Music And Lyrics

"Music has been my playmate, my lover, and my crying towel." ~ Buffy Sainte-Marie

Indeed, it has.

For as long as I can remember, I have drawn inspiration from song, have found solace in music, have found deep meaning in lyrics. At times, it has allowed me a peaceful sleep; other times, it has allowed me to question life and its intricacies.

I have sought music, and it has enveloped me in its world.

For years, I have used music in the classroom - sometimes as metaphors, or as parts of the lecture process. And every year, I have my students do a social commentary lyrical analysis, where they need to choose a (clean lyric) song of their choice that has some connection to societal change, action or welfare, and present it to the rest of the class - complete with explanation of why or how it calls for social change, action or welfare.

Why do I do this? Because many today's musicians are the poets of the young, the voice of the disenfranchised teen or college-aged student. Much like the great poets and writers of the 1700s and 1800s - Swift, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, etc. - were the voice of their generation, of their people. Sure, these writers often wrote of love and passion, just as many of today's musicians do; but they also wrote of the world around them, of wars and heroes, of societal problems, of the need for change in the status quo.

Despite the perceptions of others (usually the "older" generation), not all of the music people listen to is bubble-gum pop with seemingly nothing to offer other than a catchy beat. OK, some is. But musicians like Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Marvin Gaye, Edwin Starr, Joan Baez, CSNY and Woody Guthrie helped bring Vietnam to an end, giving the Woodstock generation a rallying cry. The past 25-plus years, artists like Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp, Rage Against The Machine, Tupac, Black Eyed Peas, Dixie Chicks, even Eminem, have been active (to varying degrees) in addressing social issues in their music.

I believe it is important for today's youth to recognize this.

This past year's song list was, as usual, an eclectic mix of styles, genres and voices. From "I Can" by Nas to "Seminole Wind" by John Anderson, from "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer to "Electric Eye" by Judas Priest, my students analyzed legitimate calls for, if not social change, then social awareness. Their interpretations give me hope for the future, as they progress into the world beyond high school walls.

(Because I wanted to have a part in the process, when everyone else was done, I pulled out a song none had presented - "Catch Me Now I'm Falling" by The Kinks - and discussed its meaning for the class as a whole. The lyrics focus on the role of the United States in the world, and how when the US is in trouble, no other nation offers assistance, despite all the money and goodwill and volunteer forces America has sent overseas for decades.)

On a more personal level, I have been "interpreting" lyrics for years. Now, I realize this isn't a new concept; heck, Charles Manson interpreted Beatles lyrics in the 1960s, with tragic results. I've no intention of going that route. But I have often gained strength from this action. Unfortunately, it seems many of the times I turn to music for introspection are when I am in an emotional "down," when I am feeling at or near what I perceive to be a low moment in my life. I haven't done any studies or research on this, but I do have my own view - that because we, as human, generally focus on the negatives and gloss over the positives, it is during these low moments that we turn to the media - poetry, books, television, the Internet - or family and friends - for a listening ear.

Music allows this without being judgmental. We get to bring someone else's words into our hearts, our lives, as a method of coping, without being preached to or yelled at for our errors or problems.

A number of songs come to mind when I start thinking of music that has been my security blanket, my means of dealing with the "Why does life suck?" or "Is there a God?" or "What purpose does life have for me?" mode. Two of the songs, "Man on the Corner" by Genesis, and The Beatles' "Fool on the Hill," can easily be interchanged within terms of their theme, as each speak to the issue of loneliness and isolation. Like many, I have had moments of desolation, whether physical, emotional or some combination. Phil Collins' powerful vocabulary speaks to the heart and soul of this issue:

Looking everywhere at no one, he sees everything and nothing at all;
When he shouts, nobody listens; where he leads, no one will go.
He's a lonely man, there on the corner.
What he's waiting for, I don't know.
But he waits every day now,
He's just waiting for something to show ...

Now, compare this to the words of John Lennon and Paul McCartney:

Well on the way, head in a cloud,
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud.
But nobody ever hears him, or the sound he appears to make,
And he never seems to notice,
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning 'round ...

Do you feel their impact, the power of these outside observations, speaking to the inner soul? I certainly have, especially when I have been in an emotionally fragile state. The words call to me, tell me I am not alone, that there are others in the world in similar situations, with similar problems. And to me, the songs offer a form of spiritual cleansing, of empowerment. I gain strength from their messages, that life may be difficult at that particular juncture, but there is more to life than this. For if you review the lyrics more deeply, they speak of hope ... and while hope (according to Red in The Shawshank Redemption) may be "a dangerous thing," it can be sustaining as well.

