Round 6: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terell Vs. Amy Winehouse

In 1967, Motown released one of the most beloved duets in popular music, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."



Marvin Gaye's and Tammi Terrell's voices blended beautifully as two lovers committing their deep love for each other.  The Funk Brothers, Motown's session band created a mysteriously haunting opening that blossomed beautifully into the celebratory chorus.  

Versus:

Amy Winehouse featured "Tears Dry On Their Own" on her breakout album Back to Back.  This song flawlessly rerecorded the insturmental backgrouds of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and added new lyrics and a new melody.



It's like a dream to hear the backgrounds recorded with such reverence and soul.  It's a reminder of the power of live musicians and how great the Funk Brothers original arrangements were.  Winehouse adds a flowing melody and through her unique almost Tom Waits-like singing tells a passionate and bluesy story.

The Winner:

I love Winehouse but she's no Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terell.  The way that they duet is pure joy.  You could listen to just the insturmental background of both "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Tears Dry On Their Own" and be floored by the power of that music, heck you would feel it with the just bass line.  And listening to just the vocal teack of Marvin and Tammi is a relevation.  However Winehouses performance on this song is just not on the same level.

Next Week: Coolio Vs. Stevie Wonder

Squeeze Box by The Who

“Come on! What happened to the angry defiant Who of ‘My Generation,’ ‘Won't Get Fooled Again’ and ‘Mama's Got a Squeeze Box.’?!?”

Homer’s Simpson’s plea to the Who to rebel against the other side of Springfield in the classic Simpson's episode “A Tale Of Two Springfield’s,” is a hilarious statement about one of my favorite Who songs.



Ok, so “Squeeze Box” isn’t the most socially relevant song and it doesn’t contribute to some grand rock opera like Tommy, but man this song is fun. It’s a song about the mother of a family who likes to play the accordion, ALL THE TIME. I mean even the dog can’t sleep. Dog’s can sleep through preety much anything. My puppy Buffy sleeps through my piano playing, guitar practicing and the loudest most violent action films I watch on the television.

This accordion must be really obnoxious

For a band who used a wide variety of innovative sounds in their music you’d think that if they were going to do a song about an instrument they would include it in the instrumentation. That’s just the thing though. “Squeeze Box” isn’t really about an accordion. It’s about the unbridled joy that come from playing an instrument even if everyone around you hates it.

“Squeeze Box” has a light relaxed groove to it as Daltrey paints a picture of a household tormented by music. Then there’s the whole “in and out” part that some have claimed are suggestive lyrics. Yes, I see how repeating that phrase can imply another meaning but if you take that meaning and place it in the context of the song it doesn't sense, which makes this implication ring false.

Now the bridge is a different story. I don’t know where thye are going with this thing. I could argue for the straightforward meaning of the rest of the lyrics but “squeeze me, c’mon on squeeze, c’mon and tease me like you do.”

Maybe this is the narrator looking into another room in the house or even crazier, maybe it’s the accordion's perspective. Ok, I can’t really explain this section, all I know is that musically it’s a great moment of release. The time stops and there is a sense of freedom and longing that comes from being away from something that you love.

“Squeeze Box,” isn’t meaningful in a social sense but Homer is kind of right grouping this song with “My Generation.” This song is about defiance and rebelling.  It just comes from an unexpected source: a mother who simply loves to play music.



Now, Sheryl Crow singing this song with an accordion brings a whole different meaning to this song.

Week 19: The Other Side Of Teaching

One of the things that young teachers often reflect when they start teaching is how most of job of being a teacher is not spent in front of students. Yes, teaching is the central part of what teachers do but honestly it’s only a fraction of the job. While some teacher mourn this situation, it’s not always such a bad thing.

Now a lot of time is taken up by lesson planing.  This activity can be a pain sometimes especially when you don’t have time to create a lesson but when you do, it’s awesome. Whenever I teach a song in class I spend time researching the material which I love doing. If we are really life-long learners as teachers lesson planning is a great opportunity to continue learning about out passions.

There is a science in the way a lesson is sequenced and a unit is organized. As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, I love making plans and I love it when a plan come together.  And sometimes it's even better when they don’t.

Then there’s the teacher meetings.  The gatherings include full faculty meetings, division meetings and department meetings. These meetings can be organized in many different ways. Sometimes it’s a book club discussing books related to education, these meetings can address specific problems and processes in the school and other times they feature guest speaker.

