Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler

In the film Old School, there is a wedding reception towards the beginning of the film which features a band playing “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” with some “colorful” language inserted in the song. This band is the Dan Band, a comedic rock band that covers songs by female singers.



I find this performance hilarious. I don’t know if its so much the swear words or the way that the lead singer commits to this song with such exuberant passion. He isn’t so much expressing the deeper meaning in the song but grooving in the awesome-ness of this epic ballad. Moreover, the Dan Band is rocking out to this song in the exactly same way that my friends and I do when we hear this song.

The question hear is for those of us who love all that is “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” is do we love this song to mock it or because it offers a significant musical experience.

“Total Eclipse Of The Heart” was written by Jim Steinman who is responsible for other epic pop songs like Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back To Me,” Air Supply’s “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” and any Meat Loaf song that you know including “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” (I’ll save you the time of listening to all seven and a half minutes of this song, what he “won’t do” for love is sleep with someone else, i.e. cheat on his lover).

If you listen to these three songs you will have used up the greater part of an hour, but what is more significant is the kind of drama that Steinman brings to his music, expressing each emotion with a majestic and sweeping feeling. These songs feature themes of love, loss, desperation and devotion, romantic ideas that through Steinman’s music are pumped up on steroids.

The “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” sounds great, but what does it really mean? It’s one of the most memorable pop titles but within the songs internal logic it doesn’t really make all that much sense. The song starts with narrator doubting the future saying that sometimes she feels like she is falling apart. A haunting background voice beckons her to “turn around” which is later extended to “turn around bright eyes.”

As the chorus begins she describes what love means to her not in a romantic and loving way but in a desperate plea. What follows is where the internal logic of the songs breaks down. The narrator earlier in the chorus describes love like a “shadow.” So, is the eclipse of the heart the shadow of her lover? It clearly is not her love as she is now falling apart. Whose love is the “love in the dark”? Is it her own or her lovers. Maybe it’s the fact that she wants this person in her life, and that it’s a destructive relationship. She desperately begs for him and once she gets it, it tears her apart. Or maybe, just maybe, this song doesn’t really have any internal logic at all and that the lyrics do is serve the broad strokes of emotion and drama throughout the songs. I like this idea better, it makes my head hurt less and seems to fit more with what the composer was going for.

As nonsensical as the lyrics are Bonnie Taylor’s performance of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” makes perfect emotional sense. She commits completely to the drama in the song. She doesn’t sing with great singing technique but that doesn’t keep her from giving this song her all. This “Rudy-esque” performance (wow, I didn’t know that Samwise could play football) is inspiring not so much for the sound of her voice the expression she brings to the song.

“Total Eclipse Of The Heart.” feeds our innate need to feel alive through drama. Even though in life we feel the highs and the lows of the human experience and in art we can have a taste of this in a controlled way. As bad as the tragedy and the glory at the end of film, we can unplug from it, share in the emotion but not the consequences of the situation.

Yes, on some level “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” is a ridiculous song, but sometimes if we let ourselves get caught up in the drama, not the logic (I already tried that) we can go on a journey and it’s awesome. I don’t think when I sing along to this song, I’m really mocking it. It’s fun, it’s dramatic and like a good summer movie, it can be a great experience without having profound levels of emotional development.

On some level rocking out to this song is like looking forward to emotional wrenching scenes in a sad movie, which we do. We love to revel emotional peaks and hearing Bonnie Taylor hit that high note and scream “I really need you tonight.” She rocks out in such a melodramatic way that we can’t help but feel like we are part of the journey in this song.

Maybe we are mocking this song, maybe not but for me it’s a combination of both, but regardless this song brings a smile to my face.

Now the music video is a different issue. Alone in mansion, ok, ahh creepy guy with lights in his eyes! Ok, calm down there are students sitting in class, um now one of them has a dove and then someone just threw water on guys with goggles, dancing ninjas?!?! She’s running, um fencers, dinner table, wait a sec, the bright kids are choirboys? Now why is there an angel?!? No way, she’s a teacher in a boys school and it was dream, I get it.

