Year 7: Week 8 - The Question

“Why did so many people write down that it was a woman singing in that video?  On the videos when men were singing, people didn't write down that men were performing.”

One of the projects I do in the beginning of the year is an observation exercise.  I have my 5th graders watch four different covers of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and make objective observations about the different versions. This connects with the theme of observation that is discussed in their homeroom and in science class.

5th graders (and many adults) jump immediately to opinions when listening to a piece of music.  After deciding whether a person likes a piece of music, people often become closed off to details. To address this and help our 5th graders think deeper about music and the world around them, we teach about objective observations.

After studying John Fogerty’s original Creedence Clearwater Revival version of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and working as a class to make lists of objective observations, I set them off with iPads to watch four other versions of this song and list the most meaningful objective observations of these covers:

Juan Gabriel

The Drivers


Joan Jett


The Barton Hill Choir


I collected all of my students’ observations when they were done and made a word map using Wordle.net. I typed in all of my students observations for each song into this website (I modified some observations that were similar). The words that are bigger appear more times in the list of word that I inputted, which represent the most frequent observations students wrote down. Fewer students wrote down the smaller words.

Here’s the Wordle word maps for each song:

Juan Gabriel:


The Drivers


Joan Jett


Barton Hills Choir


I pointed out some of things that I saw, highlighted some of the smaller words and answered some clarification questions. Then that 5th grader raised his hand and asked that question. At first I was surprised. Even I saw how large the word “woman” was on the Joan Jett version, I didn’t think a second thought about it. To give myself a minute to think, I asked him to ask his question again, explaining that it was an important question that deserved more thought.

Looking around the room, I noticed a mixture of shock, confusion, and worry in my students' faces. My instincts when things don’t feel right in the room are to make my students feel better but this was an instant that I think the students’ discomfort was okay. Now was not a time for false platitudes.

I asked the class why they thought that they had written down “woman” so often and except for one small instances had not written “men” as an observation. Students talked about pointing out what was not the norm, how the original was sung by a guy, then one students said, “ well, because most people who are singers are guys.”

The students looked at me in silence. It was like they were hoping that I could somehow comfort them saying that the student was wrong and that woman were not underrepresented.

In response, I asked them to help me make a list of their favorite musicians.  After vigorously writing for a minute, I had about twenty names of bands and artists written on the board. I circled four names: Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Rhianna, and Adele. I explained, “These four are women, the rest of the names that you stated were men. That’s four out of twenty, that’s less than a quarter. Woman make up more than half of the world population, and the majority, by a couple students in this class are girls, but you only named four woman musicians.”

I continued, “I’m not mad at you. I’m not disappointed. Your observations and your list of musicians is a reflection of our culture. And yes, this is disappointing and this makes me sad and I see that this bothers you. We need to do something about this. This is why, I have you listen to artist like Brandi Carlile and why the last two concerts I went to featured female artists, the Dixie Chicks and Adele. I can’t explain to you right now, why our culture and why your experiences have led us to this place where woman are so underrepresented in music. It’s very complex.  But more important than knowing why, is the fact that you are asking questions.  If this makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s okay, because when this feeling leads to questions, it leads to change.

This was a difficult moment.  It would have been easier to sidestep the question, but the student took a chance and asked a great question, so he deserved me taking a chance as a teacher.

Fine Fine Boy by Darlene Love

The greatest musicians in popular music aren’t always the ones that are the most popular and some of the most popular musicians owe their success to people who are not credited for their work.

20 Feet From Stardom is the Oscar winning documentary that explores the role of back-up singers and reveals the struggles of a generation of singers who contributed to some of the greatest songs in popular music history.

While their names may not ring a bell, their voices and the songs that they contributed to are unforgettable.



It’s a story like the film “Standing In The Shadows of Motown,” (which I discussed in this previous post), which seem tragic and victorious all at the same time.

The sad part is that these singers never “made it.” There are stories of singers who sang on songs while other artist got credit for them. Some of them rationalize this as a good thing but you can tell that there’s sadness, a feeling of regret as they reflection of their careers.

The amazing part is the music. These singers sound amazing from back when they were teenagers to now that they are past middle age. The passion and the shear joy that they express in their singing is simply breathtaking.

Phil Spector gets so much credit for his production work with songs like “Unchained Melody.” However his songs would not have had nearly the impact they did if these songs didn’t feature some of the best voices in pop music history. This becomes clear when you hear Darlene Love perform “Fine Fine Boy.”

20 Feet From Stardom ends with Darlene Love performing this song with Bruce Springsteen at the 25th Anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Concert.