At their best these meetings rejuvenate, solve problems in the school and supply great new ideas on how to teach. At their worst, these meeting can well. . . be a waste of time.

The worst meeting I can  remember was at my first job a couple years ago. They had brought in a speaker on this new initiative called “problem solving.” It was this new process of solving problems that included like five different steps and was one of the most asinine ideas I had every heard in my entire life.  Has anyone tried to teach you something that you already knew how to do?  Yeah it was like that with the added bonus of the speaker's superiority complex.

As annoyed as I was at this experience, it was a great bonding experience with the other teachers at the meeting and a source of continued jokes in the following weeks. That’s just the thing, sometimes it’s the moments of frustration and annoyance in a shared experiences that make you feel like you are part of a community.  This is why the other things that I do in my day that aren’t teaching are some of my favorite things about the job because they do what that horrendous presentation do: help me become part of the school community.

I love standing in the hallways at the beginning of the school day and during dismissal talking to students, teachers and parents.  I make a point to eat lunch with other teachers, talking with students during recess and visiting classroom learning about what students are learning with other teachers.

Teaching cannot exist within a vacuum. Curriculum must reflect the environment in which it is taught to be relevant and effective. That environment is the larger society but more importantly it is the school community. If we are to truly understand what it means to teach within the context of a school we need to spend time being a member of that community.

Round 5: Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers Vs. Pras, Mya & Ol' Dirty Bastard

Can you imagine if this was an actually fight?  My money would totally be on Dolly Parton.

Anyways, in 1983 Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton released "Islands In The Stream."  At this time Dolly and Kenny were two of the most popular celebrities in America.  The idea of them singing a duet was a dream come true for many fans.



This love song written by the Bee Gees exemplifies the genre of Country Pop which permeated the 1980s.  Wholesome, optimistic and catchy, "Islands In The Stream" may not be a well known song nowadays but for people who were around when this song first came out, they have never fogotten it.

Vs.

"Ghetto Superstar" by Pras featuring Pya and Ol' Dirty Bastard is my favorite rap song of all time.  Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying it's the best rap song ever recorded, there's just something about this song that has always stuck with me.



From the soundtrack of the film Bulworth, this song sampled the chorus of "Islands In The Sun" which Mya sings (not very well, mind you) and has rap verses from Pras of the Fugees, Wyclef Jean's breakout group and the late 'Ol Dirty Bastard from the Wu-Tang Clan.

Adding an awesome infectious bass line and an undeniably funky beat, this song really gets you grooving.  Pras and 'Ol Dirty do their thing rapping about paranoia, power and life in the ghetto.

The Winner:

"Ghetto Superstar" is one the great examples of sampling done right.  The chorus is not simply lifted but is re-interpreted to create a completely different emotion.  "Islands In The Sun" is a beautiful song but it really sounds dated.  While the lyrics of "Islands In The Stream" are universal and timeless, the raps in "Ghetto Superstar" are relevant even now in our society more than ten years after its release.   

Next Week: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terell Vs. Amy Whinehouse

Buffy Vs. The Snowpacalypse

This is my tenth year of living in Chicago. We have snowstorms every year, often multiple ones a year. The local news seems to build every single one up like it’s going to be the end of the world. This time they weren’t too far off.

Whatever you want to call it “The Snowpacalypse,” “Thundersnow” or my favorite “The Snowstorm of O’11” (I’ve decided I will always refer to years as the O’something), this storm really was a doozy.

My wife, Diana, sat on a Metra train (our commuter rail) for two hours, waiting for it to get going during the storm. She waited on three trains packed with people and through several rounds of technical problems (switch freezing, signal failure) before the trains got off.

I drove home in whiteout conditions on Lake Shore Drive and luckily got home before the madness of it getting shut down and people abandoning their cars. And Buffy, well, she seemed to handle it the best out of all of us.

I got home around 4:45 after my 20-minute commute took almost an hour and a half. I took Buffy out for her to do her business, and while it was a blizzard, it wasn’t that bad. She did her little excited trot, shoved her face deep into snow drifts and seemed to be completely unconcerned about the raging storm.

Toward the end of the walk, the wind started to pick up. Turning the corner to walk back to our condo, a strong wind almost flattened me. Combined with stinging snow, the wind was blinding. Holding up my arm in an attempt to block some snow from my eyes, I noticed Buffy looking straight ahead into the wind. Before I could get her to turn around, she barreled straight down the sidewalk.