A third song, with a slightly different theme, that has molded my life and been my crutch at times is "Basket Case" by Green Day. Now, this might seem strange, since Green Day has never been a band that I would ever consider one of my favorites. But I am open to new ideas and views, and this song certainly has the ability to be a personal mantra of sorts:

Do you have the time to listen to me whine,
About nothing and everything all at once?
I am one of those melodramatic fools,
Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it.
Sometimes I give myself the creeps.
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me.
It all keeps adding up, I think I'm cracking up,
Am I just paranoid? Or I'm just stoned.

Yes, I admit, there have been those moments in my life where I doubt everything around me: my job, my health, my social life, my God, my sense of sanity. This is normal, I believe; most people suffer various types of stress, and usually have some form of outlet in which to vent, whether it be a friend, a family member, a lover, or even an anonymous help line. (Blogging on the Internet is also a way of dealing with these kinds of stressful situations.)

Now, this is not intended to be a "woe is me" rambling of songs to be morbid by; I can also turn to powerful, inspirational, uplifting songs, with lyrics that speak of greatness and quests and positive mental attitude. Billy Joel's "The River of Dreams" is one such song; others include "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves and "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash. Like the aforementioned songs, these - and many others - have different ways of speaking to the heart, to the mind, to the soul.

The main thing is to realize that music represents us as humans, as thinking entities. It allows us to express ourselves, through words and ideas and fantasies. It makes life worth living. And that's always a good thing.

Sax And Violins (Minus The Sax)

When growing up, music was a passion for me. It involved me, enraptured me, consumed me, on a multitude of levels.

One level was of the "I play a musical instrument" variety. In elementary school, I was not selected (for whatever reason) to advance from "recorder" to "legitimate band instrument," which was somewhat disappointing. But in fifth grade, the world opened up to me with what I will affectionately (and in retrospect) call "Plan B" - string instruments. My elementary school, Hickory Grove, was starting up a string orchestra! It was different. It was cool. It allowed me to get "out" of my regular class for an hour or so daily, and as much as I revered Mr. Felix, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I don't recall all the details - hey, it was 1975, my memory is a bit hazy - but soon there I was, learning to play the violin.

(Note - this may be the first time that "violin" and "cool" go together in a thought process. Such can be the mentality of a 10-year-old.)

If anyone thought it was to be a fad, they were sadly mistaken. I stayed with the fiddle throughout the rest of elementary school, continued through junior high and high school, and even played my first year at Central Michigan University, after which I packed up the imitation Stradivarius. Oh, I played it on occasion after that - notably during my fraternity's Greek Week music performance - but even early on, it was obvious that my work habit was not going to lead me to a future in a professional orchestra. And I was OK with that.

There were some very cool things that happened during my high school orchestra tenure, though. ("Cool"? Again? Hmmmm ...) The summer before I started high school, as I was heading to band camp, the radio was blasting the sounds of the Charlie Daniels Band's The Devil Went Down to Georgia, which made for a wonderful camp experience. My favorite group in junior high (and even early high school) was the Electric Light Orchestra. When Charlie Daniels released Devil, it just enhanced the concept that ... maybe ... if things worked out ... there was an option for recording commercial music while playing the violin. My buddy Tim Olson and I had dreams of performing Devil for Halloween one year with full orchestral accompaniment, but it never happened.

At our regional state music festival my sophomore year, the main piece our symphonic orchestra played was Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. The piece includes an absolute "stop" early in the performance - I mean, after building up to an amazing crescendo, EVERYONE has to stop on a dime. We were performing in a high school gym, and when we hit that moment, the music reverberated for what seemed like an eternity. The parents in the audience all looked around, trying to see the musical waves bouncing around the room. The judges all looked around. The orchestra looked around. It was impressive. We managed to refocus and continue our performance, and ended up with straight "I" rankings ... although one of the judge scores was originally recorded as a "II" (which, in case you're not sure, is not a good thing). The regional rep came out about 10 minutes later, apologized to us, and changed the "II" to a "I+" ranking - the first-ever "I+" ranking in Michigan music festival history (or so we were led to believe; we never looked it up to discover whether this was true).

About a month later - April 1980 - we went to the state festival in suburban Grand Rapids, about three hours northeast of Detroit. Instead of staying at a hotel, we roomed with different families in the GR area. The big news that weekend was that the US mission to rescue the American hostages in Iran failed that morning; while at our host family's residence, as we were trying to get ready for that day's competition, we were captivated by the events in the Middle East being presented on television.

