sMiLe sOmE

The first time I heard Elton John’s “Captain Fansastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” I thought it was just going to be another of my mom’s boring CDs, like her 25 Neil Diamond CDs. I was surprised by how interesting and catchy the songs were.
Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy is the first song on the album and as I listened to the lyrics I was wondering what they were talking about in the chorus
For cheap easy meals and hardly a home on the range
Too hot for the band with a desperate desire for change
We’ve thrown in the towel too many times
Out for the count and when we’re down
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
From the end of the world to your town
I didn’t know what it meant to “throw in the towel” so I asked my mom and she told me that it had something to do with quitting in a boxing match. I literally thought the song was talking about boxing, which led me to ask my mom if Elton John was a boxer. He’s not. The lyrics were meant in a completely different way. My recent research tells me that in this album Elton John is the Captain and his song writer, Bernie Taupin, is the Cowboy. Now that I’m older, I appreciate the meaning behind the words.

Tower of Babel is about drugs and the harsh reality of the world. Elton sings about lies that young beauties tell you before you die, and he calls out asking But where were all your shoulders when we cried? He sings that Jesus won’t save them from their graves.
It’s party time for the guys in the tower of Babel
Sodom meet Gomorrah,
Cain meet Abel.
Have a ball ya’ll
See the letches crawl
With the call girls under the table.
Watch ‘em dig their graves,
‘Cause Jesus don’t save the guys
In the tower of Babel.
I knew about Babel and Cain and Abel from the Bible and stories I’d heard, but when I first heard this song I had no idea what it meant. I was a little too Naive to understand what it meant to have “call girls” and “dealers”. But now being older and having more experience in life, I am surprised at how self-important and hateful the lyrics are to this song. The way Elton John sings it, it just sounds like another melodramatic song.

Bitter Fingers. I don’t really understand this song all that much, what I get out of it is that maybe Elton is having some regrets and issues with the singing scene. Or maybe since Taupin wrote this song, maybe he’s having some bitter feelings toward Elton…
It’s hard to write a song with bitter fingers
So much to prove, so few to tell you why
Those old die-hards in Denmark Street start laughing
At the keyboard player’s hollow haunted eyes
Taupin writing the songs and Elton being the keyboard player.

Tell me when the whistle blows is a fairly straight forward song, Elton sings about homesickness and being young and wild. He compares “himself” to an old man laying in the gutter drunk and passed out, saying
Me I’m young and I’m so wild
And I still feel the need
Of your apron strings once in a while
It reminds the listeners how young Taupin and Elton were when they were writing and recording this LP. They were only 17 and 19, and they often slept on the floor of the studio. I can relate to this song a good deal, because when I moved from Mount Clemens to Sterling Heights I was having fun and enjoyed the “new” feel, but all I wanted was to go back “home”.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight is a critical finger pointer from Elton. He pins the blame on the critics and even the people demanding his music
And I would have walked head on into the deep end of the river
Clinging to your stocks and bonds
Paying your H.P. demands forever
He also references getting caught up in the social scene stating that he’s just a pawn being played to further someone else’s needs. Elton feels used and this song is like the aftermath of him giving it all up. roped and tied and he even dreams about A slip noose hanging and mentions the electric chair. He says They’re coming in the morning with a truck to take me home. This made me think that perhaps Elton feels he’s going crazy. But in the end some one saves him from it all and he’s able to move on. Elton is remembering the
East End lights, muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima Donna lord you really should have been there
“From Londinium to the glittering towers of Canary Wharf, the story of the East End of London is that of immigration, innovation, enterprise, revolution and hope. But most of all it is the story of individuals who – for good or bad – imposed their personality and dreams on the ever-changing East End.” (Eastlondonhistory.com) Just a little connection there to where the “east end” is.

(Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket. When I heard this song I thought that Elton was singing about being poor and needing a meal ticket to get food. But I realize now that he’s really refering to something quite different.
I’d have a cardiac if I had such luck
Lucky losers, lucky losers landing on skid row
Landing on skid row
While the Diamond Jims
And the Kings road pimps
Breath heavy in their brand new clothes
I’m on the bottom line, I’m on the bottom line
“The American term skid row or skid road is used to refer to the rundown area of a city where alcoholics and vagrants congregate. There is a formally identified Skid Row in Seattle and Los Angeles as well as informally identified districts in almost every major American city, such as The Bowery in New York City. The term was memorialized in the song Skid Row from the musical Little Shop of Horrors.” (wikipedia.org). Elton definately isn’t singing about being poor here, he’s refering to drugs, sex, and violence.

