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.

Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers

There are many misunderstood lyrics in rock music. While some musicians are very deliberate at making sure that their lyrics are understood, rock singers often do not focus on annunciation as part of their craft resulting in misunderstood lyrics or simply words aren’t understood at all.
Most of the time, this doesn’t really bother me. I’m used to looking up Springsteen and Rolling Stones lyrics to make sense of the meaning in their songs. However there is one example, one instance in which a misunderstood lyric had a profound effect on my identity: “Secret Agent Man.”



When I was in elementary school my dad would often pick me up from school and he would always be listening to Oldies stations (which is one reason I love pop music the way I do). Now I don’t know if he was serious or joking when he told me that this particular song about a spy was named “Secret Asian Man.”

Now in my elementary school brain somehow it made sense. Could you really blame me? Look, there is no hint of an ending “t” syllable when Rivers sings the chorus, AT ALL. Asian people can do spy-like James Bond stuff too. So why not? This is a song about an Asian James Bond character who was “secret” as well as a “man,” hence “Secret Asian Man.”

This connected with one of the other culturally experiences I shared with my dad, watching James Bond movies. I loved watching these films with my father and whenever marathons were on the television, we were all over it. Now, James Bond was of course, never Asian, but a lot of bad guys were like that guy who through hat at people.



Connecting my childhood fantasies of being a James Bond-like spy with a song that told of an Asian James Bond cemented in my head that I, a little Asian boy, could in fact be a “Secret Asian Man.”

Unfortunately like many childhood illusions, I came to the realization that Johnny Rivers was not actually talking about an Asian spy but instead was cashing in one the 1960s spy craze by recording a song about a generic spy character.

Realizing that there was no song about an Asian spy shattered my dreams.

Johnny Rivers, you made me think that I could do something with my life, that I could be a “Secret Asian Man.” You convinced me that racial barriers could be crossed and that stereotypes could not limit my dreams. Then reality crushed the hopes of a little boy who realized that you actually didn’t believe that an Asian man could be on the Riviera one day and hide out in Bombay the next day. All you believed was that by catching on to a craze you could cash out. 

Well I hope you’re happy and that your “Secret Agent Man” money comforts you when think of all of the little Asian boys that you misled with your incoherent Southern Drawl.

Romeo and Juliet (The Chicago Shakespeare Theater)

Through Nov. 21 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier; Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes; Tickets: $44-$75 at 312-595-5600 or www.chicagoshakes.com

 “If you can’t believe in Romeo and Juliet, what’s left of love?”

This is Chris Jones’s conclusion of his Chicago Tribune review of the production of Romeo & Juliet playing at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.  He criticizes the production for being “the most cynical ‘Romeo and Juliet’ you’re ever likely to see. Love conquers nothing here. Love is nowhere near the theater.”

Mr. Jones, I believe you’re missing the point of the play. William Shakespeare classifies this play as a “tragedy” with other great works like Hamlet and King Lear. Yes, you are right there no love anywhere near this production, but there isn’t any love in the play itself. This powerful production that the Chicago Shakespeare Theater drives home the most interesting and powerful parts of the Shakespeare’s’ most famous work which have less to do with love but the tragedy of letting passion reign over reason.

Romeo falls for Juliet less than a day after Rosaline dumps him. If that’s not a rebound girl, I don’t know what is. Juliet responds to Romeo instantly falling in "love."  I don’t know if love at first sight exists but what I do know is that Juliet at the tender age of 14, Juliet has had little to no interaction with guys outside her family as her father describes. So it’s no big surprise that the first guy she meets she falls for projecting her love fantasies on Romeo. They follow their passion even though they know this isn’t a good idea and plan to marry,

Friar Lawrence isn’t much better. First he tells the two not to marry, gets the idea that maybe it would make peace between the two families.  He foreshadows his mistakes commenting that people “stumble who run too fast” and man does he stumble. Instead of helping the Capulets by consoling them with the truth he comes up with a convoluted plan involving a suspended animation and deceit

The director makes the insightful argument that if there is any one person to blame for the tragedy it's Capulet, Juliet’s father.  He is violent, impulsive, brash and irrational. When he tells Tybalt not to fight Romeo at his party it’s more than words. He slaps him, chokes him and shoves him the ground, threatening him as he stabs a sword through his hand. Even more scary is when he tells Juliet that she will marry Paris.  This results in one of the most intense portrayals of domestic violence I’ve ever seen against Lady Capulet, The Nurse and Juliet. With a patriarch like that is it no wonder other characters are so impulsive.

The production isn’t perfect. The costumes where inconsistent and the recorded incidental music was for the most part mediocre and unnecessary. Like a great old movie there are some things about Romeo And Juliet that don’t work with our modern sensibility. I mean was the death of Lady Montague in the end really necessary?

Those things were inconsequential. The director pulled all of the different characters to a central theme treating it more like an ensemble cast.  The complexities of the tragedy shine right through the Shakespearean dialog reminding me that these plays are truly at their most powerful live on stage.

If you want to a see a love story go watch “Noting Hill.” If you want to experience a true tragedy filled with pain, passion and violence go check out the Chicago Shakespeare’s production of Romeo And Juliet.

“If you can’t believe in Romeo and Juliet, what’s left of love?”  There is nothing left of love because believing in Romeo And Juliet is heading Shakespeare's warning of the darkness of our passions deep within out hearts.