OMG!! One of the students has bright eyes!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, how can you not love this song?

Piece Of My Heart by Erma Franklin/Janis Joplin/Melissa Etheridge

Erma Franklin, the older sister of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin who never made it big.

Janis Joplin, whose one of the most influential singers in popular music who died tragically from a drug overdoes.

Melissa Etheridge, a powerful singer-songwriter who inspired the world through her music, her voice and her courage as a breast cancer survivor.

These three artists are linked together by one song, “Piece Of My Heart.” Written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns, this first recording of this song was by Erma Franklin the older sister of Aretha Franklin, one of the most influential singer in American pop music and ranked number one as the greatest singer of all time. While Aretha had great critical and commercial success, Erma and her other sister Carolyn struggled in the music business. Erma had a darker and less vibrant voice than Aretha. She faced other misfortunes in her singing career and in the mid-1970s left the business. Erma passed away in 2002 from throat cancer, never fulfilling her dream of making it in the music business while her younger sisters legendary status as the Queen of Soul continues to grow.



Erma’s biggest success was with “Piece Of My Heart” in 1967 which peaked at number sixty-two on the billboard hot 100 list. “Piece Of My Heart” expresses a unique struggle in which the narrator feels that she is giving all that she can to the relationship but wants to stick it out, even though it is causing her pain. Erma sings soulfully pulling back on “didn’t I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly could?” and later effortlessly moving across the range of her voice in the second verse “and you never hear me when I cry at night.” The background is classic Atlantic Soul with a laid-back gospel feeling in the background instruments and vocalists. Erma’s expresses the pain and struggle in the song but there is a sense of restraint not fully acknowledging the innate conflict within the song. In contrast, Janis Joplin mercilessly expresses inner turmoil like few other singers have ever done before.



In 1968, Janis Joplin with her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company covered “Piece Of My Heart.” Janis Joplin proved to the world that “a woman can be tough” performing and partying just as hard as her male contemporaries. Her attitude and style stood out against conventions of not only how people thought a woman should look but also how a woman should act. Even in our day and age, her scraggly appearance and raw voice stand out as a unique challenge to the way that people view the woman in popular culture.

After listening to Erma’s recording of “Piece Of My Heart” almost everything about Janis Joplin’s seems different. Instead of a clean blues band introduction, a dirty, raunchy and aggressive guitar with the rest of the band builds to Janis entrance. Though the bands sound completely different they both share a sense of bluesy expression leaning hard on notes that color the chords and pulling the tempo back creating different but expressive grooves.

Janis takes the blues convention and blows it apart. Her voice is raspy, untrained and has a tone that is both undesirable somewhat painful to listen to, However there is something so open and desperate in her expression that it not only intrigues but also engages the listener.

Janis starts the verse gently is after screaming out “come on.” Her tone cleans up on the word “feel” and then later on the next high note on “yeah” she howls leading up to the chorus. She sings the course with a chorus with a combination of anger, frustration and exacerbation. When she sings “you know you got it, if it makes you feel good, there’s almost a sense of servitude.

In the second verse, she adds layers to the lyrics repeating the word “never.” When children can’t find ways to express themselves sometimes they just repeat a word “I really, really, really, REALLY want this toy” this same kind of desperation and fixations is expressed when Janis repeats “never.” This is followed by Janis sobbing through the word “crying” before pulling herself together: “each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain, but when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again.”

When Janis sings the out the loud high note after “you know you got it” in the second to last iteration of the verse, she shows us the most raw of emotion. There is nothing holding her back. It’s concentrated emotion with all the impurities left in the mixture. The amazing thing is how good hearing Janis’ pain feels to us as listeners. Unfortunately Janis’ demons were all too real and she died at the age of 27, from a heroin overdoes.

