To Build a Home: The Cinematic Orchestra

The first time I heard this song, all I was doing was scrolling through itunes in the Alternative music (which I do probably way to often) and I saw the name and who it was by so I clicked on it and when it started playing, I immediately fell in love. “To Build a Home” by the Cinematic Orchestra has quickly found itself in my top 10 favorite songs right now.

This is a beautiful song, no doubt, but the second verse in particular is one of the most beautiful uses of imagery I've heard in a long time. The tree that it talks about is obviously representing the writer and, quite frankly, makes me want to plant a tree for my kids if and when I have them. The line "branches were sewn by the color green" indicates the tree/writer has grown into a healthy mature being.
 
With that said, the line where it says "cracks of the skin" with which the tree was climbed indicate that the growth experienced has not been without some difficulties/scars. The fact that the tree was climbed by these cracks is very touching in the sense that we typically learn/grow from our mistakes and, provided we actually learn/grow, this is what allows us to "rise" and see the world.
The last part of this verse almost brought me to tears when I first heard it simply because of the simplicity of the comparison... hanging on for dear life atop a tree blowing in the wind is very much like hanging on for dear life amidst a dying love. I think we've all been there and I'm not sure I need to say much more.
 
Ultimately I think this song stands for the idea that, no matter how solid or stable or satisfying something is (whether it be a house, your beliefs or a relationship), nothing is permanent and no matter how tightly we hold onto things or people, sometimes they disappear anyway. Although it is sad in a certain respect, I think it really speaks more to enjoying the moments we have when we have them without any expectations of permanence. In other words, we can either focus on the tragedy of the fleeting nature of these things; the difficulty of choice between a past life and a new one; or we can focus on the beauty of the moments in which we live and have lived and will continue to live with the knowledge that they too will pass.

Kryptonite: 3 Doors Down

3 Doors Down is probably one of my favorite current rock bands that has formed more recently. The band rose to international fame with their first single, "Kryptonite", which rose up to the top three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Kryptonite is also by far my favorite song by them. When I listen to this song it makes me think about pretty much the struggle of people realizing they are getting older.

It starts off by saying, "I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind; I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time". This man has been around; he's lived, he's aged and his body is old and frail now. He has now “left his body in the sands of time” which is saying he has grown so old he is just useless and he is giving up his body to time and aging.
It then says, "I watched the world float to the Dark side of the moon" It’s showing how he's seen life and how the state of the world has been getting worse. The constant wars, terrible poverty, and the overall violence in the world.
The song then goes on about the consequences of getting older and his relationships with those around him. His friends and other people he trusts. He then questions them:
"If I go crazy will you still call me Superman" He's older and if he ends up losing his mind. Will the friends who once used to call him Superman when he was young and fit and able to be of assistance to them STILL care and respect him? "If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand."
The third verse in the song is sort of a filler, a detail of the past. He's been there for people and supported them, got them through rough times. "If Not for me then you would be
dead/ I picked you up and put you back On solid ground". That's why he's calls himself a "Superman" in the song.
To me Kryptonite, being the title of the song in this case is a metaphor for the world/life/time over aging. It was Superman's great weakness and in this case, it's the aging process of life that will eventually turn this once young and fit guy into a weak and frail human being.

How to Save a Life: The Fray

The song “How to Save a Life” by the Fray is one of the deepest and most emotional songs I have heard. The song is very much widely known by almost all generations. Just the other day I heard this song on the radio and then bought it on itunes later. I had my mom listen to it and also my grandpa and they both had said they had heard it before and I quote, they said,”everyones’” heard that song before.

When The Fray performs this song they put a lot of passion into it and a lot of meaning. I've always thought this song was about someone who blames themselves for their loved one's suicide. This is just my interpretation of what this song really means.
First, the song  start’s off by saying, "Step one, you say, "We need to talk"/He walks, you say, "Sit down, it's just a talk"" This makes me think of when you are like trying to talk to someone about their health when they're obviously mentally ill or hurt in some way emotionally. They don't want to talk about it. They just want to curl up in themselves, and whenever you confront them about their well-being, they try to walk away.
Then the song goes on to say, "Let him know that you know best/'cuz after all, you do know best"
Its showing that you try to convince your loved one to get help or get better. To me, this line always sounded a little sarcastic. Maybe they didn't know what was best, maybe their advice actually made their friend even more depressed, or, if they weren't already, suicidal.
Then it says, "And I would have stayed up with you all night/had I known how to save a life"
Its showing that if they had only known what their friend had been attempting (suicide), they would have stayed up and talked them out of it, or at least tried to. Instead, they either didn't know what was happening, or didn't know how to deal with it and let their friend slip away.
It goes on by saying, "As he begins to raise his voice/You lower yours and grant him one last choice"
The loved one gets angry and defensive, and an argument begins. The two choices they give him--"driving until he loses the road" or "breaking the ones he's followed"--may have been taken wrong and the loved one was driven to suicide.
This is just is my take on it, it's probably actually about drug use because that’s what most people think it is. But with my past, this is how I've always interpreted the song. Suicide has always been an unfortunate factor in my life, and this is all I can think about when I hear this song.

