The River by Bruce Springsteen

If “Thunder Road” is the dream, then “The River” is the reality.



All of the hope, the trust and the optimism of “Thunder Road,” is tested in “The River.” It asks the question, what keeps us going when our dreams seems more like distant memories than our destiny?

“The River,” is a stunningly beautiful and almost uncomfortably emotionally raw masterpiece. It starts with a harmonica just like “Thunder Road,” but instead of being a comforting invitation, it’s a mournful cry. Springsteen’s voice comes forth in a clear and pure way. The lack of melodrama and the straightforward way that he sings expresses a feeling of being distant that mirror the struggles of our protagonist.

The story is simple. He is raised in a town where there is not a lot of hope and not a lot of expectation that you will do anything beyond what “your daddy done.” Even with this environment, he would take Mary out of the valley into green field down to the river. You can almost imagine that drive as the ending of “Thunder Road,” feeling the glory of the open road.

Mary got pregnant, he got a union card, and they got married. There’s no romance in this wedding. There’s “no flowers, no wedding dress.” Even with all of the pressure of the baby, and the less than idea wedding they can still escape to the river.

Things get worse. He can’t find work. The “things that seemed so important,” just vanish. There’s depression in these words as what he used to love no longer holds our interests because reality is just too much. He copes by saying he doesn’t remember what used to mean so much to him, like his music, his friends, while Mary acts like she doesn’t care. They have surrendered to life. He has given up on his memories and Mary, acting like she doesn’t care, devalues everything they used to hold dear.

At this low point in the song, the music picks up momentum and he dives deep into a memory at the river. In these couple lines Springsteen’s romanticism is beautifully displayed “and pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take.” It’s at this point that we begin to understand what’s so special about the river.

This memory doesn’t bring comfort, it torments. Springsteen's voice rises in anguish and he sings "haunts me" expressing how painful it is to be reminded of how good things used to be.  His voice almost cracks as his voice descends  from that melodic peak.   It makes you understand why he would rather forget than live a life that’s only a shadow of what came before. A dream that is a lie is not as bad as a memory that you simply can’t forget.

The memory that haunts him draws him back to the river, but the river is dry. Everything is different. Like his life, the river has changed and will never be exactly the same again.

There’s something about this song in the music that expresses perseverance. Yes, he is haunted by his past but it’s still there. It exists and what once haunted him may one day bring hope.

Sometimes even when we've given up on our dream, our dreams haven't given up on us.

On Being A Sissy: Part 3 - The Sissy Minority

• 8th grader: Mr. Tang, nice purse [laughing] 

• Me: Yes, you pointed out this satchel, or whatever you want to call it that I’m carrying.

• 8th grader: [laughing] you have a PURSE! 

• Me: So you are laughing at the fact that I am carrying something that you perceive as not being masculine. Therefore you think that it’s humorous because this bag, doesn’t line up with the ideas of what you think men should carry. Am I right? 

• 8th grader: [silence] 

• Me: I’m all for a good ribbing, but making fun of someone because they conflict notions of the way genders should present themselves narrow our possibilities of expression and are reflections more of deeper insecurities, which are perfectly valid at your age, about your gender identity.

In my students I see Tomboys and Sissies. The girls who take on more masculine characteristics, wearing sports jerseys for example don’t seem to get any scorn but boys who are a little bit more feminine still get noticed. Most of my students don’t say anything explicit to them but you can tell they notice with the way my students look at these boys.

The creation of one’s gender identity is one of an important part of child development.  It's natural for kids to try to make clear distinctions between men and woman and form in their brain signifying characteristics. In this way, a kid really shouldn’t be punished for making a reasonable observation wondering why there is a man pushing a baby stroller.

If we break open the possibilities and the grey areas between men and woman too early, it can get really confusing for kids. At the same time we need to embrace this spectrum and help kids learn that while they may not understand why some guys seem more “girly” than other guys, it’s not a bad thing.

By the time kids hit 5th grade, I have a lot less tolerance for the kind of “sissy” comments that I hear. Kids don’t really use the term "sissy" all that much anymore, instead it’s in kid’s reactions.  When things are explicitly said which happens in the older grades very direct conversations need to be had.

I don’t hear kids making fun of other kids for being attracted to people of their own gender. The bullying that I have observed is less about sexuality but the way that kids define their masculinity. When you hear about kids being bullied often the phrases “suspected to be gay” come up because often times kids don’t even know if the kid who is bullied is actually gay or even care. They are more of target more because they don’t conform outwardly.

If we think that kids being bullied or made to feel bad about being a “sissy,” is an exclusive to children who are gay we are over-looking all the kids like myself who hold back and fear open and honest self-expression.

Not just gay kids need to hear that it gets better.

We cannot expect middle school kids to automatically accept the full spectrum of gender identity. This mixed up with sexual identity, which often doesn’t line up with gender identity in the ways that we assume is a difficult thing for adults to grapple with.  So course there’s bumps in the road for young adults in figuring these things out.

We can have these bumps and talk things out, openly and honestly. The confusion, the ambiguity of feelings, and the lack of understanding young adults feel is okay. It needs to be embraced and unpacked. What’s not okay is for these kids to express these feelings towards their peers in negative, confrontational and socially aggressive ways.