Melissa Etheridge is one of those artists that even though you may not love her music, you still hope for her success. Working her way up thought he music business she rejected the images that people suggested that she adopt working as an uncompromising singer and songwriter. Her breakout hit was “Come To My Window” and has released a total of ten albums, three of which have gone multi-platinum. One of the greatest female rock singers she is thought of as being the female Bruce Springsteen matching him in her musicianship and uncompromising devotion to her fans.

In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer and in the following month, she underwent chemotherapy. Etheridge did not perform the next year and was rarely seen in the public eye. Then in February of 2005, she performed with Joss Stone in a tribute to Janis Joplin. Joss started the performance singing another Janis Joplin song “Cry Baby” and then Melissa Etheridge came out on stage, head bald from the side effects of chemotherapy and showed the world that she was back.

When she first approached the microphone and sang “c’mon” with her energetic and powerful voice it was clear that this was a special moment in popular music. After the huge opening of the song, the whole band quieted down and Melissa drew the crowd in. With her eyes closed Melissa quietly sang “didn’t I make you feel” and then opened her eyes and flashed a joyous smile and her face with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Her voice, a unique blend of soul and rock, sensuously snaked around the notes of the melody. The camera panned back for a long view with Janis looking on from above the band approvingly when Melissa sang, “well, I’m going to show you.” When the camera came back to her face as Melissa sang “a woman can be tough.”

With this performance, this song became not only a tribute of Janis’ legacy but also a glorious celebration of the spirit in woman all over the world who have courageously faced breast cancer. If Melissa Etheridge’s scream at the end of the performance and her whole performance doesn’t prove that a woman can be tough, I don’t know what does.

The legacy of “Piece Of My Heart” lies in Erma Franklin’s dreams, Janis Joplin’s tragic life and Melissa Etheridge’s triumphant performance. With each artist, layers of expression are added to “Piece Of My Heart reminding us of the power of music to express the spirit and soul of its artists. Through the artists we understand not only what this songs means to the artist but what it means to ourselves pulling us closer to a piece of our hearts.

The Heart of the Matter by Don Henley/India.Arie

I would like to think that I’m a person who is above holding grudges however one person comes to mind that I have yet to forgive for something she did over four years ago.

Maybe it’s because of how she not only disrespected me but also my wife, and maybe it’s because she let me down as a friend. If forgiveness is not only an act of excusing mistakes but also an act of renouncing our anger than in forgiveness we are not only acting to change the way other people feel but also to effect our own feelings.

Our popular culture has thoroughly examined almost every facet of love including the first kiss, falling in love, the sexual expression of love and the circumstances and aftermath of break-ups. However, few songs examine forgiveness, the final step in the break-up that in many ways is the hardest. Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” examines forgiveness in a personal and meaningful way that challenges us to reexamine the feelings in our hearts arguing that though it’s impossible to forget, forgiveness lies within ourselves.

Don Henley became popular as a member of the Eagles, the most successful recording artists of the 1970s maintaining two albums in the top 10 selling albums of all time. With their mix of rock, folk and country the Eagles reflected the joy of the American experience with songs like “Take It Easy” and darkness of the American soul with “Hotel California.” Henley with the momentum of the Eagles started a solo career and along with writing partners, Mike Campbell and J. D. Souther wrote “The Heart of the Matter” for Henley’s third solo album The End of the Innocence in 1989.

“The Heart of the Matter” is a monologue with Henley speaking to himself about his feelings about a love that he has lost. The first verse starts with a phone call from a friend that informs Henley that his passed love has found someone new. The lyrics unfold poetically describing the break-up.

And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside love's open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

Something inside of them made them look beyond each other’s contentment and “beg” for something more. He doesn’t know why they sought something more in other people and there isn’t a sense that this is one person’s fault.

The chorus starts with a rising line with long notes that draw strength to the words “I’m leaning to live with out you now,” but the words “I miss you sometimes” are sung closer to speaking, a honest statement through a tough facade. The next two lines speak to the idea the through the pursuit of knowledge we only gain more questions. It is from this perspective that Henley acknowledges how little he really understands and how he has to relearn what it means to love.