Better off Dead almost reads like a poem. It’s kind of sad really. Elton is singing about getting away from authority and watching the rest get carried away. He talks about sitting in an all night cafe and parents locking up their daughters, Elton is playing the “badboy” here.
There was a face on a hoarding that someone had drawn on
And just enough time for the night to pass by without warning
Away in the distance there’s a blue flashing light
Someone’s in trouble somewhere tonight
As the flickering neon stands ready to fuse
The wind blows away all of yesterday’s news
Well they’ve locked up their daughters and they battened the hatches
They always could find us but they never could catch us
Through the grease streaked windows of an all night cafe
We watched the arrested get taken away
And that cigarette haze has ecology beat
As the whores and the drunks filed in from the street
‘Cause the steams in the boiler the coals in the fire
If you ask how I am then I’ll just say inspired
If the thorn of a rose is the thorn in your side
Then you’re better off dead if you haven’t yet died

Writing is an upbeat song compared to the songs in the middle of this album. This song is about Elton and Bernie writing together, their future being layed out in the lines they are writing. The line “we will be writing in the approaching years” looks out to Elton’s future as a song writer, you have to remember he’s only 19. His future came true, Elton and Bernie are still writing together.
Not the kind to dawdle
Will the things we wrote today
Sound as good tomorrow
We will still be writing
In approaching years
Stifling yawns on Sundays
As the weekends disappear
We could stretch our legs if we’d half a mind
But don’t disturb us if you hear us trying
To instigate the structure of another line or two
Cause writing’s lighting up
And I like life enough to see it through

We All Fall In Love Sometimes. Elton had to have at least one love song on here. At least a happy one. This album is layed out like a story of Elton and Taupin’s lives, they were young boys, I’m sure they fell in love.
For heavy eyes could hardly hold us
Aching legs that often told us
It’s all worth it
We all fall in love sometimes
The full moon’s bright
And starlight filled the evening
We wrote it and I played it
Something happened it’s so strange this feeling
Naive notions that were childish
Simple tunes that tried to hide it
But when it comes
We all fall in love sometimes

Curtains is the last song on the album, and I think that even if you didn’t know that you’d get that feeling just from the title. The end of the story, curtain call, we all go home. It ends with what the beginning would be “once upon a time”.
But that’s okay
There’s treasure children always seek to find
And just like us
You must have had
A once upon a time

Initally I thought I wouldn’t like this Album, but now I’ve come to relate to and understand exactly what Elton and Taupin were getting at… it’s hard being a teenager growing up and making a life of your own. Curtains closed.

1.) This first one is kind of silly. The cover of Yellowcard’s Ocean Avenue reminds me of a road trip I went on last summer to Lake Michigan. We drove for hours and finally ended up at a beach on Lake Michigan. I have a picture of my Boyfriend’s sister that looks just like the cover of this album from that night when we were eating dinner on the beach.

2.) “Miles Away”- Yellowcard. The one song I can listen to when I’m missing KC, especially when he’s away at drill and when he was in bootcamp. It’s a good mushy song. But it’s actually about reflecting on the divergence of friends’ lives after seminal periods like high school.

3.) Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is a cartoon version of what Elton John would look like through the eyes of Bernie Taupin who imagined himself as a mixture of “English farm boy and American cowboy”. That idea reminds me of moving from Mt. Clemens to Sterling Heights. The people here were so different from what I was used to. My new friends in Sterling Heights were like Elton John as a magical presence in his outfits and I was like Bernie Taupin looking up in awe in my overalls and cowgirl style pig tails.

1. Yellowcard *Ocean Avenue* - I chose this album out of my ten, because for one thing it has my all time favorite song on it. Ocean Avenue is also the one album that has stuck with me the longest. Yellowcard tells a story and a journey in this album, when I’m listening to the lyrics I get this sense of understanding. They sing about love, hurt, death, misunderstanding… I can relate to these ideas and it even brings back memories. I think that Yellowcard had a certain idea in mind when they wrote the songs for this album and I look forward to learning more about what that idea is.

2. Dashboard Confessionals *A mark. A mission. A brand. A scar.* - Overall I like the sound of Dashboard, they have a smooth harmony and their voices and instruments blend together almost perfectly throughout the album. Carve your heart out yourself is in the middle of the album and I think it’s a turning point in the layout of the songs. I’m not so sure if Dashboard were actually telling a story through out the album, or if it is just an anthology of songs. In anycase I enjoy listening to Dashboard so I chose this as my second album.

Peace and blueberry muffins
~*-pRisSy jAnE-*~

I had some difficulty picking out ten albums that influenced my life in some way… but here they are:

1. Backstreet Boys *Black and Blue* - This album marked the last “boyband” CD I bought. It was also the last CD I ever listened to with my best friend before I moved away and her parents who are in the Army Reserves were shipped down to Georgia. The actual songs and lyrics don’t have much to do with me or my best friend, but the songs bring back memories of our friendship.

2. Dashboard Confessionals *A mark. A mission. A brand. A scar* - The song Carve your heart out yourself pretty much described the words a friend once told to me in 9th grade. I was going through some rough times and this song along with the words of my friend helped to me realize that the path I was taking wasn’t worth it at all. I listened to this song every night before I went to bed for almost a year. Man it takes a silly girl/ to lie about the dreams she has./ But Lord, it takes a lonely one to wish/ that she had never dreamt at all.