I was lucky to have parents who didn’t mind me singing Disney Princess songs but a lot of kids don’t have that support from home. Kids can get through a lot in their day if they know they are loved and supported at home, but if they don’t have that to come home to, things can get dark very quickly.

I don’t know if my son, Ollie is going to develop characteristics that some define as “sissy.” If he does, he needs to know that he is loved not despite these characteristics but because of them.  Diana and I are going to help him celebrate his interests even if the whole world thinks that it’s not what he should be into as a boy.

If Ollie is a stereotypical boy with out a hint of sissy than we have to open his eyes to different ideas of being a man, which are not as pervasive in our culture. Being a man is not about what you are into or who you love, but rather the pride you have in yourself and the respect that you treat yourself with and the people in your life.

I’m always going to be a minority. I’m Asian, I’m a music teacher, I’m in an interracial marriage, and I’d rather watch reruns on HGTV than a football game.  Not being part of the crowd has shaped who I am and helped me develop strength and conviction in my beliefs. I’m not saying that you can’t develop similar characteristics being a Caucasian businessman who watches football every Fall weekend, but for me being a minority helped me develop some of my favorite parts of myself.

In the same way that I’d would never wish to be Caucasian, I don’t really want to be any less of a sissy. I love my girly dog and my brightly colored dress shirts.  I’m going to deal with people making comments or giving me looks for the rest of my life. But that’s a small price to pay for embracing the who I am and being the man that my wife is proud to call her husband.

On Being A Sissy: Part 2 - The College Sissy

In college it was a lot easier to be a sissy. Unlike during high school, there were open and out homosexuals all around me. The confidence in which some of these guys embraced their “feminine” gestures made my level of being a sissy pale in comparison.

Gay jokes didn’t exist in my group of friends. In my fraternity there were always at least a couple gay guys who would make self-deprecating gay jokes but none of the straight members ever made a gay joke to them or to any of the straight members of the fraternity.

This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t some comments that were said. I was asked if I was gay a handful of times. One of my close female friends told me when she first met me that she wasn’t sure if I was straight, and others commented on gestures or the way I did things. There wasn’t any meanness connected with these comments but they still made me take pause and think about the way that I carried myself.

When something happens in life that reminds you about a characteristic that you don’t hold as a central part of your identity, it’s annoying. When someone makes an Asian joke, I’m reminded that I’m Asian. I’m not ashamed of this fact, but it’s not something that I think about all of the time. When someone makes a comment that I’m more feminine than they think I should be, it reminds me that in their mind I don’t fit what it means to be masculine.

Of course it doesn’t matter what they think as long as I’m proud of whom I am. That’s true, but it’s still annoying to hear these kinds of comments. But not being reminded of this in college as often as in high school gave me time to become comfortable with myself.

In the same way that my parents embraced my interests which were not stereotypically “straight,” I found other guys like me who also loved boy bands who were straight and girls who thought it was awesome that I could play songs from Rent on the piano. Somewhere within all of that, I came to accept the “sissy” parts of myself that my parents did all those years ago.

On Being A Sissy: Part 1 - What It Meant To Be Called (And Call Others) "Gay"

Late last year I was a member of a wedding party. They had decided to rent a limo and take us around downtown Chicago to take pictures. Being in a wedding party is a unique experience when people who know the bride and groom and sometimes don’t know each other, put their lives aside to honor the bride and groom by doing everything possible to make the day go smoothly.

Part of this is making a concerted effort to get a long with the other people in the wedding party regardless of what they say or do. That’s why I didn’t really respond when one the bridesmaids commented to me “you have very feminine hand gestures with the way that your wrist moves when you talk."

I’ve heard these comments all my life. Last school year a third grader commented to me “men, don’t cross their legs, why are you sitting that way?” In college someone asked if I was gay and then in high school there was the constant gay jokes that were directed at me that I also directed at other people.

Recently I heard an episode of This American Life titled “Sissies.” This episode took the perspective of different people dealing with the issues of being a sissy and the ways that they felt about this issue. It really made me think about my own life and how much I really was a sissy and also how I’m okay with that part of myself, now more than ever.

When I’m talking in front of my students, I don’t try to hide the way that I sit, which is often with crossed legs or with one leg folded under me or the way that my hands move when I talk. It’s not uncommon for me to make a “feminine,” gesture with my hands. And I do have remnants from a speech impediment that I grew up with that doesn’t exactly contribute to my manliness.

I feel it’s so important that I’m myself in front of my students and genuine, so I let myself be me, and let my voice modulate to higher pitches if it’s what comes natural. I do this because it feels natural and also because I want the “sissies” in my class to not feel afraid or ashamed to be themselves.

We’re not talking about homosexuality here. I’ve never doubted my attraction to woman. We are talking about the small things that people do that do not conform to our definitions of masculinity. For many people it’s not the homosexuality itself that makes people uncomfortable but the fact that many homosexual exhibit mannerism that don’t conform to gender stereotypes.

When The Little Mermaid came out I was visiting my cousins in New York. I remember going to a bookstore after watching the movie and being excited to see a The Little Mermaid songbook on a display. This was the last copy of this book that the store had and it was beaten up. My mom does not like to buy products that are not pristine in stores but after some arguing, I convinced my mom to buy this book.

For the next three months, I studied this book, memorized the lyrics and sang the songs to my hearts delight. Through all of this time my mom or dad didn’t stop me or discourage me from singing these songs and act out being a red-haired mermaid.