People use the phrase” the heart of the matter” to get to the truth of a situation. Don Henley utilizes this phrase to examine a relationship not only getting to the core of the situation but also the emotional truth. This requires strength and honesty and sometimes the will gives in. “Thoughts scatter” because we are trying to understand something that we can’t on a logical level, which is exactly what the depths of the human heart show us.

The rhythms of melody speed up through “and my thoughts seem to scatter but I think it’s about. . .” He’s working through this ideas in his head and what comes out is after a slight hesitation is that it’s about forgiveness. When Henley sings “even if you don’t love me anymore” he is recognizing that “forgiveness” isn’t going to get his love back, but is the key to understanding what happened and moving on with his life.

The second verse takes a broader look at love. Henley contemplates the harshness of the world and how love can exist despite all the harm, we do to each other. He follows stating that it is trust that leads to happiness and not pride. This not only speaks in a broader sense but also to Henley himself as forgiveness requires him to put aside his pride to trust himself and his own feelings.

Every word in this song is meaningful. Each turn in the melody pulls at feelings and speaks to a place deep within us. In popular music, men rarely express their feelings like in “The Heart of the Matter.” Through wise words and honestly, Henley reminds us that a man is not defined by acts of physicality strength but by his emotional maturity and character.



India.Arie covered “The Heart of the Matter” for her third solo album Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship in 2006. One of my high school students introduced me to this soulful interpretation. India.Arie rich tone across her entire range and elegant interpretation brings an optimistic sheen to this song with a level of strengths and resolves.

When we forgive people we no only excuse the mistakes of others but we renounce our anger and make a pledge to start anew. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful ideas in our morality. It allows penance for our sins and rehabilitation for our crimes. However, forgiveness is one of the most difficult things for us as humans.

In the bridge Henley states that even though people let us down and hurt our pride we need to out it aside because the anger we carry will eat us up inside. Yes, the anger I feel for this person is a dark place in my heart and I’m not ready to excuse her mistake because I don’t feel that she even thinks she did anything wrong. I’m not ready to renounce my anger because she’s never apologized to me.

Can I forgive her without her apologizing to me? I wish I could, and maybe it’s just going to take time. It is about forgiveness. Not about anything, I can get back from her or even her feelings. What angers us the most about people are exactly the things that we dislike and feel insecure about ourselves. Forgiving others is really more about forgiving ourselves, accepting our own mistakes and maybe that is what is at the heart of the matter.

“When you forgive you love and when you love, God's light shines upon you”
-dialogue from the film Into The Wild

Take Me Home, Country Road by John Denver

We come to love music in different ways. Sometimes it’s from learning a song and performing it and other times it’s from hearing a song. One time I came to love a song from singing along to a German Polka band.

Several of my close friends after college relocated to the Cincinnati area for their careers and my wife and I often visit them. On my first trip to Cincinnati, my friends took me out a bar/restaurant called the Hofbrauhaus.

We got a table in the main room, got some nice fresh pretzels and lots of good beer. The evening was off to a great start and as we were catching up a band started their set, which consisted mainly of a drummer and an accordion player. They played everything from tradition polka music to German drinking songs to Sousa marches and pop songs like “Sweet Caroline.” The atmosphere was fantastic and everyone in the room was singing along and dancing to this incredible band on stage.

Every time the band played a song that people knew everyone would stand up on the wooden seats sing along and rock out. My favorite song they played that night was “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

I didn’t know the lyrics, but catching enough of the words to just sing through the song with the room full of people was one of my favorite musical experiences. Maybe it was the people in the room or the beer in my stomach but man, that song felt so good to sing at that time and ever since then “Take Me Home, Country Roads” has been on my favorite songs.

Like most people in my generation, I rode off John Denver as kind of being wimpy, white-bread, country-pop music. Looking at pictures of John Denver it seemed clear that not was he an artifact of the my parents generation but an artists that only the lamest people in my parents’ generation enjoyed.

There is some truth to that presumption. John Denver’s music is non-threatening and appeals to a specific crowd but he captures a sense of reverence and nostalgia that may come off as a little corny. The thing is that is exactly how our memories are sometimes.