Springsteen states in the documentary that one thing that made Spector productions so great is the youthfulness of these voice and yes Darlene Love sounds different than she did in her twenties:



Her voice is deeper now with more soul. After watching 20 Feet From Stardom, you know her struggle and how she went from singing to cleaning houses and finally came back and owned her true destiny as a singer. This knowledge gives her voice much more depth. Yes, “Fine Fine Boy,” is a teenage-centric song, but it’s about joy. It’s about hope and Darlene Love, expressing this so beautifully after all that she has gone through is truly inspiring.


One of these days Ollie will ask me about "Fine Fine Boy," after years of me singing this song to him.  Then I'll explain to him who Darlene Love is and we'll watch some of 20 Feet From Stardom.  He may not understand what it's all about, but he'll understand the joy that comes from these amazing singers.  I can't think of a better tribute to their work then to pass their music and their stories on to one more generation. 

Cannonball By Lea Michelle

Okay, Shaun, here you go:

Cory Monteith’s death resonated in popular culture. As one of the stars of the popular show Glee! his character endeared himself to audiences as a jock who liked to sing. His co-star Lea Michelle was also his girlfriend and when he died we were all shocked. As hard as it was to imagine loosing a co-start the tragedy of loosing a boyfriend as well was heartbreaking.

Pop music is sometimes frivolous and it's sometimes profound. Taylor Swift has made her mark using her music to work through the emotions and struggles of her own life. It’s fun game to listen a song and try to figure out which boyfriend she’s singing about. While this is entertaining, does this make her songs better? Not necessarily.

The Coen brothers claim that their film Fargo was based on real events, which they later revealed to be a false statement. Does that film feel different when you assume it reflects real events? Yes. When we harness the story in reality our suspension of disbelief changes as we allow ourselves to believe more of what we see to be plausible then a film we are told is fiction.

Pop singers are actors. We don’t expect that what they are singing about is actually something they have experienced. There is a suspension of belief that  was at one time actually crazy in love. When we are told that a song is based on a true story, we listen to it deeper and try to decipher what the lyrics are really saying not so much metaphorically but more literally.

When I heard that “Cannonball” was about Monteith’s death, I expected a heartfelt tribute, instead a got something very different. In this way, connecting the song to a real life tragedy threw me off course.

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From the first word of the song, you know this isn’t your ordinary song about death.  Is it “breakdown,” as in she’s having a mental breakdown or is it “break down,” an action and get out of the walls she has built up around herself.

If I wasn’t told ahead of time, I would have thought that this song was actually about a break-up, not the death of a loved one. It is exactly these different ways that you could interpret this song that makes it interesting.

The mourning of Cory’s death has put her in darkness, and she needs to find a way into the light.  She lights the “fuse” and like a cannonball she flies. A cannonball doesn't fly, rather it’s propelled for the purpose of demolishing. While this analogy may seem strange, it fits what Michelle is trying to say. She can't simply fly away from the darkness of her loss, she needs to be propelled by something more powerful than death. In this way she can move on with her life and let go of her fear.

While we are seeing a trend of artists mining their own lives for inspiration for songs and sharing these intentions with their fans, the story behind the music really doesn't speak to the what is truly meaningful in music. 

All songs are amalgamations of emotions that come from true life.  Some songs speak more directly to actual events than others but all songs express feelings that come from the human experience.  Artists can provide context for us which appeals to many people and makes songs feel more authentic.  However, if the story doesn't reflect events in our own lives and the song doesn't resonate with our experiences, the connection to an actual event becomes meaningless. 

Great music doesn't have to be about actual events to be intensely personal and artistically profound.  Truly great music needs to authentically reflect emotions from our lives.  This makes the song feel as much about the story behind the music as the story of our own lives. 

We Can’t Stop by Miley Cyrus

We all should be proud of Miley.  

“We Can’t Stop” is not on the same level of the pop masterpiece that “Party In The U.S.A.” (which I wrote about in this earlier post). But it’s an interesting song that demonstrates the spirit and strength of a young pop star as she struggles with challenges and double standards.



Much has been written about the drug references in this song and the sexuality and drug use Miley has expressed when promoting this song. The first reference is “dancing with Molly,” which apparently alludes to the drug ecstasy (which sometimes is referred to as “Molly.”) The second references is  in the second verse, “tryina get a line in the bathroom” referring to cocaine.

Should we be annoyed/outraged that former child star that had a show on the Disney channel is not making drug references in her songs? First off her kids show was canceled almost two years ago, many of her fans from that era, have grown up. Yes, many of her fans from when she was younger are only teenagers and maybe they could do better without hearing drug references, but most will be fine.