They didn’t stop me when I became obsessed with The Phantom Of The Opera and I got on a Broadway kick. My parents even encouraged this obsession by buying me Broadway CDs and taking me to see musicals.

I was never told at home that something I did was “girly” or that I shouldn’t make a certain gesture. They loved me for whom I was and never shamed me for what came naturally.

School was a different story. Some boys in elementary school thought it was weird that I didn’t play sports and that I played violin, but things didn’t really get mean until middle school.

Now, I wasn’t made fun of to the point of tears or bullied to the point that I was truly hurt. Part of the reason I dealt so well with the gay jokes was the fact that I could spit them back right out to other people with just as much venom.

I’m not proud of this fact but it got me through those times. In high school, the comments continued but I didn’t really care as I made similar comments about other people.

While these insults sometimes went beyond implying sexual activity to sometimes explicitly telling someone they did something to another person or family member, it wasn’t really about homosexual sex. These comments were more in reactions to being a sissy, to not being a true “man.”

My friends and I didn’t really care so much about the sexual activity or interests people had, we just knew that if someone acted even slightly feminine, they deserved scorn.

As I was mocked for defending my love of the Backstreet Boys, I started building a chip on my shoulder. While I could play the gay insult game, I knew deep inside that what my peers were saying about me was true and that was scary. They saw a part of me that I didn’t necessarily want them to know but that I couldn’t hide.

I couldn’t name any players on the Seattle Mariners except for Ken Griffey Jr., but I could name every member of ‘N Sync. I loved reading; singing music, Broadway musicals, and the idea of playing football in the mud appalled me. They were right, I was a sissy, but I refused to feel bad about this fact. I told myself that I was better than them for being who I was and this thought process continues to unfairly put a shadow over the way I view many of my high school peers.

Not everyone in high school made me feel bad for being a sissy. There was the various female friends who accepted and loved me for my interests and insights (that’s another thing that made me a sissy, I had many female friends who weren’t girlfriends.).

As much as I wish that I didn’t contribute to the gay jokes, I did, and I’m appalled at some of the comments I made in high school. In some ways I’m still paying penance for the people that I aimed to hurt so that I could look cool and not be the focus of attention. I wish I was brave enough as a high school student to take the punishment and not redirect it at others. I am strong enough now to take the comments and that’s something I’m proud of as much as I’m ashamed for my past transgressions.

Moving Day - Finding Home

If there’s anything that makes you feel like an adult, and not in the fun way, it’s selling a house, applying for a mortgage, buying a house and then finally moving.

We did all of these things last week.

Owning your own house seems like an integral part of the American Dream. From the pioneers to Terra in Gone With The Wind and the sprawling suburbs, the pursuit of happiness seems tied up in the ownership of land and a house. Things seemed simpler in my parents’ generation. A house was something that even with high interest rates you could afford, especially knowing that you could very likely sell the house with a profit a couple years later. Through different markets changes and adjustments, buying a house seemed like a safe investment. Then the housing market went bust and the mortgages became something that instead of enabling people to have more purchasing power were used by some banks into manipulating people into signing up for a ride that they could not handle.

The vast majority of the houses that Diana and I looked at in the past year were overpriced, many of them significantly so. I had sympathy for people who bought a house thinking that it would be an long term retirement investment who had to face the reality that their house wasn’t even at 70% of the price they purchased the house. My generation is left with a different paradigm. We can’t lean on a house to grow in value. We have to get a different kind of value out of a house. The enjoyment of living in the house is almost as important as the price. It can’t just be about the bottom line anymore. The world has changed.

At the same time, I have to be able to pay the monthly mortgage and I can’t buy a house that I know has fundamental problems, which will inevitably lead to it being sold at a loss.

One of the most frustrating things about the house buying process is that things are only worth what people are willing to pay for a house. Yes, I’m aware that’s how most things in our economy are priced out but with houses there’s such volatility and that it’s difficult to get a feel for what something is worth day to day. This is the world we live in and we got to do the best with the cards that we are dealt. Everyone is part of the real estate industry. You don’t have a choice; you need to live somewhere and the choices you make actively influence the price of houses around you.

Within the frustrations, the stress and the compromises there’s a sense that all of this will be worth it and even though you are stepping into a seemingly convoluted mess of price fluctuations and paper work all of that stuff is somehow worth it because the goal is so worthy.

Diana and I spent a year looking for a new home for our family, to be safe and happy and to make a more beautiful life together. It was a difficult process but as I lay in bed on our first night in our new house, surrounded by boxes and listening to the chorus of Diana, Ollie and Buffy softly breathing, I felt like I was home.

A Reflection On Laura Wallace

Laura Wallace’s blood alcohol level was 0.15% almost double the legal limit. She was driving above the speed limit, without a seatbelt, than lost control of her car and died in a car crash at 4:12 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, March 20th, 2001. While I was navigating freshmen year at Northwestern University, Laura was working through her senior year at my former high school, Mercer Island High School. In response to this tragedy I wrote the following letter that was published in the Mercer Island Reporter about a month later.

I really didn’t want to believe that drugs and alcohol were a part of Laura Wallace’s death.

I am a freshman at Northwestern University and I heard the news from a friend over the phone. I really didn’t want to believe it, but reality crashed down pretty hard on this one.