Late during my sophomore year, I took up a second instrument - the viola - as well, giving me multiple instruments on which to torture my parents' ears. That summer, during my second stint at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, I auditioned for the jazz band, my violin decked out with a transducer, amplifier and speaker, making me the first-ever electric violinist at BLFAC. I ended up playing violin on only a few of our selections, spending the rest of the summer learning various percussion instruments (the triangle, cowbell, etc.), because no one was quite sure what to do with me and the music selections really didn't have much in the way of violin parts. However, it was definitely fun, and I was in the jazz band again the following summer.

I had started preparing for jazz band during my sophomore year. Another log that was thrown on the orchestral fire that year was the announcement by Bloomfield Hills Lahser High School's orchestra director, Valerie Palmieri, that we would be competing at the Ottawa International Festival of Music my junior year. It ended up being a series of firsts: my first major bus ride (Detroit to Ottawa isn't exactly a short trip); my first time staying in dorm rooms (we lived on the University of Ottawa campus while in Canada, eh?); and my first time in charge (so to speak) of the orchestra.

Let me explain. Lahser sent three musical groups to Ottawa: the full symphony orchestra; the string orchestra; and the jazz band. I was in the first two - my jazz expertise wasn't all that impressive in the grand scheme of things (although we did have one of our senior cellists playing with the jazz band for a song). For the full symphony orchestra, two of us - myself and Janis Koehn - each played violin and viola, switching back and forth between the three selections. And with the string orchestra, I was exclusively on viola, but during one of the most difficult pieces we played, the Pachelbel Canon in D, my job was to "plink" the rhythmic notes to keep us paced properly.

I was the only one with this responsibility, and that responsibility multiplied when Mrs. Palmieri told us ahead of the performance that she would be leaving the stage before we started playing the Pachelbel, leaving us to self-pace and self-coordinate the piece. We didn't believe her. What high school orchestra conductor leaves the stage in advance of a performance before a panel of judges at an international competition?

Shame on us. We played our first piece (the Albinoni Adagio in G Minor), then Mrs. Palmieri bowed, put her baton on the music stand, and walked off the stage, leaving 30-plus high school students to perform sans conductor. We started playing; I started plunking; and somehow, never lost the beat, never sped up, never slowed down, never got my fellow string musicians off track. It was exhausting, mentally and physically - something I had never realized could happen playing the violin or viola.

Senior year was a whole different experience. I had the opportunity to play in the high school's new orchestra pit for our production of Oliver! We scored straight "I" rankings (for the third consecutive year) at the state music festival. Our Halloween concert featured Mrs. Palmieri dressed as Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show (definitely quite a sight from the musicians' point of view). And during one performance that year, we played P.D.Q. Bach's Sonata for Viola Fourhands and Harpsichord. Even though we didn't have a harpsichord. P.D.Q. Bach is the "Weird Al" Yankovic of the classical music world; Sonata is performed where one person holds a viola at center stage; two individuals take a long piece of string (or dental floss, whatever works) and walk back and forth across the stage, the violist adjusting the instrument so the string hit the correct musical strings accordingly; and the fourth person actually "fingers" the correct notes.

So why I am pounding out memories from more than 25 years ago? I was going through some old photos this weekend, and happened upon several from my years in orchestra. One thing led to another, and ... voila! (not viola!), the floodgate was opened.

Think I'll listen to some Vivaldi tonight.

The Day The (Disco) Music Died

Thirty years ago, disco died in Chicago.

But the death has strong ties to Detroit, for a variety of reasons.

Let me explain.

On July 12, 1979, the Detroit Tigers were playing the host Chicago White Sox in a doubleheader. The rivalry between the two midwest teams was well known, but neither club was exactly challenging to make the post-season that year. In order to generate some sort of interest in the home team, Sox marketing director Mike Veeck - son of Bill, baseball’s all-time master of publicity stunts - concocted an idea that ranks up - or down - among the strangest and most notable in baseball history.

Enter flamboyant radio shock jock Steve Dahl. The popular 24-year-old DJ was hired by WLUP-FM several months earlier after he quit another Chicago radio station that had gone to an all-disco format. Dahl, as you can imagine, was not a fan of the disco sound. He and his co-host, Garry Meier, almost immediately started a “disco sucks” campaign that quickly became the focal point of their daily show. Similar programs were live and kicking at album-oriented rock (AOR) stations across the nation; growing up in Detroit, my friends and I were strong supporters of WRIF-FM's DREAD (Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco) listener army, clutching our gold plastic DREAD cards like they were badges of honor.


