somebody you care about asks you to go with them, put down whatever you are doing and go. You never know what great adventures await you because you are spending time with someone you love.
This is one of the hardest questions I’ve ever had to ask. The funny thing is that I’ve only had to ask this question once when I wasn’t sure of the answer and that was to Diana. I didn’t go out on many first dates because most of them were put together through circumstance or the girl asked me out.
I remember trying to change the wording to make it seem less formal (“you want to hang out sometime?”) but the meaning is the same. Believe it or not, the first time I asked, Diana said no. She was busy dealing with some stuff and her rejection wasn’t a reflection of her feelings on me. I didn’t know that at the time, so I kept trying.
As most people would advise, our first date was meeting at a public place like a restaurant. Slowly the degree of trust worked up to a point where went on adventures into Chicago and day trips up to Wisconsin.
Now besides work we go together to almost everything we do. Whether it’s something that is for both of us like going to the library or accompanying Diana on a trip to Walgreens, we go with each other. We go together. We don’t have to, it’s just nice because having her with me even with the most mundane errands turns it into an adventure.
Josh Turner’s “Would You Go With Me,” is about asking somebody out not just for a date but for life. It’s about sharing the experiences, as unpredictable as they can be and being okay with going wherever with your partner just as long as they are there with you.
Turner continues the grand country tradition of Baritone singing. Probably the most notable country singer to sing in a low voice is Johnny Cash. While most male mainstream male pop singers sing in a high tenor voice like Justin Timberlake, country music is filled with low singing legends.
Straining through high notes creates a great sense of desperation and drama in music, which fits a lot of pop and soul music. While people who sing high with good training don’t need to strain to hit higher notes, many people who can easily sing high notes often make it sound like they are reaching.
The thing about singing low is that you can’t really force it. Low range is limited while the high vocal range can be expanded through training. To get good low tones you have to be relaxed. The sound that great low voices like Turner expresses relaxed and laid back feeling. Turner does a nice job of keeping this feeling as he moves up to his tenor range during the chorus.
Along with a beautiful Mandolin, banjo and guitar backing, “Would You Go With Me,” quickly sets a mood that is relaxed like an endless Sunday afternoon but gently flowing like a stream through a forest.
Turner asks his love is she will go with him through moments of excitement “streets of fire, “ and experiences of uncertainty “would it be okay if I didn’t know the way.” He speaks about optimism “could you not look down forever?” and the freedom they can experience together. In the center of this this song is a simple confession of love with a simple question. While the song never provides an answer the feeling of the song does and you know that he is asking her this question in middle of a journey she is happy to go on with him.
Diana, in my life, is knowing that there will always be someone to go with me if I need it and even when I don’t. It’s security and it’s trust. It’s something that is important, something we all need. There are time when I hesitate to go somewhere with Diana. Here’s the thing, sometimes I regret not going with Diana but I never regret going along with Diana.
Be brave, ask someone to go with you and next time somebody you care about asks you to go with them, put down whatever you are doing and go. You never know what great adventures await you because you are spending time with someone you love.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
30 Days Until Thirty-Years-Old
In 30 days on March 30th, I’m turning thirty-years old and I don’t feel like I’m ready.
During the past weeks I’ve mentioned my feelings about turning thirty to a couple people and most have disregarded my feeling as being a little ridiculous. So I’m going to try to explain myself. I can’t be the only person this year turning thirty who’s dealing with these feelings so I’m going to try to lay this out for you.
When I was a teenager I never yearned for independence or wanted to be an adult. There were times that I wanted more freedom but the idea of being an adult seemed impossible. The difference between adults and kids in my teenage mind was that adults just had things in life figured out. They knew how to handle finance, speeding tickets and how to fix random things. My mom has this way of understanding people that seemed unattainable. I figured there would be time for me to get there but it seemed so far away because as teenagers so much in life seemed so hard to understand.
On my twenty-first birthday I was on a plane flight coming back to college from Spring Break. I remember thinking “I’m an adult now, but I still don’t have anything in life figured out.” But I had time to figure things out. Nine years later, I have that same feeling. The difference is that I'm no longer new to being an adult.
Almost every person who is older than me that I respect has told me that they have no idea what they are doing in life and have yet to figure their lives out. I know that this feeling of constantly figuring life out is a good thing, it’s a sign of growth. I’m just having a hard time letting go of the illusion that at thirty, things would just feel a little bit more . . . together.