The Lonely Island

The Lonely Island is probably the funniest comedic music group I have ever heard. Every time I hear their music I can't help but laugh. The first time I heard their one of their songs was when my friend and I were on the bus together to a soccer tournament for school about three years ago. It was their song "Threw It On the Ground". Oh my gosh, I literally laughed at this song for like two hours straight and we played it over and over again the whole way there.

The Lonely Island is a comedic group that was formed by Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and the most famous out of them all, Adam Samberg. The trio had met in high school in the 1990's. After graduating from college, they decided to regroup and moved to Los Angeles together. They struggled to find work and began making short films, combining absurd comedy and occasionally music. They involved themselves with a non-profit monthly short film festival on Channel 101. They were eventually lead to pilot deals with Fox and Comedy Central and even a writing job for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards. The show's host, Jimmy Fallon, recommended them to the creator of Saturday Night Live (otherwise known as "SNL"). They were hired in 2005 and Andy Samberg was naturally featured most out of the three. This was no big surprise, being that Samberg had been in several popular comedic movies such as "American Pie" and "That's My Boy" with Adam Sandler.

Almost Ignoring the traditional process of pitching in SNL, they recorded their own material independently and submitted it to the program. Their second sketch was to actually air, "Lazy Sunday", became an online sensation, the first of many viral videos they produced while at SNL. More included, "D*ck in a Box", "J**zed in my Pants", "I'm on a Boat", "Like a Boss", and my personal favorite "Jack Sparrow".

Their musical comedic work has comprised three full studio albums: Incredibad in 2009, Turtleneck & Chain in 2011, and The Wack Album in 2013. The three retired from SNL in the early 2010s, but occasionally make guest appearances.

Set Fire to the Rain: Adele

The song "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele is an extremely emotional song and Adele sings it with such passion. This song is mostly about the hardships people go through in life and what she has gone through personally and getting through it.

In the beginning of the song, it seems as if she has just ended a relationship with someone she loved dearly. She is torn from that relationship and is in pieces shown in the line "I let it fall, my heart" and "It was dark and I was over".

She then comments on how this new relationship helped her pull herself together because in this line she says, "And as it fell, you rose to claim it"... "Until you kissed my lips and you saved me". She emphasizes how much influence this new relationship had on her and maybe how she didn't recognize her weaknesses in the new relationship by saying, "My hands, they were strong, but my knees were far too weak ... To stand in your arms without falling to your feet".  

The rest of the song is exploring this second partner and how she ended the second relationship.
It's obvious that this partner is two-sided, deceitful and manipulative because she says "But there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew... All the things you'd say, they were never true, never true... And the games you'd play, you would always win, always win".

Adele uses a very deep metaphor to describe how she ends the relationship when she says "But I set fire to the rain... Watched it pour as I touched your face... Well, it burned while I cried... 'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name." I think there are some basic things that she is trying to say. By "setting fire to the rain", I believe Adele is saying that had the courage to confront a situation that was draining her. I think she goes on to say that she was left hurt and deeply moved because she says "it burned while I cried" by the situation because all she could focus on was still her partner, "Cause I heard it screaming out your name".

She continues to explain the relationship by saying, "When laying with you I could stay there / Close my eyes, feel you here forever / You and me together, nothing is better". So emphasizing how much faith she had in this partner. 

She just keeps going on about her relationships with this guy and how it keeps burning and all these things. Obviously she has felt a big connection to these relationships to have written a song so passionate  and emotional about them.

Same Love: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

The song I'm going to talk about today is a song that has touched the hearts of many and changed even more lives. This of course is the one and only song "Same Love" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Cleverly based off the title, this song talks about gay relationships and how the love between these couples are just the same as the love between a straight couple.

I want to start this off by saying that I am a partial Christian. Yes, I support gay marriage/relationships because in the bible it says to "stone the people that are homosexuals and a lot of religious cranks out there take that to heart. But it also says to beat and even stone your children for disobeying and disrespecting their parents. You don't them out there rioting about that do you. There are a lot of religious extremists out there who ruin the whole religious image for everyone. People who aren't religious tend to think we are all just wacko crazy. That's also something that needs to change.