John Denver released “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in 1971 and it became one of John Denver’s signature songs. This song is a well-loved anthem for the state of West Virginia and is played by the West Virginia University Marching Band at the beginning of every home game.



The melody of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is simple and doesn’t move around across a wide range of note. However, the rise and fall of the melody is carefully crafted and creates a sense of direction. In the first verse, the melody in the verse rises to “Blue Ridge Mountains” and then rests on a lower note on the word “Shenandoah.” The word “river” has a slight rise on its last syllable that propels the melody into the next phrase.

The second phrase of the verse is similar to the first phrase but instead of having a slight rise in the end of the phrase, the chorus picks immediately begins. There is space between the first phrase and the second phrase of the verse, but there is no space between the second phrase and the chorus. Making the end of a phrase happen at the same point as the beginning of the chorus, this phrase elision, sweeps up the energy of the previous phrase like wave gently pushing the listener forwards into the chorus.

The melody in the chorus rises up to the middle of that phrase and descends as we would expect, however the way that the melody rises is both dramatic and unexpected. “Country Roads” rises up, meanders on “take me home” and then descends to the low note on the word “place.” Instead of having a steady build to the top of the phrase on the word “belong,” there is a jump up to “-long” of “belong” that brings a sense of yearning and a genuine feeling of purpose.

This is a song about missing home, about wishing you could be in the place that you feel most comfortable and the long notes in the chorus and the reminiscing verses bring a sense of warmness truly capturing the feeling of being home. Yes, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” sounds like the music equivalent of a sepia tone photograph but it’s feels real and I can’t really imagine this song sounding any better then when with John Denver singing this song with the pop country background behind him.

This song mentions a lady’s voice, a mountain mama, and a miner’s lady. There are hints of a girl that flow through this song like reflection of light in a stream. They song doesn’t tell a cohesive story but instead presents different images that like a mosaic which instead of presented an image creates a feeling.

Nostalgia is a tricky feeling. When you have great memories of a place and you revisit the location, often they aren’t as amazing as you remember. I went back to Hofbrauhaus and it was fun but it wasn’t as magical as the first time that I visited but I still had a great time. In some ways the feeling of wanting to go back, that nostalgia was better than actually going back.

If we hold on to memories for the purpose of trying to replicate them we will continuously be disappointed but if we keep them in our minds as places we can go to find comfort and happiness we will never be alone and always be at home.

Feels Like Home by Randy Newman

Linda Ronstadt recording
Chantal Kreviazuk recording

When I left home to go to college I never imagined that there would be any other place that I would call home.

I grew up in Mercer Island, Washington, which is a small suburb of Seattle that lies in the middle of Lake Washington. There's a tradition in my family of moving away from home. My mother and father came to America from Taiwan, my brother went to college at New York University and it only seemed to make sense that I would take opportunity to explore another part of the country. My brother went to a great American city so I chose Chicago to be the city that I would explore and I applied and got accepted to Northwestern University.

My freshmen year, I missed home a lot. I met some great people through Marching Band and my parents visited as much as they could but it was hard. I remember some nights feeling lonely and lost. My home seemed so far away and at times it seemed to physically hurt how much I wanted to feel the comfort of being at home. At those times, I would think about my parents coming over to a country in which they didn't even know the language, leaving all their family and friends and I would tell myself, if they could handle that, then I can make it at Northwestern.

As time went on, I joined a fraternity and lived in a frat house for three years. Slowly without thinking about it, I noticed that I would refer to my dorm room as "home." Sometimes people would ask if I was talking about my "home, home" which referred to my home in Washington or my "home" which was my dorm room. I don't remember the moment when I started thinking about my fraternity house as my home and when that happened I didn't seem to miss my "home, home" as much.

Maybe it was because I had made great friends and knew the town of Evanston and Chicago better, but I missed home less and less as my years at Northwestern progressed. I found that this happened again when my wife and I moved in together to Downers Grove another suburb of Chicago. When we first moved there I found myself missing home but as I began to know the town and feel comfortable in my surroundings I started calling it home and missing home less as the time passed.

