Doctor Who, glass art, the conflicts in the Ukraine, teenage self image, computer games, family visits and cricket. Who said the youth of today hasn’t the depth or quality of previous generations? If this sample of week 1 blog topics are anything to go by then the students of LA19 have got their collective fingers firmly on the pulse. In contrast, this latest blogging task is a bit of fun.
Some song lyrics, for whatever reason, strike a chord in our minds and end up having an impact, or at least stay in our memory. This line from Big Country’s hit In A Big Country has always stayed in my mind:
“I’m not expecting to grow flowers in the dessert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime.”
I’ve never been a particular fan of their music, but when I first heard these lines they just made such an impact they’re still in my mind. Maybe it was because they convey a message that I can totally relate to, almost like a personal, laid back philosophy (it feels like I should have ended that sentence with, “man”). Other songs have stuck, too, but these lyrics are more meaningful than most. The task for LA19 this time is to tell the world about a song or some lines from a song that, for whatever reason, have stayed with you. What are the words? What do they mean to you?
I look forward to your completed tasks.
Mr Hope,
Would you like us to post this in our blogs or on this one as a comment?
Demi!
Demi, I’d like this to be a post on your own blog. The blogging tasks are done to try and give you a topic to write about on your blog and to vary the style of writing you do. 🙂
Thank you Mr Hope,
I will get to it right away! (Well, once I have thought of something!!!)
Demi!
Mr Hope, could we write what the whole song means or does it have to be the lyrics?
Pyin Ye.
Pyin Ye, you can do just a line from a song or the whole thing, whatever you wish.
Mr. Hope,
Mr. Hope, I have done mine.
A line from Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in The Dark. ” you can’t start a fire without a spark,” That line can have lots of different meanings for different people. Happy to sing it to you tomorrow!!
Hi Mr Hope
I love your task #2 – songs have given me so much over my many years. They have the ability to take you to places; the full gamut of emotions, even when you don’t want them to, but mostly when you do want to go there.
For me personally, i find the lyrics need to work in conjunction with the music, they need to compliment each other, and this is how songs become good songs and good songs become great.
There have been a plethora of lyrics that have meant a lot to me over the years, and some still take me back to times and places from last week to 30 years ago (yes i know i may look older, but you’ll have to take my word for it).
One of my favourite musicians is a guy named The Tallest Man On Earth from Sweden. His song The Gardner has a number of lines that have stayed with me, one my wife used in our wedding vows.
WA band The waifs paint an amazing visual picture of our Northwest in their song Take It In; “now she’s thinking of the red soil and those mango trees
well in her mind she’s still splashing round down on cable beach
and her eyes are as rich and as far away
as the sunset there
but she’s not taking in a word i say” – magical!
The songwriter Colin Meloy from one of my favourite bands, The Decemberists, takes you on a journey in most of their songs, he’s a wonderful story teller, but for the humour of This Sporting Life he gets me every time singing of the protagonists short comings on the football field thinking as he is lying down after being taken out by the opposition;
“And father had had such hopes
For a son who would take the ropes
And fulfill all his old athletic aspirations
But apparently now there’s some complications
But while I am lying here
Trying to fight the tears
I’ll prove to the crowd that I come out stronger
Though I think I might lie here a little longer”
Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard is yet another lyrical master – their song Styrofoam Plates deals with the memory of a now dead father who was a drunk and abusive to his family and how the family still suffer even though he is gone. He manages to use common and simple words in clever and creative ways, ways you wouldnt normally but they make so much sense – great with a metaphors.
I remember my father listening to Aussie band Redgum’s song I Was Only 19 about young men going to war in Vietnam and the like and finding him crying – war is quite typically a sad subject, and this song is no exception.
I great song by English electronic band Lamb speaks of a deep love for another – a bit sappy but beautiful all the same.
Lastly for my little comments but by no means least (as there are too many brilliant lyricists to mention, even in an essay, and besides, its all subjective) is a band called The Magnetics Fields – their songs You Love To Fail, The Book Of Love and my all time favourite 100 000 fireflies with the lyrics
“Why do we keep shrieking,
when we mean soft things?
We should be whispering all the time…”
Thanks Mr Hope
Captain Nifty