Snoop Dogg was only one year older than Miley at the age of 21, when he broke out rapping about drugs in a far more explicit way. If you’re not a fan of Miley’s stripper reference and her sexuality, take a look at what Rihanna was doing when she was seventeen. Let’s not forget that Britney Spears was only seventeen when she asked us to “hit her one more time.”

Did generations of people who listened to these young artists sing sexually about drugs become deviants living in hedonistic sin? Look, I’m sure some people hear references in songs and get excited about them but most people make their choices regardless of what pop songs sing are about.  Music is powerful, but it's not THAT powerful.  Last time I checked, there's not legions of people running around dressed like Marilyn Manson.  

“We Can’t Stop,” like Lesley Gore’s 1963 anthem “It’s My Party,” is a declaration of independence. The fact that this song ruffled feathers and got people concerned about Miley’s influence has more to do with people’s discomfort with seeing a woman try to assert herself as a adult.

No, Miley didn’t handle the “Molly,” reference perfectly in interviews well, but most artists in the her situation handle it in a similar way with a white lie and a smile. Really, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” is not about LSD? Really? Really?!?

Miley says that this song represents where she is in her life right now. Whether we like to admit it or not, many twenty year old woman are exploring alcohol, drugs, and their own sexuality. Yes, caution is important with these activities, but most people come out the other end of these times in their lives just fine.

If Rihanna performed this song would the controversy around the lyrics and the music video be as critical? What if a guy sang these lyrics? Chris Brown was singing far more explicit and concerning lyrics when he was younger than Miley.
 
"We Can't Stop," isn't about drugs.  The line that holds the most meaning isn't a reference but a statement of belief: "Remember only God can judge you, Forget the haters cause somebody loves you."

Chill, this is a fun song.  The way she sings "we like to party," sounds really weird and the opening "God" voice chant, is funny and like the music video is more silly than anything else.  I'm proud of Miley for getting out there and reminding all of us that sometimes we just got to get out there and try something new we we can't stop. 

I Don’t Wanna Fight by Tina Turner

What is a normal amount of fighting in a relationship? Is a screaming match healthy if it happens once a month or once a week? Is it okay if the fighting goes beyond the verbal to the physical?

People have a wide variety of what they consider a “normal” amount of fighting. These expectations are usually set up from observing their parent’s relationship. In my view physical fitting is never okay and which most people agree with but at the I also think that it’s never okay to raise your voice to someone you love. Some families and yelling isn’t necessarily out of bounds, but its’ just not something that my wife and I feel is appropriate.

I’ve been thinking a lot about conflict in relationships lately.  Tina Tuner’s reflective and powerful call for understanding, “I Don’t Wanna Fight,” has helped me put some things in perspective.


“I Don’t Wanna Fight,” was part of the soundtrack to the biopic about Turner, What’s Love Got To Do With It. This film, one of the best films about a musician, shows Turner’s rise to stardom but also the abusive relationship she endured with Ike Turner and how she broke free and reinvented herself.



There are so many remarkable things about Tina Turner and the message of “I Don’t Wanna Fight,” showcases the most amazing part of her story. Turner has every right to be better, hateful and angry not only at Ike for the troubles in her life but also God and the cosmos for putting her through what she endured. Her response instead is that “it’s time for letting go.”

When someone has wronged you, they can apologize and you can be mad at them. You can fight it out and scream at each other but after all the dust is settled, it’s your responsibility to let go of the past, the hurt emotions, the bitterness and move on with your life. If you don’t the anger will fester in your soul and continue to make you unhappy. The only person who can do anything about that is you.

Letting go is one of the hardest things to learn how to do in life, but it’s one of the most important.

Fighting and winning is overrated. When you best someone you love in a fight, you may win and that’s great but it’s at the price of someone you care about loosing. If you enjoy conflict and have a winning spirit, that’s great, go play basketball, however keep this out of your relationship. Even when you win against your partner you lose.

If fighting helps you and your partner be more open and honest with each other, great, than have it out. Here’s the thing though, for most of us, fighting an is unproductive expression of insecurities, hurt and misunderstanding. No one really wants to fight. So stop it.

She's Having A Baby - Film Review

When people think about films about having a baby, titles like Father Of The Bride Part II and Nine Months come up. These film take a humorous look at pregnancy and having a baby. Unfortunately these films, like many others, steer away from representing the difficult realities of these experiences and fail to deal with the more challenging and complex emotional issues relating to having a baby.