After two years in Downers Grove, my wife and I moved back to Evanston and somehow our condominium felt like home quickly. I had lived in that same condominium during graduate school but something while Diana was finishing up her undergraduate degree at Northwestern but it never really felt like home during that time.

What my made condo feel like home so quickly? What was it that turned my Downers Grove apartment, my fraternity house and the house in Mercer Island a home? Is it about the building itself, the surroundings or is it something closer to the heart? Maybe the answer to this questions lies in “Feels Like Home” by Randy Newman.

In 1993, Randy Newman, most known for the music he composed for the Pixar films Toy Story and Monsters Inc. presented a musical he composed based on the story of Faust by Goethe and also utilized elements from Milton's Paradise Lost. The story is based in modern day with God and the Devil fighting for the soul of a University of Notre Dame student Henry Faust. The character of Martha who is trying to trick the Devil sings “Feels Like Home.” The setting and purpose of the song is to deceive but the emotional truth describing how people can bring us to the feeling of home is intimate, honest and genuine.

This song is about intangibles. Emotions that we can’t describe in words, so instead of trying to explain these emotions, Newman illustrates specific moments and situations that helps us feel theses magical and indescribable moments.

The song begins describing the emotional meaning that physical aspects can bring. Newman describes “something” in the eyes that makes him want to lose himself in his love’s arms. He hears something in her voice that touches his heart that makes him feel an emotion that he hopes will last forever. It has been said that love songs make sense when you finally fall in love and unless you have seen and heard that “something” that is being described it’s impossible to really know what Newman is singing about.

It is all of this that Newman sings “Feels Like Home.” This is a feeling of comfort, warmth and being safe. It is something that we see in each other eyes and feel in each other’s presence. It’s in our pain and in our happiness, which we work to express to each other. Though it is impossible to completely understand each other’s emotions through this struggle, we begin to better understand each other and even more so ourselves.

I don’t think home is just a building and I don’t think it’s just the people. It’s the joy in our lives, the struggle in the dark and a place in our heart. Home is a feeling that represents the best parts of ourselves and this feeling reminds us that no matter how far we travel, home will always be with us.


"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."

~Frederick W. Robertson

Stick To The Status Quo (from High School Musical)

Whether you love, hate or are simply mystified by High School Musical, it is undeniably the most successful film musical franchise of all time.

The soundtrack to of High School Musical sold over 4 million copies making it the best selling top-selling CD in 2006. 7.7 million viewers watched the premiere broadcast of this film and the DVD release set sales records as the fastest selling television film of all time. There have been successful two sequels (with another one rumored to be in pre-production), and merchandising including backpacks, lunchboxes, school folders, and clothing (working in an elementary school, I’ve seen it all).

I don’t necessarily think that something is good just because it’s popular however when something is as huge a success as High School Musical it becomes part of our culture. In order to stay culturally literate and have a better understanding of the art that my students enjoy I felt that it was necessary to watch High School Musical. Well, I was able to avoid watching it for three years but I glad I finally did.

My inner music snob (which over the years has diminished) did not like the idea of such a pop music orientated musical. The mass popularity of it could not possibly be a good thing. That sort of thinking does not make the most amount of sense but there is a feeling that great music, true “art” music is not something that the masses could ever understand so therefore something so popular cannot possibly be good. Now, even though I disagree with this idea it does make sense on some level as many of the greatest pieces of art are not really all that popular. The why’s and how’s of that are part of a different discussion but regardless High School Musical was not seem appealing to me.

So on the Sunday night of Valentine’s day weekend my wife and I sat down and watched High School Musical. It’s not bad, actually it’s very good. I am making this statement with an important caveat. I say that, not comparing it to other musicals like West Side Story or my personal favorite Mary Poppins but in considering the artists’ intention and how effective they accomplishes their goals. If a song is made with every intention to be sad then saying it’s a bad song because it doesn’t make you happy isn’t really a fair assessment of the quality of the artist’s work. However, if it is clear that a musician is trying to make you happy and the song does not express happiness then it is not an effective piece of art.