I can’t claim to have seen the world or to have gained some great wisdom, but looking back at my years in high school, I feel I have a different perspective on all of this. There is a lot of “garbage” that students at Mercer Island High School deal with. What I mean by “garbage” is a lot of the stuff, which seems to exist only to make life more difficult but in reality really isn’t that way. It’s very stressful; the push for excellence is a great thing, but sometimes the push is a little too much for some people to handle.

Through four years of “garbage” it’s very easy to become disillusioned, to just stop caring. I’m not saying that teachers are putting on too much stress, or that counselors aren’t doing enough. I don’t have a clue why things seem to have gotten so difficult. All I really know is that something aren’t quite right.

I want to challenge current students of Mercer Island High School to think about what they are doing with their time in high school, and to think about what they are doing with their lives. It’s easy to take all honors classes, be in thousands of clubs and assume you are on the right path.

And it’s really easy to never go to class and party way too much and feel you are doing the right thing “experiencing” life as a teenager. But neither of these paths really guarantees anything.

There’s too much to lose.

I never knew Laura Wallace, and I’m not saying that if she had questioned her life she would be alive today. Looking back at all my time in high school, watching my friends struggle and helping friends who still struggle, I feel we must try to figure out what the point of high school is.

I believe that high school is a unique time when teenagers start having adult experiences while having their parents as a safety net. What we learn in class broadens our minds so that we have a basis for understanding. And what we learn out of the classroom is when you start to figure out what friends really are.

Don’t let this tragedy go; make it mean something. No amount of revelation can overshadow this death, but it can bring something of it.

Try to figure out what your life means to you. I hope by thinking about it and letting things like this tragedy help me question my own life, I can come to some understand of what we are all really doing here. It’s always easier to look at someone else’s life and see what’s wrong. But look within, because the person who most needs saving might be yourself.

Father of Mine by Everclear

“The classic parent attitude with a kid is like, ‘I brought you into this world, I gave you life.’ . . . I just think completely opposite, my kids gave me life."

-Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Some say that we are destined to become like our parents when we become parents ourselves. This is a scary for many people, even those who have great parents that they love.  The things we hate about our parents are the things we don’t like about ourselves and in becoming a parent we are forced to face these insecurities.

Thankfully for kids all over the world, people can fight that destiny and become better than their parents when they step into that role. The film The Other F Word takes a look at punk rock musicians dealing with fatherhood.



At first this film simply seems like a comical look at seeing guys with tattoos deal with doing ordinary things like helping their daughters pick out clothes for the day. What is revealed however is that this is a group of men defying destiny to become great dads.

Punk is a genre of music that takes the rebellious themes of rock music and amplifies them with anger, hatred and an uncomfortable rawness. A lot of these emotions come out of the fact that these musicians had absent, abusive or emotionally distant fathers. This bitterness and anger led to their music but also their choices as fathers.

Art Alexakis of Everclear is featured playing “Father of Mine,” in this film as he tells the story of the relationship he had with his father.



This song tells the story of his father, leaving Art and his mother at a young age. Art fills out this story in the film talking about sexual abuse he suffered as a kid and the feelings of never being sane or safe which he sings about in the song.

You can hear anger in this song but there’s more than that. There’s a sadness and a determination as he sings towards the end, “With a child of my own . . . I swear I’m not going to let her know all the pain I have known. “ It’s seems somehow tragic but also triumphant as Art unpacks his feelings but then turns this frustration and hate into love.

The most powerful thing about "Father Of Mine," and The Other F Word is that shows us that no matter what we are born into, we are not destined to repeat the sins of our fathers.  It's not easy but its possible.  Abandoned children can become great parents, outcasts can contribute to our society by raising great children and anger can become love. 

Anything Like Me by Brad Paisley

Before Brad Paisley was known for being an accidental racist all over the blogosphere, he was known by his fans and critics as one of the most creative and important forces in country music as well as mainstream popular music.

Paisley is one of the best representatives of country music paying tribute to his country music forefathers in songs like “This Is Country Music,” while composing clever songs about modern topics like “Online.” While Paisley’s music is full of humor his most powerful works are about his personal life.

I don’t really remember “Anything Like Me,” from Paisley’s 2009 album, American Saturday Night. It wasn’t until I heard this song on his greatest hits collection Hits Alive did the song really strike a chord with me (if you’ve been keeping up to date with this blog, the reasons to you will be obvious).



The opening of this song is exactly how I felt when I found out Diana was pregnant. You better believe when we found that it was boy, there were tears in our eyes. It wasn’t so much that we were happier that it was a boy, it just made it seem that much more real.

Brad works this his feelings of fear knowing that this boy will do the same things that he will which were a pain for his parents. My feelings of apprehension had to do with the fact that I wasn’t sure that I could father a boy.

After unpacking these feelings and my ideas about manhood partially through my “To Be A Man,” posts I’ve become more comfortable about raising a son. I’m still worried about it, but I’m beginning to see that I’ll be just fine.

Paisley lovingly sings about all of the things he thinks his son will do which he did, which will lead to him, probably like his own dad, loosing his temper. He envisions his son growing up and the little things he does wrong as being exactly that: little things.

My son may not play football but if he’s like me, he’ll have a first piano recital, get hooked on video games, read too many comic books and will fracture his elbow before a school dance but got to that dance anyways (that actually happened).

