Well, I gave my lesson about Simon and Garfunkel's "I am a Rock" this evening, and it went pretty well. I actually tried to set it up in such a way that we could avoid the bitter-love-is-bad angle of discussion, although it did wind up there eventually. Anyway, I started them off by giving them the first half of the lyrics to the White Stripes song "The Hardest Button to Button" as follows:
We started living in an old house
My ma gave birth
And we were checking it out
It was a baby boy
So we bought him a toy
It was a ray gun
And it was 1981
We named him 'Baby'
He had a toothache
He started crying
It sounded like an earthquake
It didn't last long
Because I stopped it
I grabbed a rag doll
And stuck some little pins in it
Now we're a family
And we're all right now
We got money
And a little place to fight now
We don't know you
And we don't owe you
But if you see us around
I got something else to show you
We discussed the themes of this segment of the lyrics... family, babies, children, the types of problems that come with having children, whether or not it was a happy song. Then we talked about what kind of music should accompany a song about family. Let's just say they weren't expecting Jack White. (Why didn't I bring Elephant with me? I mean, Get Behind Me Satan - which I have - is a a better album, but Elephant is still freakin' fantastic... and yet it's in the US somewhere. I only have two songs off it on my music-for-class CDs, and right now I'm craving the whole album... What was I thinking? But I digress.)
When we got to the discussion of the meaning behind "I am a Rock" they all agreed that the song was by someone who had been hurt and love, and who was bitter... We also got into a discussion about how men and women can't be just friends (!) and how you can't be friends with someone you love (!) - their opinions, not mine. I brought up the old, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" quote, and everyone agreed with it. I have a class full of optimists, and to be honest, I felt a lot better about the world, life and humanity when I left.
5 comments:
Hey, Jane,
Sounds like it was a good class -- great job! Glad that you have a class full of optimists, and that the world is now a better place. :^)
BTW, if you're telling them anything from the re-posts from your blog, you can let them know that (a) I have plenty of female friends (and, yes, they're straight, and I'm about the most straight person who ever existed -- you could define a mathematical line segment with me), and (b) I'm living proof that you can be friends with someone you love. You might not be able to tell them *everything* all the time, but you can definitely be friends -- even best friends.
But enough about that -- good job on the class!
Oh, and I'll make sure I click the ad links.
Poka y udachi!
Yours,
Thomas
I thought the White Stripes song was creepy. Of course if I were listening to it, I wouldn't be able to understand the words anyway.
Thomas -
I told my students that *I* have friends who are male with whom I am not in love, and they all insisted that either A) I was secretly in love with them or B) I used to be in love with them! While I have a couple (by which I really do just mean two) friends with whom I used to be in love, I have a lot of guy friends, and I'm not secretly lusting after them... The students didn't buy it. Ahh well.
Mom - That song is a little creepy (I didn't play them the second half, because it gets creepier and has less to do with family), but I love Jack White. There's no secret about that :-)
~jane
also... I'd have loved to chat about things like the similarity in sound between "ray gun" and "Reagan" and the meanings therein, given the 1981 reference, as well as voodoo, given the sticking-pins-in-dolls thing, but unfortunately that was definately out of their league...
Jack White IS creepy .. isn't that part of his deliberate image? Doesn't make his music less interesting though.
Haven't you seen "When Harry Met Sally"? Of course, men and women can't be friends. But we men aren't supposed to TELL women that! Someone is in direct violation of the CODE! I tell ya, heads are gonna roll over this one!
The song lyrics thing is an interesting way to teach language. They should be thankful that you didn't select e. e. cummings.
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