Don’t get me wrong; I have had an amazing decade. I’ve made some amazing friends and married my best friend. I live in a great place, have a dream job and a beautiful family including quite possibly the cutest dog on the planet. But for some reason, being thirty, being an adult should feel more natural.
At work I talk to other teachers and administrators who seem so much more adult than me. They talk to me on an equal level, and I’m thinking to myself “you’ve been teaching longer than I’ve been alive, how can we be on the same level?” I feel like a little kid playing dress up. I even see people my own age on television and for some reason they seem older than me.
I know this is all perception and that I have proven through many different situations that I am in fact an adult and that I do have my life in a good place. I just can’t shake this feeling that there’s something I missed in my twenties, something I should have figured out by now.
Maybe that’s exactly what this past decade has been about: the realization that adulthood is just an illusion for the youth. Maybe we never have things “figured out,” we just learn to act like we do for the younger people in our lives so they can feel secure.
I don't really feel like I'm ready to be thirty but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I didn't feel ready to be twenty and look how well that worked out.
Life goes on and that really is something to celebrate.
Here's to spending the next thirty days doing just that.
During the past weeks I’ve mentioned my feelings about turning thirty to a couple people and most have disregarded my feeling as being a little ridiculous. So I’m going to try to explain myself. I can’t be the only person this year turning thirty who’s dealing with these feelings so I’m going to try to lay this out for you.
When I was a teenager I never yearned for independence or wanted to be an adult. There were times that I wanted more freedom but the idea of being an adult seemed impossible. The difference between adults and kids in my teenage mind was that adults just had things in life figured out. They knew how to handle finance, speeding tickets and how to fix random things. My mom has this way of understanding people that seemed unattainable. I figured there would be time for me to get there but it seemed so far away because as teenagers so much in life seemed so hard to understand.
On my twenty-first birthday I was on a plane flight coming back to college from Spring Break. I remember thinking “I’m an adult now, but I still don’t have anything in life figured out.” But I had time to figure things out. Nine years later, I have that same feeling. The difference is that I'm no longer new to being an adult.
Almost every person who is older than me that I respect has told me that they have no idea what they are doing in life and have yet to figure their lives out. I know that this feeling of constantly figuring life out is a good thing, it’s a sign of growth. I’m just having a hard time letting go of the illusion that at thirty, things would just feel a little bit more . . . together.
Don’t get me wrong; I have had an amazing decade. I’ve made some amazing friends and married my best friend. I live in a great place, have a dream job and a beautiful family including quite possibly the cutest dog on the planet. But for some reason, being thirty, being an adult should feel more natural.
At work I talk to other teachers and administrators who seem so much more adult than me. They talk to me on an equal level, and I’m thinking to myself “you’ve been teaching longer than I’ve been alive, how can we be on the same level?” I feel like a little kid playing dress up. I even see people my own age on television and for some reason they seem older than me.
I know this is all perception and that I have proven through many different situations that I am in fact an adult and that I do have my life in a good place. I just can’t shake this feeling that there’s something I missed in my twenties, something I should have figured out by now.
Maybe that’s exactly what this past decade has been about: the realization that adulthood is just an illusion for the youth. Maybe we never have things “figured out,” we just learn to act like we do for the younger people in our lives so they can feel secure.
I don't really feel like I'm ready to be thirty but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I didn't feel ready to be twenty and look how well that worked out.
Life goes on and that really is something to celebrate.
Here's to spending the next thirty days doing just that.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Whitney Houston-The Voice
When I wrote this post a couple weeks ago about Whitney Houston. I didn’t imagine that less than a month later I would be writing about losing her.
As much as I would like to think that I’m an expert on music, at the end of the day, I simply a man who loves music. What I speak from is my experiences and my life. So when Etta James died, I didn’t feel much. I respect her as one of the most important artists in music history and I never formed an emotional attachment to her music. Hearing the news Saturday night that Whitney was dead hit me in the same way that the death of Michael Jackson affected me. It’s like her death left an open space inside of me somewhere and it hurts. No it’s not the same as when my grandparents died, but it's hard to deal with.
Like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston was an idealized picture of what it means to be American. The image of her singing the National Anthem at the Superbowl and her singing “I Will Always Love You,” is my vision of what was a pop star. But when I was a kid, I needed that. And when things started falling apart for Whitney, it was at the exact time when I began to realize that no one is perfect and the fact that we all have our battles. And as this reality came crashing into my idealized worldview, Whitney’s life came crashing down right in front of us.