Paisley sings about this as “payback,” but the love and peace in his voice makes it seem like that he is looking forward to all of this.  It is comforting to know that while fatherhood is overwhelming, it is something I am blessed to get to experience.

The last verse is one of the most incredible turnarounds I’ve heard in a song. So far the things that the son will do if he’s anything like Brad have mostly been things that cause difficulties in life.  In the bridge, Brad sings about his son loving him (and hating him) and leaving the house. He’ll seem like he wants to go but that he’ll cry leaving home. Brad closes the songs singing “he’ll be alright, if he’s anything like me.”

This ending puts this whole idea in perspective. It’s about being confident in yourself and knowing that since you turned out okay, therefore your son will too. If my son gets the worst parts of me, he’ll also get the best parts as well and that’s a pretty amazing thing to think about.

I don’t have the confidence that our kid will be alright if he’s "anything like me." I know that it’s silly at this point in my life to feel a lack of confidence, but right now there’s a lot of things swirling around in my life. Especially with this fatherhood stuff, there’s just so much that is going to be new.

I told Diana recently that I have no doubts about her ability to be an amazing mother, but that I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle fatherhood. She told me that she has never doubted my ability to handle difficult situations. You know what? I guess my son will be alright because if he’s anything like me he’ll have a partner in his life like Diana who will believe in him in ways beyond his own confidence and his imagination.

The Story by Brandi Carlile

Sometimes you find a song that expresses so accurately the way that you view the world that it feels like that you’ve known it your entire life.

 

When I first heard “The Story,” I was astounded. This is one of those instances in music where the parts individually are not that remarkable but when they are put together the create something unforgettable.

“The Story” is repetitive. There is one phrase that is repeated over and over with no bridge or chorus. The chords are unremarkable and go exactly where you expect them. The lyrics are insightful, but simple and outside of the context of the song may seem kind of trite.

The melody is perhaps the most interesting piece of the song. The first phrase rises up and down and then following phrases start on a high note and trickle down. This creates a sighing effect. It starts lower after a couple descending and gentle rises and falls before finally settling. Many people complain that modern pop songs don’t have artfully contoured melodies and “The Story” is an example of a truly amazing “Yesterday"- like melody.

The there’s Brandi Carlile’s voice. She’s in her early thirties, but the way she sings makes you feel like that she has lived lifetimes. She plays with the break in her voice between her head voice and chest voice like Sarah MaLachlan to a wonderful effect. It’s both mournful and triumphant expressing a feeling of being tired but also never giving up.

When you put these pieces together “The Story,” tells a remarkable tale of what it means to be a human being. The lines on our face, that come not only from tears but from laughter all create stories and like everything in life they do not mean anything if you have no one to share them with.

She sings about the stories, the places she’s been, the rule’s she has broken and how she did it all for her love because of the way that person made her feel. Then she breaks free of illusions, admitting that her head is a mess. It is in this moment, the time when she is at her most vulnerable that she realizes how much love she holds for this other person because they know her like nobody else does.

What makes our stories meaningful is what makes our lives worth living. We tell them to each other so that we can understand one another to create a more significant and lasting connection. These stories are happy, they are sad and sometimes they are painful, but they need to be told for us to find our way in this world.

You can hear every different kind of story in this song. The melody never changes, but the feelings do and like life itself, it's a truly amazing journey.

Some Nights by Fun

Where did this guy learn his dance moves? From One Direction? And what is he wearing? Why is he wearing a woman's trench coat and why is he wearing riding pants? The rise is all wrong, it's like down to his knees. And his pants are way too short for his shoes.

- Diana (my wife)

I got to admit that their fashion also distracted me from the fact that they were performing “Some Nights,” a great pop song with some revealing and insightful lyrics set in a unique musical landscape.

“Some Nights,” describes a man lost in the circumstances that life has put him in. The title line, “some nights,” sets our minds somewhere between the magic in the night that can uplift us and the darkness that haunts us.

Fun tells the story of a man unsure of his life and his surroundings. “What do I stand for?” echoes through the song as he questions the world that he lives in, which encourages us to reexamine our own lives.

The opening call is a glorious and confident musical statement. It sounds like a call to action, a call to war. It’s starts the song as a chorus for all to sing along with but the lyrics present an unexpected banner to unite behind.

By “cashing in” his bad luck he is saying that he is giving up on fighting. Sometimes he thinks his lips, his words can build things up, but other times he wishes that he would loose the power of speech all together. He is haunted by a ghost of someone he cares about and ends declaring for the entire world to hear, that he doesn’t know what he stands for.

What we stand for comes from our beliefs. More often than not we declare what we would like to believe as opposed to what we actually believe. In a sense, this song is asking up what we truly believe in.

Fun takes us through some different settings to help us explore our own beliefs. There is the setting of war, declaring that he doesn’t believe hype and the pressures of his peers, “I try twice as hard and I’m half as liked.” He wishes that, “this all would end,”so he could find himself in his friends.

The most powerful line in the song is when he considers his nephew and the fact that this amazing life came from a “terrible night.” This line brings different situations into our mind but instead of dwelling on what happened, we are left we the question in our minds. What if what we stand for can result in an outcome that we don’t expect? What if we are wrong?

All of these questions are set against a mash of 1980s rock vocals, march like percussion and dance-pop sounds. It initially doesn’t make any sense how such existential lyrics fit such glorious sounding music.