One film that is not as well known but always shows up in lists of films that have to do with childbirth is John Hughes’ She’s Having A Baby. Like Hughes’ other works, this film is based in Chicago, touches on the challenges of growing up and has some powerful honest insights into life and relationships.



This films stars Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern as a couple that falls in love, gets married, buys a house and has a baby. There’s nothing really extraordinary about the plot but the way that its told is unique.

All of this film is through the perspective of Kevin Bacon’s character Jake. There are cut-scenes and altered reality as Jake deals with adulthood. He doubts whether he should get married, he’s unsure about settling in the suburbs, the job he takes seems like its crushing his spirits and his relationship with his wife doesn’t seem very loving.

Jake wanders through life, not fitting in; trying hard to reconcile his doubts with the responsibilities he’s taken on as an “adult.” Then his wife Kristy gets pregnant in the last third of the film. The relationships between Kristy and Jake seem to get better leading up to the childbirth scene.

Hughes can’t resist making one more childbirth cliché as Jake drives off to the hospital leaving Kristy behind but once they get to the hospital, the film takes on a very different tone.

Things don’t go as planned as is often the case with labor, and Jake is stuck out in the waiting room as Kristy has an emergency caesarean section. As Jake sits in the waiting room, his life with Kristy flashes in his memory. We see scenes from earlier in the film but instead of them fighting, we seen them laughing and enjoying each other’s company.



Kate Bush wrote and performed “This Woman’s Work,” for this scene. This song is full of hope and belief. It’s a song that honors the strength of women and captures the complexity of the emotions in this scene.

She’s Having A Baby is a flawed film and what it’s trying to say is more powerful than how it says it.  Regardless, John Hughes is right.  Sometimes we don't see the happiness that's right in front of us and sometimes our dreams are out of perspective from the realities that fulfill our lives in ways that our dreams never could.

A lot of people have told me that having a baby will change the way I view my life.  Is having a baby really going to change my entire perspective?  I don't know.  But after watching She's Having A Baby, I'm looking forward to that change. 

Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) by Billy Joel

Almost ten years ago, Billy Joel released his last pop album, River Of Dreams. In the eleven albums leading up to River Of Dreams, Joel created an astonishing catalog of popular music and left and unforgettable mark on popular music.

 Joel’s music grew out of his working class background and developed through the nostalgia he had of the 1960s, the cynicism of the 1970s and the complexities of the 1980s. When the 1990s hit, Joel’s artistic maturity hit a peak and we got some of his most powerful and personal works of his life.

Joel was no longer an angry young man or a piano lounge singer. He found himself in the 1990s a husband a father. To express this sentiment, he took a instrumental piano prelude that he developed into a Latin chant and turned it into one of the most famous lullabies in popular music.



Billy Joel often speaks of the influence of western classical art music on his compositions. This is very clear in this song with harmonies and piano writing that echoes the works of Beethoven and Chopin. He is writing in a monophonic style where most of the parts of moving together in the same rhythm as the harmonies progress.

Just listening to the piano part itself, it seems like an odd choice to put lullabye lyrics to it but this  juxtaposition really works. The formality in character of the piano part presents these words from the perspective of an older generation. Having these tender and intimate lyrics come from a voice which does not normally express such sentiment makes the song feel that much more special.

The lyrics demonstrate the struggle of parenthood. In the first verse, he’s not able to answer all of her questions. In the second verse, he’s left with so many more things he wants to say. In his child, Joel realizes what he doesn’t understand and what he can’t explain. Instead of focusing on this failure, he reassures his daughter of his love.

Joel writes lyrics that when you first hear them have a clear meaning. Then later, other lyrics make those previous words in retrospect mean something very different. In the first verse he promises, “no matter where you are, I never will be far away. “ This seems like a comforting reassurance to a child that isn’t necessarily true in the literal sense. Then later in the song he sings, “someday your child may cry and if you sing this lullaby . . . there will always be a part of me.” Joel ends the song acknowledge that he will be gone and it is in the lullabye that they will be together.

I have so many questions about life.  I know my son will have even more questions than I do, and there will probably be many times I will not have answers.  "Lullabye" reminds us that this is okay.  We don't have to always know what to say as long as we share our love with the angels in our lives.  

Blame It On The Rain by Milli Vanilli

At first the story of Milli Vanilli was one of triumph. Then it became one of scandal and finally it ended in tragedy. When Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus signed on to be the faces of the pop group Milli Vanilli, they had no idea how it would change their lives.

Producer Frank Farian, after recording an pop album, felt that he needed a more marketable duo so he hired Fab and Rob. The album Girl You Know It’s True went on to be a Grammy winning success.