If you are over the age of twenty, no fifteen, you probably are not going to enjoy watching High School Musical. If you don’t enjoy the sound of modern day pop music, seeing people randomly break out into song and dance sequences (that are both inexplicable and mystifying) and predictable and derivative plots then please don’t watch High School Musical. You are not going to be happy with your viewing experience. However, if you can put yourself in the mindset of an 8 year old this is transcendent musical experience.

High School Musical like many modern musicals speaks in a musical language that is both familiar and non-threatening. With shows like The Lion King and Jersey Boys, the audience knows exactly what to expect musically. They are no artistically challenge to the audiences’ ears. The artistic adventure comes in other ways like the puppetry in The Lion King and the sets in Jersey Boys. Maybe the lack of familiarity of the music in musicals is a reason for the decline in the popularity of musicals and that is probably the reasons we’ve seen more and more musicals use pre-existing music.

Every song in High School Musical pulls form, chords, harmony and even lyrics from pop music. This is mostly a late 1990s sound with slight nods to hip-hop. For most kids growing up this is their musical language. If you are going to draw people in to see a musical you might as well speak to them in a language that they understand, and High School Musical does this incredibly effectively.

This film exists works within “musical logic.” One has to suspend their level of disbelief quite a lot to believe that Troy, the main character can sing as well as he does without any training or intention to be a singer. This isn’t any less ridiculous than a nun teaching a bunch of children their Do, Re, MI's over in 2 minutes. (ask any music teacher you know and they will tell you that it takes MONTHS to teach kids to utilize their Do, Re, Mi’s like they Von Trapps do).



The plot is well nothing extraordinary, but it makes sense why it is so simple. the other day I was talking about what my favorite book was to some of my fourth grade students and started to explain the plot to Grapes of Wrath. They were of course utterly confused. Young kids need to be taught about good guys and bad guys, the way plots develop and how stories usually play out. There is a rhythm and language in the way that plots are put together and having a musical that follows in a predictable way deriving many of its plot points from other stories helps teach children the way that stories are told which is an essential and important part of their education.

Great art is able to appeal to people who are beyond its target audience and High School Musical doesn’t really do that. It’s effective, it’s fun and well-crafted. The actors in the film commit completely to the characters. The production is excellent in the way high school atmosphere is created and in the intricate and impressive dance sequences. However, unlike a musical like Mary Poppins, which speaks not only to kids but also to adults, High School Musical lacks depth. Like many things that children love, most kids will probably outgrow High School Musical and only look back at it in a nostalgic way to remember how it made them feel.

The film’s major theme is the creation of the adolescent identity. Young adults want to assert their own identity and be individuals while at the same time they want to fit in with everyone else. The song that captures the spirit and innate conflict in this struggle is “Stick To The Status Quo.” Three students have the urge to express their true passion and the other students at the table encourage them to, but when they express something that doesn’t fit in with their clique they back up and tell them to stick with the status quo. This song expresses the way many young people feel who want to get something else but don’t feel comfortable because of peer pressure. We can’t fault the other students too much for not understanding why they want to be something other than they appear to be. By the end of the film, the student body comes together beyond the cliques to support each other in a way that speaks more to friendships then to cliques. This may not be realistic but is a nice thought.

High School Musical is about working against the status quo to be true to yourself, embracing your passions as Gabriella reminds us, “Do you remember in kindergarten, how you'd meet a kid, and know nothing about them, then 10 seconds later you'd be playing like you were best friends, because you didn't have to be anyone but yourself?” Though that may sound overly simple, but that might actually be all it really takes to make meaningful connections with people.

Even thought I enjoyed High School Musical, I’m probably never going to watch it ever again but I’m glad so many young people love this show. It has a great message and is a fantastic introduction to the world of musicals and music in general. I love the excitement that kids get when they have a piece of art that they love. It encompasses their whole lives, they want to experience it repeatedly, and it may annoy the rest of us but their excitement is a beautiful thing that leads passion and love for art that stays with them for the rest of our lives.