Dahl had gotten his start in radio at Detroit-s WABX-FM as one of the rebel rock station's "air aces." But at WLUP, he took the pro-rock/anti-disco mantra it a new level. Listeners would call in to request their most hated disco songs, to be played on the air briefly before one of the hosts swung the record needle (this is long before the era of CDs and MP3s) screeching across the record, followed by an explosion sound effect and a quote borrowed from a popular SCTV skit: “That blowed up real good.”

Dahl quickly developed a rabid following, anointing himself the "field general" in the "war against disco." He nicknamed his troops the "Insane Coho Lips" and had the station issue free ID cards to fans who wanted to enlist in Steve Dahl’s Disco Army “dedicated to the eradication and elimination of the dreaded musical disease known as disco.” Within a week, the station received over 10,000 requests. Dahl even penned his own theme song, “Do Ya Think I’m Disco?" - a parody of the Rod Stewart song "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?"

Veeck saw what he thought was a very good thing in Dahl - a vibrant voice of the people who could convert his cause - the end of disco - into bringing fans to Comiskey Park, home of a bad baseball team and a huge scoreboard that "exploded" with lights and sound when the Sox achieved success. The perfect storm was visible, and the seeds for Disco Demolition Night were planted.

The idea: fans bringing a disco record to the stadium would be charged 98 cents admission (as in 98.3 FM, WLUP's radio frequency) for the doubleheader against the Tigers. The records would be collected in a large trash dumpster by the main gate, and the dumpster would be relocated to center field after the first game of the doubleheader, to be blown into smithereens by Dahl. After the opener, while both teams, umpires, and other baseball personnel went into the locker rooms to take a break before playing the second half of the twinbill, Dahl & Co. went into action.

Dahl welcomed fans to “officially the world’s largest anti-disco rally,” and turned the stage over to the pyrotechnic. With a roaring boom, thousands of disco records met their symbolic death, vinyl shrapnel flying 200 feet in the air. Fans - more than 20,000 - stormed the field and wouldn't leave. Other anti-disco warriors still in the stands began throwing more disco records around and onto the field like Frisbees. Those on the field tore up the turf, lit bonfires, destroyed equipment, and the Sox ended up forfeiting the second game.

According to the 1986 book Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll the event was the "emblematic moment" of the anti-disco "crusade" and noted that "the following year disco had peaked as a commercial blockbuster". Steve Dahl himself said in an interview with Keith Olbermann that disco "was a fad probably on its way out" but that the event "hastened its demise." Nile Rodgers, guitarist for the popular disco era group Chic said "It felt to us like Nazi book-burning, This is America, the home of jazz and rock and people were now afraid even to say the word 'disco'."

Thirty years later, Disco Demolition Night is still regarded as one of the most memorable - if not successful - promotions in sports history, one of the most infamous since Cleveland's "Ten Cent Beer Night" in 1974.

Thanks to Swindle Magazine for a detailed background on Disco Demolition Night from the Chicago viewpoint.

The Cartman Identity

One of the most famous songs recorded by 1960s comic singer Allan Sherman - who was his era's "Weird Al" Yankovic with a distinct Jewish flavor - is a ditty called "Hail To Thee, Fat Person!" Less than two minuets in length, it ranks as one of the most original social commentaries on obesity:

I would like to explain how it came to pass that I got fat.
Ladies and gentlemen, I got fat as a public service.
When I was a child, my mother said to me,
"Clean the plate, because children are starving in Europe."
And I might point out that that was years before the Marshall Plan
was ever heard of.
So I would clean the plate - four, five, six times a day.
Because somehow I felt that that would keep the children from starving
in Europe.
But I was wrong. They kept starving. And I got fat.
So I would like to say to every one of you who is either skinny
or in some other way normal -
When you walk out on the street, and you see a fat person,
Do not scoff at that fat person. Oh no!
Take off your hat. Hold it over your heart.
Lift your chin up high. And in a proud, happy voice say to him,
"Hail to thee, fat person!
You kept us out of war!"

Some 40 years later, obesity is an even larger (pardon the pun) problem in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control in a study presented yesterday, 26 percent of the United States adult population - more than one in every four - are obese.

Research has shown that as weight increases to reach the levels referred to as "overweight" and "obesity," the risks for coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon), hypertension (high blood pressure), dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides), stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, osteoarthritis (a degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone within a joint), and gynecological problems (abnormal menses, infertility) also increase.