Even though, I know now that Whitney like all of us is not some super-hero, the image of her smiling, dancing around and being that perfect artist is one of my fondest childhood memories. Whitney at her best was one of the greatest singers in American history. She managed to balance her soul and gospel background with pop sensibilities influencing every musical artist that heard her. Now we may have artists who didn’t grow up listening to her but I bet they listen to people who did. Her image was sensual, but not overly sexualized. The grace she carried herself with was something that we just don’t see anymore.
When pop music got dark, she kept to her guns and melded modern sounds, which other female artists utilized to objectify themselves and continued to spread a message of love and strength.
We all have to grow up. We all have to go through a stage when we realize the heroes of our youth are flawed, that the images we look to have dark edges and the that sometimes, no matter how much we hope, we have to watch the people who inspired our souls pass along to another place.
I just wish it didn't have to be this way.
Thanks Whitney for the music, the memories and the dreams.
As much as I would like to think that I’m an expert on music, at the end of the day, I simply a man who loves music. What I speak from is my experiences and my life. So when Etta James died, I didn’t feel much. I respect her as one of the most important artists in music history and I never formed an emotional attachment to her music. Hearing the news Saturday night that Whitney was dead hit me in the same way that the death of Michael Jackson affected me. It’s like her death left an open space inside of me somewhere and it hurts. No it’s not the same as when my grandparents died, but it's hard to deal with.
Like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston was an idealized picture of what it means to be American. The image of her singing the National Anthem at the Superbowl and her singing “I Will Always Love You,” is my vision of what was a pop star. But when I was a kid, I needed that. And when things started falling apart for Whitney, it was at the exact time when I began to realize that no one is perfect and the fact that we all have our battles. And as this reality came crashing into my idealized worldview, Whitney’s life came crashing down right in front of us.
Even though, I know now that Whitney like all of us is not some super-hero, the image of her smiling, dancing around and being that perfect artist is one of my fondest childhood memories. Whitney at her best was one of the greatest singers in American history. She managed to balance her soul and gospel background with pop sensibilities influencing every musical artist that heard her. Now we may have artists who didn’t grow up listening to her but I bet they listen to people who did. Her image was sensual, but not overly sexualized. The grace she carried herself with was something that we just don’t see anymore.
When pop music got dark, she kept to her guns and melded modern sounds, which other female artists utilized to objectify themselves and continued to spread a message of love and strength.
We all have to grow up. We all have to go through a stage when we realize the heroes of our youth are flawed, that the images we look to have dark edges and the that sometimes, no matter how much we hope, we have to watch the people who inspired our souls pass along to another place.
I just wish it didn't have to be this way.
Thanks Whitney for the music, the memories and the dreams.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Civil Rights In America: Good News & Bad News
Good News:
Bad News:
Unfortunately we've got a long way to go. One Town's War On Gay Teens is an important article in the new issue of Rolling Stone. The lead is:
The heartbreaking research that was part of the Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme Court Case, which featured African-American children characterizing caucasian-style dolls with light skin as being prettier than African-America dolls with dark skin proved how devastating segregation was to children.
What research do we have that the anti-gay marriage movement and similar anti-gay arguments are causing damage to our children?
The ones who are dead from hate crimes and suicide.
Bad News:
Unfortunately we've got a long way to go. One Town's War On Gay Teens is an important article in the new issue of Rolling Stone. The lead is:
In Michele Bachmann's home district, evangelicals have created an extreme anti-gay climate. After a rash of suicides, the kids are fighting back.This article is deep, powerful and brings into focus what this discussion really is about. This is not a questions about marriage, or sexuality but rather an acceptance of diversity. The lawyers behind the anti-Prop 8 case have allied themselves with Republicans and are characterized as conservative lawyers, but they went beyond politics and saw this as exactly what this is: a civil rights issue.
The heartbreaking research that was part of the Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme Court Case, which featured African-American children characterizing caucasian-style dolls with light skin as being prettier than African-America dolls with dark skin proved how devastating segregation was to children.
What research do we have that the anti-gay marriage movement and similar anti-gay arguments are causing damage to our children?
The ones who are dead from hate crimes and suicide.