The wind plastered down her hair so she resembled more a torpedo than a dog. Her narrow snout leading up to her shoulders seemed to cut straight through the wind. Before I knew it we were at the end of the block and at the entrance to our condo. This little twelve-pound dog just walked straight into 40-mile-per-hour winds in blinding blizzard and at the end of it looked up at me like, tail wagging, looking like we just played some kind of fun game.

The walk later in the evening was even more intense as the snow and wind picked up. Again, Buffy was undeterred, did her business and came in without trepidation.

First thing Wednesday morning, Buffy and I were the first ones out the front door. The door was stuck behind a huge snowdrift. We wrestled it open and it opened about 6 inches, enough for Buffy to go out and do her business.

Through Wednesday morning, the storm still brewed and as much as Buffy could handle being out in it, Diana and I couldn’t. So we waited until the afternoon to take Buffy out and explore. As you can see in this video, the snow that went up to her shoulders didn’t really bother her as she played joyously in the winter wonderland.



I’ve always thought that Buffy in snow was hilarious. The way that she jumps into snowdrifts, chasing snowballs, and goes insane with joy when the white stuff falls.

What I learned about Buffy in this snowstorm of the century is that she is one tough dog.  I've always believed that the people in your life should be the people admire.  The strength and fearlessness of my little girly-bear during this storm is something I truly admire about my Buffy.

Week 18: The Social Workplace

At my first teaching job I spent all of time my time either in my office or teaching in the classroom. I felt envious of other teachers who I saw relaxing and hanging out but I felt so overwhelmed by my job that I didn’t feel I had the time to socialize.

About half way through the year, I realized how isolated I felt. I hadn’t taken advantage of new teacher events and the “oh you’re new here” openness people expressed to me had worn out.

The next year I made more of an effort to get to get know people but in way it was too late. Now, part of it was the fact that I didn’t gel with the people I worked with. I’m not saying that they weren’t all nice people, it’s just that sometimes people just don’t click and it’s nobody’s fault. But honestly the biggest part of it was me. I don’t think I could have done any different with my time but I wish it could have been another way.

When I started this new job last fall a couple things were different. I had more experience so I was more efficient with my time, I had significantly more prep time in my schedule (which is my new argument for how to make teachers better in America) and I wanted to simply have more fun with my job.

So in my first month at my job I visited more than 20 different classrooms in the school, spent time hanging out with in the different school offices chilling with administrative assistants and got to know as many people as possible.

I found that I seemed to click more with the people at this school than with the people at my first job.  This had as much to do the effort I put into getting to know people as the type of person at my new job, who are a lot like me.

There are also practical reasons to be social beyond the joy of hanging out. You do not want the only time that you talk to your boss to be when you have bad news. And even though it’s a tech person’s job to help you with your computer, he or she is a lot more likely to be actually help you if you have some friendly interactions before you faced the beach ball of doom.

Almost all jobs are the business of working with people. While it may mean that you have to stay at work a little later taking time to get to know the people around you makes you a happier and more productive worker. 

Also, it makes work that much more entertaining. 

Round 4: Tommy James & The Shondells Vs. Billy Idol

Inspired by the Mutual Of New York building (M.O.N.Y. . . . Mony, get it?), Tommy James & The Shondells scored their biggest hit in 1968 with "Mony, Mony."  An true rock anthem, this song has endured as statement of freedom, fun and everything that is great about rock.



With a simple but infectious keyboard riff and a one of the coolest break-downs in the middle of the song you will ever hear, it's nigh-impossible to listen to this song and not rock out.

Versus:

Spike, I mean Billy Idol covered this song in 1981, which became of his biggest hits.  The only major change to this song was updating the insturments to more 1980s sensibilities.



Invigorating this song for the new generation, Idol's version featured synthesizers and thicker guitar parts.

 The Winner:

What makes this song so great is it's garage band-like energy.  There is something so much more organic and genuine feeling about Tommy James & The Shondells' version.  It's more raw, not as polished and not as commercial.  While Idol brings great energy to this song the Tommy James version captures a moment in rock history and an exuberance that Billy Idol imitates but doesn't fully replicate. 

Springsteen on the other hand gets pretty close.



Next Week: Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers Vs. Pras, Mya & Ol' Dirty Bastard