Then during a live performance, the track they were lip-syncing to started to skip and the truth about the record came out. Then the scandal erupted and they had to give their Grammy’s back. After being butt of jokes for years and finally being able to tell their side of the story on VH1’s Behind The Music, Milli Vanilli began work on an new album that would feature their own voice. Sadly on Arpil 2, 1998, Rob Pilatus was found dead in a hotel. His death was ruled and accidental drug and alcohol overdose.

When I think about Milli Vanilli, it always makes me sad. People overreacted. Look, I know they lied and they mislead the public, but we’re talking lip-syncing. It would be one thing it they performed on stage as classical musicians. These are pop musicians who are dancing around in a way that makes it nigh impossible for them to sing well without at least a backing track.

Getting offended or surprised by a pop singer lip-syncing, is like getting angry about the fact the McDonalds is selling you previously frozen food. Yes, Milli Vanilli took it one step further by not even singing on the original recording but in the world of music scandals (which includes murder, shootings and extortion), this is a pretty minor offense.

The lead single “Girl You Know It’s True,” is really silly and campy. It’s dated, the rap is contrived and is pretty forgettable, but the other single from their album “Blame It On The Rain” really has heart.



I came across this video of Fab performing this song live and it was really touching. After everything Fab has been through, he’s making it happen on stage. These guys were put through such a ridiculous media storm and all they were doing was trying to entertain people.

There’s really not a more perfect song than “Blame It On The Rain,” to reflect about the legacy of Milli Vanilli. Sometimes focusing on who’s to blame isn’t the important thing. Did Fab and Rob deserve to be punished for what they did? I’m not sure, but they did get punished. I’m not saying that we should take blame for Rob’s death, but our reaction couldn’t have helped.

The reason we look for blame is to provide us a way to move forward. Sometimes we can do this without beating ourselves up or punishing someone else. No, that’s not a cop-out, sometimes it’s the best thing to do, because mistakes lie with the people who make them whether or not we can see that clearly.

Mrs. Robinson by Simon & Garfunkel

“Mrs. Robinson” isn’t really about Mrs. Robinson.

The Graduate is one of the greatest films of all time. This film about a recent college graduate’s struggle to figure out his life reflects a shared experience and feeling that twenty-something's across generations experience.

Then of course there is Mrs. Robinson who seduces, the recent college graduate, Benjamin while he is going out with her daughter. The whole cross-generational affair is enough to cause controversy and interest in viewers, but it’s really not the point of the film. The point is . . . well. . . it’s complex and multilayered and you’re just going to have to watch it to figure it out for yourself.

Mike Nichols’ the director of The Graduate became obsessed with Simon & Garfunkel, and asked for three songs to be written for this film. Paul Simon came up with the shell of one about Mrs. Roosevelt, Joe DiMaggio and times past. After some lyric changes, a stripped down version without verse appeared in the film.

Later Simon & Garfunkel completed this song and released it on their 1968 album, Bookends. Along with “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (which I discussed in this earlier post), “Mrs. Robinson” became one of Simon & Garfunkel’s signature songs and one of the most popular songs of the decade.



Now when I said that this song isn’t about Mrs. Robinson, it’s because, she’s really not a respected or heroic figure in the film. The lyrics of this song really don’t hold the depth that later Paul Simon songs do. He admitted that the Joe DiMaggio reference had more to do with syllables then meaning and also there’s the fact that it was originally Mrs. Roosevelt that he was singing about.

What we are left is really about gratitude, trying to convince someone how important and meaningful they are to the people around them. It’s a beautiful sentiment and every time the chorus rises, you feel a sense of warmth and love.

If you take this song as being separate from the film, it takes on a whole other level of meaning. It’s not about the loss and confusion of The Graduate, rather it’s a reassuring anthem to a person who doesn’t realize how special she is to the people in her life.

Watch The Graduate and sing along with “Mrs. Robinson.” Try not to get them mixed up with each other. Sometimes we find meaning when we put things together but other times we find even more meaning when we look at things separately.

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.

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.

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.  

8th Grade Playlist: 7 - The Scientist by Morgan Gold/Coldplay

Dear Morgan,

Musical heroes: Train, Taylor Swift The Black Keys, and you, Morgan Gold.

I’m a music teacher in Chicago.  To get to know my 8th graders, I asked them to send me youtube clips of their musical heroes.  A lot of the clips were what I expected, but there were some videos that were surprises like your performance of “The Scientist” by Coldplay.