If you believe that values are not to be questioned and that you stand, unwavering in your belief than this song doesn’t really work. However if you’ve been in the world and encountered the lives of others you realize that the journey of life is all about questioning who we are and what we believe in. This is not something to be ashamed of or feared because this is something we all share.

The days when the world makes perfect sense and you know for sure what you stand for come right before the nights when this all comes into question.  Look forward to those nights because it is in those moments that you see the most amazing things.  

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.”

Thunder Road - Part 1: Magic In The Night

To celebrate my 300th post on this blog I presented “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen.  I felt that post did this song justice embracing all of what this song meant to me by letting the song speak for itself.

Lately I’ve felt myself drawn to this song. It’s like I need this song in my life right now. Maybe it’s my grandmother dying, becoming comfortable being thirty, or the other changes in my life. I’m not sure. But I’m finding what I’m searching for in my life in this song now more than ever.

I have hesitated to write about this song because it so magical and I fear that I lack the skills to really articulate everything that this song is about. It’s time to not be afraid and to look deep within this song. To know what a song is about is to know what it means and it is within this meaning that we find ourselves.



It starts with an invitation, a guitar and piano ascending carefully, dancing and flowing in and out of each other. “Thunder Road’s” introduction is one of the most famous album openings. As the first track on Springsteen’s pivotal album Born To Run, “Thunder Road” was the entry point into a universe of characters that would encapsulate everything that is rock music.

With each line Springsteen paints a vivid picture. The sound of a screen door, the waving of a vision of grace as Mary comes into our world. Originally, this girl was Angelina and then Christina but in the end Springsteen settled on Mary. This name brings forth images of the innocent virgin carrying an unimaginable burden to the mother watching her only son suffer. These visions mix together with a girl standing nervously facing the road ahead.

One of the ways that you know that you are in love is when love songs begin to make sense. As our unnamed protagonist identifies with Orbison’s song for the lonely we know there is something immediate and powerful about his feelings. He begs for her not to leave him because he “can’t face myself alone again.” She’s turned him home and he’s tried to imagine his life without her that he can’t.

She has doubts. Maybe she’s not that young girl, the idea woman. He begs her to have faith and believe in him. When he says that she “ain’t a beauty,” he isn't saying that he doesn’t think she’s pretty. Instead he’s embracing what she is, not the woman she wishes she could be.

The song starts by setting a scene and switches perspectives through Orbison’s song to this man speaking to a girl. These words reveal a vulnerability and a passion. He’s trying to convince her to come with him because there is something that she brings to the way he sees himself that he can’t live without.  Also, he believes there is something that he can give her that no one else can.

In the opening of "Thunder Road," our main character embraces everything that this girl is, her doubts and her fears because he has faith.  He knows that there is something there between them and that there is magic in the night.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift

Hope is a powerful force.

It can change the course of history and save people’s lives. However, hope can also hold us back.

Diana and I have never broken up and then gotten back together. That was not the case with my high school girlfriend. We probably broke up three of four times for reasons that I cannot bring to mind. The reasons why we got back together, I can’t remember either.

The last time we broke up was right before I left for college. She was staying in the Seattle area and I was moving out to Chicago. We agreed that we would break up and move on with our lives but that we would still be friends.

The problem was that our definition of “friends,” was different. I didn’t want to respond to the daily e-mails and instant messages. She wasn’t getting the hint when I would not respond as quickly with shorter e-mails explaining that I was busy.

When I got to college I let go of any possibility that we would get back together, but she didn’t, she held out hope.

She kept pushing and pushing to be part of my life and as she continued to not get my hints, I became harsher and meaner and in the process, I fear that I broke her heart. I just wanted to move on and as horrible as this sounds, the only that I could do this was telling her over the phone that we would never get back together.

There were tears and these words resonated in a completely different way than the way Taylor sang these same words.



Taylor Swift’s newest single, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” is about the freedom and joy that comes from giving up on any hope that a relationship will come back together.

This song continues the evolution of Taylor Swift’s musical style. She takes different musical elements from her own musical heritage and mixes it with moderm influences to create a fresh and original sounding song that is uniquely Taylor.

The opening guitar lick has two effects thrown in that seems to turn the line around like a sample in a rap song. As soon as that is established she introduces a steady thumping beat. This four on the floor bass drum rhythm comes from country line dancing and can be heard in Springsteen’s “Shackled And Drawn.”



Taylor has already combined very different musical elements, the feel of sample and a the beat and pulls it together with a hook featuring repeated syllables that is reminiscent of “Umbrella” by Rhianna and harmonies in the chorus that sound like something out of a One Direction or Jonas Brother’s song.

All of these different influences and musical ideas combine with Taylor’s unique subject matter. Now does Taylor Swift sound like a woman in her early 20’s? Do girls this age actually sound like this when they talk about relationships? I can’t generalize but I know girls who do and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. I think this song may come across as speaking from more of a teenage perspective because of the sound of the song, but Taylor is singing about relationship relapses that happen just as often with young adults.

All of this adds up to expressing that moment when you finally get over a relationship and are once again excited about the future possibilities. If you break up with someone and keep hoping in the back of your mind that you could get back together with that person then you can never truly move on with your life.

I didn’t learn until later when I was dumped how the loss of hope could hurt but how this pain could lead to the kind of joy that Taylor sings about. I know in my heart that my high school girlfriend got to that place as well. As I telling myself this to make myself feel better about my actions, probably but after twelve years, what else is there, but hope?