Monday, January 16, 2012
All I Need by Matchbox Twenty
Once upon a time, iTunes wasn’t a store. It was simply an application used to play CD’s. It wasn’t until a couple months into using it that anyone I knew started using this program to import songs onto their computers (We’re talking about the early 2000s here). iTunes was far better at not only organizing music but also burning music CDs.
Before iTunes you had to import the songs, arrange a playlist, create an image and then burn that image onto a CD. Most of the time this two-hour process would mess up and you’d have to restart. iTunes slimmed this process down and it opened up the world of making mix CDs. All you had to do was drop some songs in a playlist you had previously uploaded and press burn and in about 45 minutes you would have a personalized audio CD.
I really loved making these mixes for people. I tried to create something that expressed the way I felt about them and also gave a joyful to experience. Most of the time I started the mix with faster music and ended with slower and more introspective tunes. I didn’t really try to send subliminal messages through these mix CDs. Most of the time if there was something that I wanted to say through a song, it was pretty explicit like with “Bobby Jean” by Bruce Springsteen, which I discussed in this post.
When I set out to make the first mix CD I ever made for Diana, I spent a lot of time figuring out which songs to include. One of the first songs that came to mind was “All I Need” by Matchbox Twenty.
This song is probably the most joyful song that this band ever recorded. Released in 2002 from their third album, Matchbox Twenty leaves behind the brooding darkness of many of their hits embracing a hopeful joy. There’s an 1960s feeling in this song even featuring a quote from The Buckingham’s hit “kind of a drag” in the bridge.
Within this shiny soundscape the lyrics talk about difficult times and people with “a sinking feeling” and being “down on themselves.” Thomas’ reaction to this in the chorus is that all he needs is someone to lean on. It’s such a simple sentiment but at that time it was exactly how I felt about Diana. All I felt like I needed was someone to lean on and in some ways that has never changed.
Putting “All I Need” on that mix CD forever connected this song with that time in my life and the feelings I had for Diana. When I talk to my students about music, this idea that you can create a group of songs for about how you feel is lost on them. We don't have any more as people share songs more than playlists.
Music isn't just about how we feel about ourselves, but also how we feel about each other. Mix CDs communicated my feelings to other people and while I haven't made a mix CD in a while, whenever I hear "All I Need" that reminds me of the joy creating one. As dorky as they may seem, mix CDs were awesome and I wish we could embrace this unique gift of music once again.
Before iTunes you had to import the songs, arrange a playlist, create an image and then burn that image onto a CD. Most of the time this two-hour process would mess up and you’d have to restart. iTunes slimmed this process down and it opened up the world of making mix CDs. All you had to do was drop some songs in a playlist you had previously uploaded and press burn and in about 45 minutes you would have a personalized audio CD.
I really loved making these mixes for people. I tried to create something that expressed the way I felt about them and also gave a joyful to experience. Most of the time I started the mix with faster music and ended with slower and more introspective tunes. I didn’t really try to send subliminal messages through these mix CDs. Most of the time if there was something that I wanted to say through a song, it was pretty explicit like with “Bobby Jean” by Bruce Springsteen, which I discussed in this post.
When I set out to make the first mix CD I ever made for Diana, I spent a lot of time figuring out which songs to include. One of the first songs that came to mind was “All I Need” by Matchbox Twenty.
This song is probably the most joyful song that this band ever recorded. Released in 2002 from their third album, Matchbox Twenty leaves behind the brooding darkness of many of their hits embracing a hopeful joy. There’s an 1960s feeling in this song even featuring a quote from The Buckingham’s hit “kind of a drag” in the bridge.
Within this shiny soundscape the lyrics talk about difficult times and people with “a sinking feeling” and being “down on themselves.” Thomas’ reaction to this in the chorus is that all he needs is someone to lean on. It’s such a simple sentiment but at that time it was exactly how I felt about Diana. All I felt like I needed was someone to lean on and in some ways that has never changed.
Putting “All I Need” on that mix CD forever connected this song with that time in my life and the feelings I had for Diana. When I talk to my students about music, this idea that you can create a group of songs for about how you feel is lost on them. We don't have any more as people share songs more than playlists.
Music isn't just about how we feel about ourselves, but also how we feel about each other. Mix CDs communicated my feelings to other people and while I haven't made a mix CD in a while, whenever I hear "All I Need" that reminds me of the joy creating one. As dorky as they may seem, mix CDs were awesome and I wish we could embrace this unique gift of music once again.
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