I know this song well. “The Scientist” is the first Coldplay song that connected with me. The washed out production of "Clocks," while unique, didn’t really capture my imagination.  It wasn’t until I saw Chris Martin perform this song that I got drawn into their world.



There is something magical about this song. It’s like a great novel. You know there’s a deeper story and instead of becoming frustrated that it’s not revealed, you are excited that you get a glimpse. This is a song about vulnerabilities, insecurities and hope.

If it’s possible to love a song because of one line, then I love this song because of “you don’t know how lovely you are.” It’s one of the most beautiful moments in music I’ve ever heard and the setting and arrangement of these words truly is beautiful.

This is what I brought with me when I watched your video for the first time, but there was something more than just the song itself that made this video powerful for me.

We so often focus on the worst of the Internet and how it enables bad behavior.  Sometimes we forget the amazing connections that can be made because of technology. What you’ve done is a great example of what’s amazing about not only music but the internet itself.

Morgan, you were brave enough to put yourself out there and because of your courage you’ve inspired people and you are at least one person’s musical hero. That’s a big deal. Right now your video has 371 views. It doesn’t seem a lot when compared to the amount of views that popular videos get, but it’s still amazing when you try to imagine all of those people in one room. 

We live in a world now where young people are empowered not only to create and share their art but to inspire other young people. I’m so excited for your generation to be able to have this exchange.  I can’t think of a better song and performance than your rendition of “The Scientist,” to represent what that means.

There’s no irony, cynicism, or sarcasm in your performance. It’s devoid of everything that people who don’t know young people unfairly stereotype about people your age. And like the lyrics suggest, this performance gets back to the start: music's role in connecting us to other people through our shared humanity. 

Keep creating Morgan, keep playing and keep singing.

-Kingsley

8th Grade Playlist: 6. Dynamite by Taio Cruz

I don’t really like this song.

When one of my 8th graders submitted this song to me as one of his favorites, I groaned a little on the inside. Sometimes when things go “viral,” my reactions is negative. I still have a little of the “when something gets incredibly popular, I don’t want to go with the crowd,” thing in me. ( I didn’t actually watch Titanic until this last fall).

Honestly, I don’t really know this song that well and I don’t know a lot about Taio Cruz beyond what’s in his Wikipedia. As I listened to this song repeatedly on the way to work, I just didn’t find something in this song that I found that interesting. And then I watched this:


. . .and it reminded a lot of this:


I’m not saying that “Hungry Hearts,” is comparable to “Dynamite” on a musical level. They are very different songs, but both of them have inspired something similar, something truly amazing about music.

When you have an entire stadium full of people singing a song with complete joy, something is right about the music, something is really working. There’s objective arguments that one can make about the quality of a song but that’s not really relevant when you look at the way a whole crowd enjoys a song.

“Dynamite” is hooking into the singular theme that is present throughout all rock music: liberation. Rock and American pop music continues to inspire people through almost six decades, and each generation has different ways to express this idea feeling of liberation. For Taio Cruz, its going to a club and dancing, which really isn’t all that different than what the Beatles were singing about in “Twist and Shout.”



“Dynamite” doesn’t connect with me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important, significant and meaningful to other people. It’s hard sometimes when you look at another generation’s music to make sense of it, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to “work” for you. In the same way that younger people don’t get the music I love, I’m not going to love all of the music my students bring to me. What’s important is not that we convince each other of the quality of the music we like but rather what the music means to us. That’s where we find common ground.

The love of music is a beautiful thing.  If you really love music, then rejoice in people’s love of music, even if that love is directed towards a song you don't like.  This is something we should all celebrate as we live our lives, and if you are of a certain age, while singing “A-Yo.”

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.

8th Grade Playlist: 5. Red by Taylor Swift

Define work . . . if you define works as: Can you get something out of it? Was it good for you? Was it good for them? Did you grow in this relationship? Do you look back at it with some fondness if it should end before your death or his death? Than yeah, it can work. . .

Dan Savage Savage Lovecast: Episode 226

The idea of a relationship for many people is a relationship that lasts 50 or 60 years. Sometimes in our struggle to find that relationship, we see the relationships that don’t last the long haul as not really “working.”

If you think about what Dan Savage is saying, a relationship that lasts 60 years and then ends because someone dies, may not have necessarily “worked.” And a relationship that lasted a year could have really worked for that period of time.  Just because it ended, as all relationships eventually do, doesn’t mean that it didn’t work.



“Red,” the title track from Taylor Swift’s most recent album is about a relationship that worked. It ended, but Taylor is able to look past this to celebrate what the relationship meant. I’m reminded of Springsteen’s “Bobby Jean,” which has a similar message. It’s not about trying to get back together, but rather its' about acknowledging how what was meaningful about a relationship.