Round 1: John Mellencamp Vs. Jessica Simpson

Welcome to the first “Versus” post on this blog. On my Wednesday posts I’m going to compare two versions of a song and then conclude which version I find more meaningful.
Round 1: “Jack And Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp Vs. “I Think I’m In Love With You” by Jessica Simpson



Mellencamp’s 1982 number one hit tells the story of two people growing up in America’s heartland. The famous chorus reminds us that life goes on even when the “thrill of living is gone.”

Versus



From Jessica Simpson’s debut album in 1999, “I Think I’m In Love With You” features a direct sample from “Jack And Diane.” This song tells of a girl who realizes that her actions and thoughts are a result of falling in love.

The Winner:
I gotta give this one to Jessica Simpson. “Jack And Diane” fails to make any significant reflections on childhood. The statement of the chorus really isn’t that poignant. Yes, life goes on even when we’re bored. . . okay so what? Mellencamp has reveled that “Jack And Diane” was originally about an interracial couple and maybe that would have made this song mean something more but as is, it really doesn’t.

“I Think I’m In Love” takes the music from Mellencamp and injects the pure glee and teenage joy of being in love that lacks in “Jack And Diane.” Yes, it’s bubblegum pop but it’s exuberance is exactly how young people feel when they are first in love (which is why this style of music continues to appeal to young teens).

Next week: Bob Dylan Vs. Jimi Hendrix

Grow Old With Me by John Lennon

 Yoko included this song on her "John Lennon Playlist" recent issue of Rolling Stone. 

He [John Lennon] was saying it to me, but also to a whole generation: "Let's grow old together." After his passing, all I had was a cassette of it.  I had it in my handbag.  When i went to sleep, I had some bells on my door so if anyone came in, I'd hear it.  I didn't want people to take it from me. 

"Grow Old With Me" became an unfulfilled dream with the passing of John and through this hopeful song we feel Yoko's pain.  While we all have dreams for the future we never know what we have left so we can never take for granted the time we have in the present to share life with the ones we love.

Crush by The Dave Matthews Band

I’ve always loved music but I haven’t always loved my passion for music.

In high school as I discovered The Beatles, Motown and delved deep into my studies of classical music, I found that none of my classmates seemed to shared my enthusiasm and love for music.

It was “dorky,” that I liked 1960s music, “nerdy” that I loved classical music and incredibly “un-cool” that I admitted to enjoying the resurgence of pop music with the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears (which you know other people did, I mean look at the sales of this artists at that time). But there was one person who thought my love of music was cool, Vauhini.

One night after hanging out with a group of friends, she gave me a ride home. As she drove “Crush” by The Dave Matthews Band came on the radio. Vauhini was a big fan of Dave Matthews Band and it was “Crush” and its accompanying album, Before These Crowded Streets that really helped me realize the greatness of The Dave Matthews Band.



“Crush” melded DMB’s jam band sensibilities with Jazz creating a dark and emotional opus. Like the best of DMB’s songs “Crush” had a dramatic arc that made the music go somewhere significant. Something changes for the character in the music and us as listners also experience this as we are taken to somewhere we never expect.

In the soft glow of the instrument panels of Vauhini’s car, I described the magic between the notes. I talked about the way that DMB holds back allowing different layers of instruments to come through. I guided her through the long verse that gradually opens up to choruses full of elation and the unforgettably ending of this song.

Throughout “Crush,” DMB creates a feeling of something building, like someone barely able to hold in his joy. Each chorus gives us a little release but never leaves us fully satisfied. In the second to last chorus, it seems like we get there and as Dave Matthews pulls back the song takes a breath. Then the song builds back up as Matthews, almost growling builds to a final exclamation of joy. He changes the lyrics and the melody adding syncopated rhythms while the band to a climax in a way that is beautifully symphonic.

After the song ended, Vauhini smiled with a sense of joy you can only get from seeing someone describe something they love. I’ll never forget how free I felt at that moment to be exactly who I was, feeling no need to hide or be ashamed of how I felt about music.

I often think about that moment when writing about music because it reminds me that I’m not alone. Yes, most of the people in high school didn’t understand me but Vauhini did and that gave me hope that there are other people in the world who would like me for my passions. Now I have a whole family of friends and who do just that.

Thanks Vauhini

It's crazy, I'm thinking just as long as you're around.
I'm here I'll be dancing on the ground.
Am I right side up or upside down?
To each other, we’ll be facing.

Vauhini Vara is reporter at the Wall Street Journal and a fiction writer with work with published or forthcoming in Glimmer Train, Epoch, and Black Warrior Review. Check out her work at http://www.vauhinivara.com/

Reflections Of My Life by Marmalade

A great 1960s gem.



The dude is a little down a life. Either he was continuously dumped by girlfriend after girlfriend or he's reflecting back on a life wasted looking up esoteric songs on youtube.com and posting them on his blog.

Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison

In 1967, radio stations banned “Brown Eyed Girl” from airplay on radio stations. Yes, one of the most beloved pop songs in our culture, a seemingly innocuous celebration of life and a quintessential “feel good” song was taken off the radio.



Why? Because the line “making love in the green grass” from the second verse was too explicit so it was overdubbed with a line from the first verse “laughin' and a-runnin', hey hey.”

