After taking a look at the categories of song themes online, I kept finding myself clicking on song themes revolving around love and heartbreak. No matter how sappy I think some love songs, or songs dealing with heartbreaks can be, I was still drawing to these categories. I ended up doing a wider online search (other than the wikipedia site we were given for this assignment), and found some resources which, listed songs based on love, “love gone sour,” and heartbreak. Shortly after looking through these, I realized that a couple of these songs I remember relating to over my lifetime. It got me thinking about various things… one being how people so easily connect with or create personal meaning towards song lyrics. Another thing that came to my mind, was the idea of how emotionally connected I was to certain songs throughout my lifetime, and mainly during my schooling days. No matter how silly it looks now, I oftentimes felt that song lyrics were speaking directly to my situation, or whatever was going on in my life. There are also certain songs (not only love songs) in which I hear now, and immediately link the song / lyrics to a certain time or event in my life. Music is everywhere, and we as people make and maintain connections with certain songs / lyrics. It’s obvious how emotional connections can be fostered through lyrics, especially with pre-teens and teens. This is even still the case with college students. I can’t tell you how many times I log onto Facebook and see someone’s status update quoting sappy lyrics about love or heartbreak. It often makes me want to puke… but then I also realize at one point in my life, I did this same thing. I started to think about my past, crazy, emotional, and at times mainstream-influenced connections to song lyrics, and what my Facebook status would have read during the teen years of my life… they read as follows:
“Don’t go chasing waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to… “ – TLC Waterfalls… This was the start of my intense interaction with music, my first exposure to MTV’s TRL (through the admiration of my older cousin), and my first CD which remained on repeat for about six months while it was stuck in my first ever, 3-disk rotating CD player.
“Had about enough, it’s not hard to see, the boy is mine.” – Brandy (feat. Monica) The Boy Is Mine… I couldn’t name a single girl in my middle school that wasn’t singing along to this song. It also happened to be that my first ever “boyfriend” in 7th grade asked me to “go out with him,” and two days later I found out that a friend of mine “liked him” and was sure he liked her back. Clearly, this song was written for my oh-so-mature 7th grade relationship with a kid who “looked like Lance Bass.”
“…just reach out your hands and touch me, hold me close, don’t ever let me go…” – Extreme More Than Words… This song helped kick off my all-encompassing high school experience at the annual Snow Show talent show. This song was not only sung and played by two upper-classmen, but by two extremely hot seniors who almost every freshman girl drooled over during their 5 minute and 30 seconds of stage fame. Like every other drooler in the audience, I was wooed by the idea of crushing on boys and finding true love during my high school experience… and only wished that the song was being sung directly as an intimate exchange with the singers and myself.
“I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do, about you now.” – Oasis Wonderwall… This song is completely reminiscent of my 2-year high school relationship, that at the time, I believed would last forever. My boyfriend and I at the time called this “our song.” Well, that clearly didn’t last forever, and ironically the relationship was partially ended through song lyrics… which explains the significance of the lyrics used in my next status update.
“He said, man, I really gotta lose my chick, in the worst kind of way.” – The Offspring Why Don’t You Get a Job?... It just happened to be that my 2-year high school relationship was ended after my boyfriend at the time made me a CD that he said I would “really enjoy,” and told me to pay attention carefully to the last track. OUCH. We broke up the next day. I guess he wasn’t kidding when he would joke around about my parents never making me get a job?
It’s clear that as a teen, I was highly connected with music, and often was able to relate my personal life or events in my life to popular song lyrics. The students in our classrooms will be doing this exact same thing. Popular music is a part of their lives, and should be used as an advantage within the classroom, no matter the theme of the music that is being used. Students will end up being able to connect with it.
Can I just say we must've been twins in a another life? All of the songs you included in your post played a huge part in my life. I was a big fan of TLC, Oasis, Brandi, and all of the others mentioned. Music does play a huge part in people's life. It becomes part of our soul. I think that is the reason it is so vital that we, as teachers, bring it into the classroom. I mean, we talk about other themes that pervade our lives, why not talk about something that fills our soul on a daily basis...and also serves as a sort of escape. I loved your post and could totally relate to it. Nice work.
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