Taylor goes into some great similes and metaphors, “Loving him is like trying to change your mind, Once you’re already flying through the free fall."  However I got to say though the opening line “Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street,” is kind of hard to relate to for most of us. She takes us through different colors, expanded on the idea of feeling the “blues,” to feeling “grey,” and most powerfully: “red.”

Taylor effortlessly sings through this song and introduces some great musical touches that are heard throughout the album. Right after the bridge she sings the chorus in a slightly different way with more intensity and darkness. Also the line “and that’s why he’s spinning round in my head,” feels like its twirling. Taylor could have made an entire section of this song repeating this part but rather she leaves it undeveloped as a catchy and beautiful musical nugget.

“Red” revels in the wide range of emotions that love can bring and celebrates the drama, the lack of control, the intensity and the true wonder that is love. We hear her struggle in the bridge trying to get over the relationship but part of her doesn’t want to because she remembers everything about the relationship that worked.

Sometimes we feel like the only way that we can get over a break-up is by convincing ourselves that the relationship never worked and that there was never anything worthwhile in the relationship. Well, if there wasn’t anything of value even for five minutes then the relationship would have never happened.

Yes it’s hard to get over the end of a relationship.  However this process isn’t always about burning photos, bad mouthing the other person with friends and being bitter.

After Ellie dies in Up!, Charles struggles to move on with his life.  The way he accomplishes this is by cherishing the time they spent together, which helps him realize the value of the relationship he develops with Russell.

If you go out with a guy for a month and it doesn’t work out, am I saying you should strap some balloons to your house and go to South America? No, but don’t let the way it ended cloud the beautiful colors of the memories of when it worked.

8th Grade Playlist: #1. Give Me Love By Ed Sheeran

I asked my 8th graders to share me songs by their music heroes.  Here are my reactions to these songs.

She really likes One Direction.

The first couple classes of this year she asked repeatedly if we could play a One Direction song. I have a suspicion that the One Direction photos that have cropped up around the middle school may have something to do with her. So when she mentioned that her musical hero was Ed Sheeran, an artist who co-wrote a One Direction song, I was expecting something similar to the One Direction songs that I knew (like this one I've wrote about earlier).

What I got was something very different.

Ed Sheeran is a English singer and songwriter. He is in his early twenties and had his breakthrough song with “The A Team,” which charted on the British charts giving Adele a run for her money. Like Adele, there’s a sense of musical tradition and authenticity in his music. Sheeran sets lyrics with an Elton John like ease with musical arrangements that sound comforting in their acoustic quality but surprisingly fresh.



“Give Me Love” like Spain’s “Spiritual,” is a heart wrenching song. The expression in this song has glimmers of hope but lives in a world full of sadness, regret, pain and desperation. Every way you could imagine someone expressing the words “give me love,” are revealed here in a musically simple but emotionally complex composition.

The song pulls no punches like Elton John’s “I Want Love.” The first verse sets the tone beautifully with the Bob Dylan-esque line “Paint splatted teardrops on my shirt.” He’s made a commitment to fight for a girl but this leaves him empty as he drowns his sorrows, simply wanting to hold this person that is beyond his grasp.

The sadness of the first verse is brushed aside as Sheeran tries to convince his love to give him some time or “burn this out.” He wants a chance to fix this relationship or he wants her to simply let it collapse in on himself. We get a sense that there is something unsettled in this relationship as he tries to “turn this around.” While there is hope in these words, in the second verse, he is taken back to the pain of how much he needs her.

Ed Sheeran ends the song boldly, repeating a statement of want. This is the kind of thing that is really tricky to pull off. Sheeran makes this work by going through a range of emotions by getting softer and then getting louder, growing in intensity. It almost becomes uncomfortable to at a certain point as he sings “love me” with a mix of rage and pain. Right when you feel like you can’t take it anymore he arrives at an optimistic almost spiritual singing of the words “give me love.”

The repetitions of the words give us musical space to think about what these words really mean not only to Sheeran but to all of us as the listener. This song is a reminder of how painful the want for love can be. More than that, what Sheeran expresses is that the want for love is only painful because of how great it can make us feel and how central it is to the human experience.

Don't judge a book by its cover and don't judge someone's musical taste on one song or artist that they like.  Don't disregard someone's musical taste because you don't like one artist they are into.  You never know what you will discover if you simply ask and listen.

 

Dancing On The Ceiling by Lionel Richie

"He has a special quality that makes me want to punch him."

