Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Dreamer

“She’s got a condition of the heart, a heart condition, so as a kid she had to adapt to smarter living.”

“But she still dreams after she woke, tight hold on that hope, sometimes it can seem so cold do what you gotta do to cope.”

Two lines from the song Dreamer by Atmosphere (MPLS born and raised) that I have been listening to religiously for the past couple weeks. This song is about a woman who has a kid, at age 18. The dad isn’t very helpful. The mom has to work extra shifts just to keep food on the table. Then two years later she is pregnant with the same guy. The dad wanted to help out, so she let him move in. Now she has to feed four mouths. She tells the careless father to find a job. And he leaves them again.

I think this song is seriously amazing. It caught my ear one day when my iTunes was on shuffle. I didn’t really think much of the lyrics at the time, but I looked them up, and I think it’s a really strong message. Regardless if people listen to the song because of the messages or because they think it has a good ring to it, Atmosphere is getting their point across. I think that’s the beauty of music. The rest of the album is like this song, all of them have something to do with relationships. I’d like to ask them about the album.

(We should listen and analyze their songs later in the year when we study poetry)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Philosophy of a teenager

Orange. Is it a flavor? Is it a color? Is it a fruit? Is it technically just a word, with a definition that happens to be all three? Isn’t weird that somewhere along the path of the creation of the English language, that orange took those meanings? Maybe in some parallel universe orange is the word for Satan, and the converse. Imagine buying Satan flavored candy, or painting your walls Satan, or eating a Satan. Same applies to every word. What if the laws of nature had the same principal? In some parallel universe there was no such thing as friction, and we would slide to kingdom come, or if atoms didn’t bond correctly. If human beings weren’t the dominant species, what if mice ruled the world? Would the try and catch and kill us? Would they still have wars? Would they discriminate against each other? Would they have religion? Or do these all have to do with human behavior and brain function. What if we didn’t live on Earth? If we were just single cell organisms on Mars, would all those be true? Would philosophy still exist? Would language exist? How about time? Would time be of the essence? Will it be that way in time? Does life cycle between the planets? Would I have to do this blog? Would we finally find out what perpetual motion is? Would we know the ever burning question of who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? I deny ever taking it.