Come What May (from Moulin Rogue!) by Ewan McGregor & Nicole Kidman

"Come What May" film clip

For the first dance at my wedding my wife, Diana and I took a dancing lesson. This is actually a common thing for people to do. Most dance studios have a “wedding package” which typically include multiple sessions and personalized choreography. Now this may seem a little silly but the fact is that many people don’t feel comfortable dancing in front of a large crowd of family and friends.

Diana and I didn’t want a choreographed first dance but we wanted to feel a little bit more comfortable on the floor and have some ideas so that we wouldn’t be stuck in the generic “left foot, right foot” side to side slow dance. It didn’t help the fact that the song that we chose "Calico Skies" by Paul McCartney which had an up-tempo triple meter.



So we met with a friend of ours who taught dance and we had a lot of fun with our lesson. We learned some basics, a dance step that worked, how to do some turns and how to end the dance. For the next two weeks before our wedding, we practiced and both were looking forward to our first dance.

At the receptions, after the wedding, we enjoyed a beautiful dinner, heartwarming toasts and cutting cake. It was now time for our first dance. The music started and Diana and I approached each other. I was thinking about my posture, making sure right arm was firm, keeping my eyes up, and the dance steps steps. By the time, the first verse had started all those thoughts left my mind and for a moment, it was like we were floating.

About half way through the song, Diana surprised me. She reached up, put her hands behind my neck and pulled me close. My first thought was “hey we’re not doing our dance steps that we practiced what’s going on?” But, as our dance became the typical side to side slow dance and I felt her close to me, I realized that it really didn’t matter about the dance moves or even the song, it was just about sharing a special moment with her and showing all our friends and families how much we loved each other.

My brother Ed and his fiancée Laura are getting married tomorrow and as I think about how amazing it’s going to be I can’t help but think of the magical dance that Diana and I shared on our wedding day. Ed and Laura, you’ve chosen a great song for your first dance. "Come What May" from Moulin Rogue! is a beautiful song that captures the love between you two and the spirit of your wedding.

Moulin Rogue! is the kind of film, a student of culture like myself loves. It has more musical references then any other musical I’ve seen featuring intriguing and inventive reinterpretations of popular music. Watching this film for the first time was like cultural overload. My mind raced trying to keep track of all of the references. The amazing thing about the film wasn’t necessarily the music itself but how the music served the dramatic arc of the film. All of the references would have been meaningless if not for the tragic plot and engaging characters. As much I love the medley’s and hearing “Roxanne” being sung as a tragic tango, the song that always got to me is my favorite song from the film is the only original song composed for the Moulin Rougue! “Come What May.”

The song starts with Christians describing how the world just seems different because of the love that he feels. It starts simple with singing that almost seems unsure. It’s like he is beginning to understand his feelings as he sings. As he asks “listen to my heart” the notes become longer and more dramatic. Then Christian sings “but I love you” at the end of the first verse which through its intimacy and honesty feel more real then any other line in the song.

Satine, Nicole Kidman’s character sings in the second verse about how the world seems perfect and that her life doesn’t seems “such a waste.” Even though our minds tell us that the world is never perfect, at certain moments in our lives our hearts helps us feel that the world is perfect. That feeling is not one of solitude but comes from sharing not only our joys, but also our grief with the ones we love.

Enjoy your first dance. Yes, everyone is watching, but that’s okay. I know you’ve been practicing and trust me you will look tons better than you think you will. Everyone is wishing you well and basking in your joy. For a moment, the world may seem like a perfect place and I hope that you will bask in that feeling.

Laura if you feel like forgetting the dance moves for a moment and just pulling Ed close, go for it. It’s your moment and you two should do whatever you want. People are at the wedding to witness true love, your true love. No dress (even though I know your will be sublime) can make a bride as beautiful as the happiness that she is feeling with her new husband and I have no doubt that will shine like the stars.