 My wife, Diana said this after listening to “Say You, Say Me” by Lionel Richie. Much to her dismay, I recently put Lionel Richie: The Definitive Collection on my iPod and we’ve been listening to it in the car.

Now, I understand what Diana is talking about. Lionel Richie is one of those puzzling figures in pop music. He’s one of the most successful solo artists of all time. If you were alive in the 1980s, you listened to this guys music. He has yet to diminish from our popular culture and his country album, Tuskegee, is one of the best selling albums of 2012.

His incredible success is puzzling because of . . . well . . .  have you seen the video to “Hello”?



I spent an entire blog post (click here) mocking this song. I’m not alone in making jokes at Richie’s 1980s styling and music videos.



Mainstream pop music in the 1980s, while directed at youth culture also seemed directed at forty-year olds. People like Huey Lewis and Billy Joel, seemed to dress like people’s parents and Richie with his jackets and sweaters fit right into this more “comfortable” idea of a pop music star. The artists who are around now present themselves as being younger and more hit and often time more overtly sexual.

The other thing about Richie is that he’s not that good looking and he’s not that great a singer. He has very distinctive adlibs and sings with instantly recognizable phrasing. To certain people, like my wife, it’s kind of irritating. I get that.

But I still love this guy. My favorite Lionel Richie song is “Dancing On The Ceiling.”



My parents bought this CD and I used to dance around listening to the title track. I didn’t know that Fred Astaire had previously done before the whole ceiling dancing thing.



So I was blown away by the music video. Yeah, it’s cheesy, all the cameos are really corny but there’s something about this song that’s so much fun.

Pop music audiences in the 1980s were less cynical. Something cheesy like “Dancing On The Ceiling” could be a hit, a song with a silly and fantastical subject, could never be a hit today. If you can peel back your jaded view on what’s “cool” and “in,” you’ll find that there’s a lot of fun to be had with Richie.

Look at Rascal Flatts kicking it with Lionel.



This is awesome . . . and I’m not saying that in an ironic way. “Dancing On The Ceiling” doesn’t speak any great social message, nor does it break any music boundaries, but it captures that carefree moment I had as a child dancing around my living room with abandon.

What a feeling.

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) by Kelly Clarkson

I literally ran across a parking lot to Barnes & Noble to buy Kelly Clarkson's previous album because of how much I liked “My Life Would Suck Without You.” So what happened with “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)”? . . . eh. . .



My first reaction to this song was to the title. It seemed really cliché to use that saying for the title of a song. So I ignored this song for months. Then it hit me recently: many pop songs, some of my favorites are settings of clichés, so what am I whining about? Then I realized that it wasn’t so much that the title was cliché it was the phrase that was being used.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” always came across to me as a type of euphemism. This phrase seems to be something people say to convince themselves that a bad experience in life has some worth. That spirit really isn’t such a bad thing, I mean, I’m an optimist so I’m down with that. But the reality is that many bad experiences that don’t kill you do not in fact make you stronger. Wounds sometimes never fully heal and sometimes there are scars that are left behind.

Not liking the lyrics in a song’s hook is a perfectly valid reason to not like it, but for Kelly Clarkson an artist that I enjoy so much that the first blog post I ever did was about “Since U Been Gone,” it didn’t feel right. So I decided to really see what this song was about.

“Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” is a spiritual sequel to “Since U Been Gone.” In Clarkson’s first and most popular single, she is singing about a break-up and the immediate feelings that follow. It’s a song that’s a mix of anger “shut your mouth, I just can’t take it,” and liberation “I can breathe for the first time.” It captures the transition between the depression and self-blame and the spirit of “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You).”

In “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” there’s no acknowledgement of that this break-up had any bad effects. The pain in “Since U Been Gone,” is diminished and the hint of liberation in that song is exploded in an anthem of self-empowerment.  The background harmony and instrumental texture has a dark shade to it. This sets up the anger and pain that Kelly is singing about getting over.

Clarkson has come a long way from “Since U Been Gone.” In early recordings she simply screamed through the high notes, now she belts them out with more strength and depth. While there is a characteristic strain to her singing there’s also a sense of ease watching her sing and a feeling that Clarkson is really enjoying herself.

After listening to this song, I think I better understand the "doesn't kill you make you stronger," sentiment.  I still don't love this statement and I think it's really really poor consolation to give someone who is going through hard times.  But hearing the strength and conviction the Clarkson sings with, it's beginning to make sense.    

Be careful, don't judge a song by its cliche, you never know what you may be missing out on.

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.  

Although, the sun will never shine the same,
I'll always look to a brighter day.