3. Evanescence *Fallen* - This album marked another trying time in my life. I was slipping away from my morals and from God. I intially bought this CD because I liked the sound and the music but the more I listened the more I felt I could relate to the lyrics. Tourniquet is my favorite song on this album.

4. Yellowcard *Ocean Avenue* - I met this boy at a church retreat going up the elevator, we clicked instantly. He became my best friend in two days, but he lives two hours away from me and I only got to see him once a year at the chruch retreat. Miles Apart became our song, and whenever we were missing each other we’d listen to that song. 5 years later that boy is my boyfriend and he joined the Army, we are still miles apart and this is still our song.

5. Blue Oyster Cult *Fire of Unknown Origin* - My first ever concert with my Dad. I’ll never forget it. Whenever my Dad drove me somewhere we’d listen to his CDs, since they were never on in the house, and I got hooked on Blue Oyster Cult and Joe Satriani.

6. Maroon5 *Songs about Jane* - This is my “Get up and dance” CD. Whenever I hear songs from this Album I smile and turn it up, these songs get me in a good mood no matter what.

7. Vanessa Carlton *Be not Nobody* - I discovered Vanessa Carlton through my mom’s oldies station, and when I bought the CD I realized she wasn’t oldies at all. Her cover of Paint it Black became an instant favorite for me and I often listen to her music when I’m stressed or when I’m trying to get some inspiration for my poems.

8. Savage Garden *Affirmation* - I almost didn’t pick this CD to be in my ten choices because one of the songs I relate to in a negative way and hearing it brings back memories of a time in my life I wish I could forget. The song is Two beds and a Coffee Machine. The more I thought I wasn’t going to include it, the more I thought that it is a huge part of my life…it had to be one of my 10.

9. Jewel *Pieces of you* - This was my sisters first CD and I remember listening to this and Mariah Carey over and over on our cd player when we played games and stuff together.

10. Elton John *Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy* - Probably the one and only CD my mom owns that I actually like. Elton John is a wonderful singer and piano player, but I think most of his songs are very depressing. This Album though, he switched it up and I actaully enjoy listening to it.

While I was writing my 2-3 sentences, I realized that a certain song, not really the whole album, is what influenced and reminded me of sometime in my life… I hope that’s ok.

I was surfing on the web and I came across this article about a band named “Nonpoint”. The guys all have dreds and the whole punk-style clothing thing going on… they are definately all about the “scream-o” music. The reason why I stopped and read the article was because a picture of a girl getting her teeshirt signed caught my eye. This girl had a birthdefect that left her skull mishapen and she was completely blind. Music was her escape from the harsh reality of her life, she was only expected to live until the age of 3months and she was remarkably 19 years old. Her father took her to the concert even though he didn’t like the music. She waited at the merchandise table for the band to come and sell their stuff and when the band came they signed her teeshirt and took the time to stop and listen to her story. She never saw the band that she rocked out to and she’ll never see the signatures on her teeshirt, but Nonpoint and music in general was her release and it was what helped her to get through her life. She had often thought of suicide and listening to tunes helped her cope and she’s living out her life in more peace than ever.

This article touched me, because as far as I’m concerned…that’s magic in the music right there.

As soon as I read what we had to do for this assignment I was immediately brought back to my best friend’s basement when I was 5 or 6. I remember going over to her house practically everyday and going down stairs, dressing up and turning on her record player. Yes an actual record went in there. The only two records we were allowed to listen to were Micheal Jackson and Dion. I think that if I ever was forced to sing a whole song to save my life it would be either “Thriller” or “Runaround Sue”. We would have fashion shows to these records or we would just stand in front of the ballet mirror she had in her basement and watch ourselves sing.

I think that my first purchases would have to be the self-titled Backstreet Boys tape and Mariah Carey’s “Music Box” cd. I was defiantely more into the Backstreet Boys and N*sync when I lived in Mount Clemens, but of course I lived there through fourth grade and listening to anything else besides oldies was forbidden by my Mom. Boy bands were hot back then and I think that I wore my tape out not too long after I bought it. I remember that the Christmas after I wore it out, my mom’s friend bought me the CD to replace it.

The most memoriable part of the Michael Jackson and Dion records is that I do not get to see my bestfriend anymore, because her family was shipped down to Georgia for the army, so everytime I am scanning through stations on my radio and I catch a line or two from either of those records I tend to think back to a good time her and I shared.

That’s all… peace

So I guess we are supposed to be blogging on muscial interests… I’m mostly interested in Alternative Rock and some hip hop. For a while I was into more of a “scream-o” type of style, but I’m moving away from that currently. I’m really like smile empty soul, fall out boy, HIM, ashlee simpson, dashboard confessionals, blue oyster cult, cars, styx, metallica, and pretty much anything else that isn’t rap or country.

I hope everyone is enjoying classes so far, I sure am!