As silly as that seems to us, it could have been a worse. When it was first being recorded Van Morrison sang this song as a “Brown Skinned Girl." In the 1960s there were many states that still had laws outlawing miscegenation (interracial marriage). That would have gone over REALLY well. Producers convinced Van Morrison to change it to “Brown Eyed Girl” inadvertently creating universal appeal to this song as most of the people on this planet have brown eyes.

What makes “Brown Eyed Girl” such a popular and meaningful song isn’t the once offensive reference in the second verse or even the fact that this song is about a girl that is characterized by a superficial feature. “Brown Eyed Girl” is a song that describes the great memory of sharing a song with someone that you love through a songs that we all can’t help but love.

The light and syncopated bass line creates a simple and relaxed groove. On top of this the guitar simply dances. After playing the opening, the guitar weaves and hops between the melody playfully outlining the chords expressing the feeling of freedom and joy that Van Morrison describes in the lyrics. If there were no singing in the song at all you would know exactly what this song was about.

It always gets to me when Van Morrison sings in the second verse “so hard to find my way, now that I’m on my own.” There’s a tint of frustration in his voice but he lets go when the chorus comes and he’s able to sing like he remembers in his memory.

The “Shalala” part is nonsensical but unapologetically joyful. When you sing along to this part you can’t help but smile allowing you to immediately understand what Van Morrison is singing about. Through this immediate connection to the music, we profoundly understand what is at the soul of this song.

Every time I listen to this song I can’t help but sing along. I know exactly what Van Morrison is singing about and because of his song reminds how great it is to share not only music but life with the people we love.

The only difference is I still have my brown eyed girl in my life.

No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen feat. Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem)

In 2009, The Gaslight Anthem played the Hard Rock Calling Festival in Hyde Park, London. During their set, Bruce Springsteen supported his fellow New Jersey musicians by performing “The ’59 Sound” with The Gaslight Anthem.



This gracious gesture brought excitement and attention The Gaslight Anthem and an amazing musical energy to this song. Bruce didn’t steal the spotlight but instead played as a member of the band providing an exciting guitar solo and a great vocal counterpoint to Brian Fallon, lead singer of The Gaslight Anthem.

Later that evening during Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s set Fallon returned the favor and performed “No Surrender” with Bruce.



Bruce looked like he was having the time of his life when he performed with The Gaslight Anthem, while Fallon looked absolutely giddy singing with Bruce. As much as it must have been a dream come true to have Bruce sing “The ’59 Sound,” singing with the E Street Band must have been on a whole other level.

Growing up in a house not far from where Springsteen grew up, Fallon identified with Springsteen as he describes in this clip.



Stripped of his guitar, Fallon starts the performance standing in the band clapping looking like a kid amongst these rock legends. As he joins Bruce for the chorus, we get a sense that something special is happening here. Then when Brian takes over the second verse it becomes clear why he is up there.

If I didn’t know that who was singing you could convince me that the guy singing the second verse was older than Bruce. There is something so mature, weathered and passionate in his voice. The pure expression that Brian injects into that second verse is spectacular. He strains for notes while soaring through them all at the same time sounding like a person who not only knows the words but has lived them.

There could not be a more fitting song for these two musicians to sing together. “No Surrender” is about the power of music and the bonds it creates between people. This performances uniting generations exemplifies this . . . I mean just look at how much fun Brian and Bruce are having up there, that's what it's all about.

Basket Case by Green Day

Grammy winner, concept album, protest music, Broadway show.

These are all phrases that describe Green Day of 2010. Is there anything in the Green Day of 1994 that would give us anyone clue of the greatness and the level of cultural relevance that Green Day would achieve 15 years later? I don't know but I always knew there was something special about Green Day even in middle school.

In 1994, there was the explosion of Grunge Music. This genre of music took Punk music added a layer of distortion, teen angst and cynicism to create a sub-culture that was both plaid, baggy and lacked the use of shampoo on a regular basis. Among the Grunge groups there were other bands that were grouped into this genre like that really were something different and one of those groups was Green Day.

Instead of creating a darker distortion of punk music, Green Day continued the tradition of punk from groups like the Ramones creating simple songs that were short, fun and featured pop influenced melodies. This is why many people beyond the alternative crowd found "Basket Case" appealing and why it has endured as one of there most popular song.



There is something special about the opening of this song. 22 year old Billy Joel Armstrong accompanied by his guitar inquiring to the world "Do you have the time to listen to me whine?" The statement is aggressive and brave. He's putting himself out there hiding behind nothing, simply speaking his mind and expressing from the heart.

What Armstrong is expressing isn’t exactly something that you would think is be an anthem but it is. This song is about embracing the things about ourselves that other people see as flaws. Yes, I’m melodramatic and neurotic, and it’s so bad “sometimes I give myself the creeps.”  While the lyrics wonder about what it means to crazy the music embracing the question “Am I just paranoid?” like a victorious call.

This song builds like symphony adding layers of instruments with an unforgiving driving pulse that never lets go of our attention. The sounds can be replicated on stage and knowing this creates a connection with the audeince. It’s not just art in a studio, it’s something that is alive and like great folk music that makes it mean something more.

People who others called crazy are responsible for all the greatest accomplishments in history. We all dream big and hope to try something that people haven’t done before. “Basket Case” is the reaction we need to remember and reminding ourselves that we may be cracking up, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.