C & C Music Factory, Things That Make You Go Hmm, the video shows the band dancing in front of a white background with black cogs and figures turning and dancing in the foreground. It's an interesting visual, so simple, so creative. The words are equally simple yet creative. THe singer goes through different situations that are a little shady. He was just "sitting by the fireplace, drinking cocoa on a bearskin rug" When his girlfriend's best friend comes in and tries to seduce him. Hmm. Then his best friend comes to stay with him and his wife, "months went by and she got big, we were having a child and I got another gig." "The time had come (for the baby down to the scene)It looked like Jay and I couldn't believe before my eyes in the delivery room." Hmm. The song continues in much the same way... making listeners go hmm. The song always reminds me about the first cassette tape I heard. It didn't have a case to it, my sister was always losing the cases. It looked like a normal cassette tape small, black, thick, tape on the inside and two holes to crank the tape through. It was lettered with white letters. I wasn't allowed to go into my sister's room for anything. I snuck in and swiped her cassettes, the song intriqued me and I decided to listen to this song first. It caused me to go hmm at almost everything. I know it sounds corny, but then again so is the song.
One Week by the Barenaked Ladies, a song about a couple fighting. It will take them a week before they end up reconciling their differences. "Three days since the living room we realized were both to blame, but what could we do? Yesterday you just smiled at me, cause itll still be two days till we say were sorry." The video shows the band running around in a Marie Antoinette like world; which really reminds me of "A Tale of Two Cities." It makes almost no sense when compared to the lyrics. The song has appeared in many films the actors always try to say the rapping part that starts "Chickety china the chinese chicken, have a drum stick and your brain stops ticking, watching X-Files with no lights on" that's the part they all make it to, after that they just sort of trail off. It seems the characters are usually driving around in a car with a group of friends. It reminds me of when my sister and I would go to the pool. She drove a '90 Sunbird which I later inherited. The air conditioner barely worked. She had a stuffed Garfield window cling in the back window that always slipped off. We would take my best friend Whitney along and when that part would come up in the song we would try and sing along. We'd get to that same place and trail off like those in the movies. Eventually we learned other parts and would join in when we could understand the words.
When Shaggy came out with "It Wasn't Me" and "Angel" it was played all over the radio. "It Wasn't Me" was kind of an up beat song, a little dirty which is why I chose "Angel" over it. The video shows Shaggy torn between an angel and a devil so to speak. The angel is his girlfriend and the devil is his temptation. The lyrics are talking about how his girlfriend is an angel and is "closer than his peeps". Shaggy realizes how good he has it with his girlfriend and in the end it was all a dream. The chorus is sung by Rayvon. His voice has a smooth sound and is contrasted by Shaggy's deep raspy voice buring the rapped verses. This all has nothing to do with my memory of the song. When I was in 6th grade our basketball team would listen to this and "It Wasn't Me" in our lockerroom. The room was large with concrete walls. Was carpeted with a drain in the middle of the room. Despite the carpet the floor was surprisingly hard. The song echoed all around the room. Thng would almost seep into our bodies and pump us up. An odd choice for a bunch of twelve year olds. It wasn't about the lyrics or what it stood for, it was about the beat.
Semi-charmed Kind of Life by Third Eye Blind. "I want something else to get me through this semi-charmed kind of life." The video takes the viewer on a sort of home movie road trip. The band looks like they really enjoy hanging out and are genuine friends. The lyrics show a kind of frustration with where their life is at the moment. Life was better before everything got so complicated. They're on a search to get back to where life was easier and familiar. "How do I get myself back to, the place where you said, I want something else to get me through this, semi-charmed kind of life. I want something else, I'm not listening when you say, good-bye." Unfortunately it's not that easy. They refuse to take no for an answer and continue to try to make their life like it was. This takes me back to my freshman year of high school. My friends and I driving in my old Sunbird jamming out to 107.3. The smell of heat and pine tree air fresheners filled the interior. The sun had faded her cherry red paint job to a Campbell's tomato soup-like color. We would pack all the girls in my class into that tiny car. We would ramp it over dips in the streets around our small town without a care in the world. Life was easier when we were younger but there's no way we could get back to those times.
New Radicals, "Someday We'll Know." I had a bit of a New Radicals phase early in high school. Their music had a newer feel that I had never heard before. Their lyrics pose questions about life and society. The name of the album I had was "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too". "Someday We'll Know" gave me a lot of comfort that even though life is complicated someday it will all be clear. The lyrics pose questions that we don't know, may never know. Like "Did the captain of the Titanic cry?" "Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart? Who holds the stars up in the sky? and Is true love once in a lifetime?" The questions start off really broad and abstract but eventually narrow to "Why aren't you here with me?". He finds comfort in the fact that someday we'll have the answers to all the questions we've ever had, including the impossible ones. The song always brings me back to nights sitting on my roof with the stars shining little pinpricks of light. I would sit out there at the tail end of summer and listen to the CD over and over. It really made me put things into perspective. I no longer felt that all the high school drama was the end of my life.
California, Phantom Planet. A simple song by a group of kids from California, about California, jump started Phantom Planet's career and became the theme song for one of the most popular television shows of all time. The OC used the group's song and made it their trademark. The show caught fire and OC hysteria began. It was extremely short lived, only four seasons, but put the characters on the map and Phantom Planet on the airwaves. The video almost mimicks the lives of the characters in the show. They eat at fast food restaurants, laugh and goof off with each other, there's not the drama of the show but there's the friendship and comradery. Every time I hear the song I think of Wednesday (then Thursday after it got moved) nights sitting in front of the TV awaiting the jaw dropping drama to unfold. It was a prime time soap opera but I was fascinated and never missed an episode. I own the box set on DVD and watch it frequently. California is played before each episode and I always go back to the original air date and how much I loved the show. Phantom Planet is rarely heard on the radio anymore but it will be forever linked to The OC and that snapshot in television history.
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen has never really made much sense to me. I don't know why it's called Bohemian Rhapsody and I'm not even completely sure what it's supposed to be about. In the beginning Freddie Mercury is talking about him killing a man, an how he killed him. Later the song gets much more upbeat and opera like. ink part of the lyrics are even in German. It's almost as if he goes a bit crazy and is struggling with what his fate will be after he is convicted. The song then slows again and "Nothing really matters". The video is easier to understand. Queen is shown on a stage through most of the video. The lights in the background of all different colors glaring on the band like they were performing a concert but no one is in the audience. The lights remind me of the homecoming and prom dances when the DJ would play this song. Somehow it became like "the" song of our high school. Every year we would all stand and sway in a circle to the music and at the part where the beat picks up the seniors would get into the middle and head bang. It was just understood that it was only for the seniors and the underclassmen would get to when they were seniors. No dance was the same without it.
T-Pain - Bartender (feat. Akon)
Uploaded by yardie4life
Bartender by T-Pain featuring Akon is a slower song with a nice steady beat that is associated with dance clubs. It's about a guy who falls in love with the female bartender. The video takes place in a bar with blue and red lighting. The bar is packed with people dancing. Even though he's not a drinker or a smoker he goes up to the bartender and has her pour some drinks for them. Obviously I'm not twenty-one so I've never been in a bar like this. But, whenever I hear this song I think of this summer and the parties I went to at my friend's house. He built a bar in his basement and has rope lights hung around the ceiling. The rope is maybe an inch in diameter with red, white and blue lights. It gives the basement the same soft, dimly lit look that the bar in the video has. The rope lights are the only lights down there so it's kind of hard to see where you're going. There are always people packed in and dancing. The song still gets played on the radio a lot and always makes me think of those parties.