I bring all of this up not because I was doing intense research on the topic, and not even because I caught myself singling along to Yankovic's own saga to gluttony, "Fat." No, it's because several days ago, I finally decided to get off the couch and get back to basics: I returned to the world of the workout.

Let me backtrack. Two years ago - July 2007 - I planted myself on the bathroom scale and was stunned that the number staring back at me was in excess of 250 pounds for the first time. I have been overweight for years - I can date it back to late high school, when two things happened within a short period of time: (a) I got my driver's license, and (b) my 10-speed was stolen. The two are joined at the hip; I became more dependent on transporting myself via the automobile, and I don't mean the Flintstone's foot-powered behemoth. And thus began the transformation from a skinny (especially in comparison to today) 16-year-old to a somewhat rotund man in his early 40s.

Anyway, I was mortified, and decided, OK, it's time to get to work. I scoped out some area gyms, and despite not being a huge fan of the "commercial" approach, went with the package offered by LA Fitness. The decision centered on several factors - decent cost, variety of equipment, extra options (pool, racquetball courts, basketball courts, sauna), and hours. I also locked into a series of personal trainer sessions.

And I began working out - four, five, six times a week. And in tandem, I began eating better. No more pizza or soda! No more fast food! More salads and grilled chicken! More water!

It was a lifestyle change.

The positive results were not immediate, but they began to take place. The first real sign was in early September, after school resumed, when a coworker noticed that my face was thinner. Even though school had started in mid-August, I was still hitting the gym, but the visits began to dwindle to 2-3 per week. Still, I went from 254 pounds on July 22, 2007, to 240 pounds on September 24, to 229 pounds on November 22.

And then it fell apart. I got lazy. I ate too much (damn holiday season!). I stopped going to the gym on a regular basis. And then, in July 2008, I stopped going altogether.

Well, it's a year later. I have ballooned to 260 pounds as of July 5, and due to a number of factors - three weddings to attend in August and September, paying for a gym membership going to waste (but not to waist, lol), serious interest in a specific member of the female population, and - most importantly - my health and my future - I have made my way back to the world of LA Fitness, with the intent of getting in shape, losing weight, fitting into my suits, leading a healthier lifestyle, and being in the low 200s/high 190s by August 2010. (An average of one pound a week is realistic.)

So far, so good. As of this afternoon, I'm down to 254 pounds.

Brother Blutto Would Be Proud!

One of the many joys I experience on a daily basis is exploring the weird, the strange, the bizarre, that abnormal ... in the world of news. To do this, I rely on many different Internet news and blog sites. But my favorite source of amusement is Fark.com.

If you've never heard of Fark, I suggest you click the link above. You'll happen upon this submitter-created "tagline":

Competing with New York in the "Most Childish State Government" contest, California budget debate devolves into food fight.

Some background is necessary regarding New York, I suppose. According to the New York Daily News, one month after what is dubbed as a "Republican coup" of the New York state senate, the GOP and Democrats are at a stalemate in terms of creating a workable environment for 2009-10. Both parties currently have 31 senators.

Awkward, to say the least.

The stalemate in Albany has stalled many state issues, including - until today - Gov. David Paterson naming a lieutenant governor; the office has been vacant since disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned last year and Paterson succeeded him; the state constitution does not provide for filling the office in the event of a vacancy.

As a result, the state's payroll controller has ordered paychecks for all 62 state senators to be withheld - $3,049 per senator for the most recent two-week period. The initial $190,000 - will be added to $1.5 million in expense voucher reimbursement being held back (so far).

The impasse was so bad last week that Paterson ordered the senate back in session Sunday - that would be July 5 - to try and work out something. The "special session" lasted a whopping three minutes before adjournment.

Ah, government in action ... I mean, "inaction" ...

That leads into the situation in California. Like many states, California is struggling financially, and lawmakers are still trying to finalize a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Because he feels the legislature should be dealing with the budget first and foremost, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger apparently took three of the state's lawmakers to task for proposing legislation dealing with (a) creating a blueberry commission, (b) bottle labels for pomegranate juice, and (c) the definition of "honey."

Unfortunately, that's as good as it got. No "Three Stooges" parties gone awry. No mass chaos from Mel Brooks cowboy movies smashing their way into the cafeteria.

Regardless of what results, though, Schwarznegger should be concerned about the budget for 2009-10. After all, there's been no word on how much the state will be asked to contribute in the aftermath of the Michael Jackson festival ... yet.