Really, all problems, whether it be in regards to sex preference, religion, gun rights, race, etc... People just need to be understanding. I'm not going to tell a woman that she can't love another women, that her love isn't real, because I would never want someone to tell ME (a male) that my love for my girlfriend (a female) isn't genuine or correct. I would never tell someone to not own a gun, because I wouldn't want someone to tell me that I can't own a knife. I refuse to tell someone that they can't celebrate Kwanza or Hanuka, because I don't want someone to tell me that I can't celebrate Christmas.

It's really not anyone else's business what other people do. What right does anyone have to judge someone else? Maybe if more people judged themselves, and kept their noses out of other people's lives, we wouldn't have so many problems like this song describes.

When it says "A world so hateful, some would rather die than be who we are", that applies to a lot of situations. There have been so many people that have committed suicide because "society" didn't approve of them is some way. That is just outright sad and ridiculous. YOU society should be the ones that should be ashamed of yourselves, not these people.

I hope that one day, songs like this won't be needed.

Hallelujah

The song I am going to talk about today is one that has touched the lives of many and relates to a very large group of people. This song is called "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. There are several covers of this song, one of the most known covers of it is by Jeff Buckley, the song itself actually  found greater popular acclaim through a cover by John Cale. But my personal favorite cover is by Rufus Wainwright. He puts so much emotion into the way he sings this song and even if you don't even understand the meaning the first or second time you hear it, it still might make you emotional and feel the why Rufus feels while singing it.

Many other cover versions of "Hallelujah have been performed by many various singers, both in concerts live and recorded for different events which have added up to 300 total versions. The song has been widely used in films and television soundtracks, the most popular was my favorite cover of the song by Rufus Wainwright in the movie "Shrek", which was actually the first time I had ever heard the song before.

What most people don't pay attention to, is the true meaning of the song. Even when people listen to it, I can't believe no one fully understands this song. The song is about both love and heartbreak, but there are also strong religious undertones, not exactly "anti-religious" but just showing the theory that people only turn to God to complete the holes left by the imperfections in life. The first verse combines these two meanings, beginning with a biblical reference to David being Gods favored man on earth, before a lyric with two meanings, "it goes like this, the fourth the fifth... the minor fall and the major lift" the first part cleverly refers to the musical structure of the song, but it also refers to the rollercoaster of love, peaks of emotions from the best to the worst.

The second verse is a reference to Sampson and Delilah from the holy bible, although when it says "you saw her bathing on the roof" is another reference to David and Bathsheeba. It finished by telling how a failed relationship can break your life apart, and again how people in relationships and mid_life crisis's "find god".

Scare Tissue- The Red Hot Chili Peppers

The band Red Hot Chili Peppers has played an important role in my life and others lives as well. They are probably my top favorite rock band of all time. They have really good lyrics to their songs and they have really good meaning. Another reason is that they are also considered to be an Alternative Rock band because some of their songs have a  more alternative music sound to them. And as many of you readers know, I am absolutely in love with alternative music and rock music. So you can probably see why I love this band so much.

Another reason the Red Hot Chili Peppers have had such an impact on my life and I've had a strong connection with them, is because when I was younger on the nights I would be with my dad, we would sometimes take drives around town just cruising and listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was his and my favorite band back then and I didn't really have many other fond memories with him other than that. So that's why I have such a strong connection with this band.

One of the songs that really sticks in my head and I listen to a lot still these days is "Scare Tissue". It was the Red Hot Chili Pepper's first single from their seventh studio album "Californication". And it's also one of their most successful songs. It was written by Anthony Kiedis right around the time of the return of their guitar player John Frusciante.

"Scare Tissue" is considered to show the new melodic rock sound that the Red Hot Chili Peppers experimented with on the "Californication" album. It's about the Pepper's singer Anthony Kiedis and his constant battle he had with drugs. Also the quarrels he had with friends and bandmates because of his bad drug addictions. Although the line in the song "sarcastic mister know it all" was actually written by the band's former guitarist Dave Navarro because Anthony thought he was the king of sarcasm.

All in all though, I think the song just uses metaphors to express the pain and suffering people go through in life and the things they try to do to make up for it. They do things to try to get people to notice that they were hurt in some way, like hurt themselves, which often does nothing and nobody notices. This is expressed in the first line of the song, "scar tissue that I wish you saw."
when the people around them don't realize or pay attention to the person's pain, they just kind of wallow in their self-pity, or "share it with the birds".

The Whole World is Raving

Okay, let's talk about this Tove Lo song everyone around the world has been raving about. First of all, this song has probably had the most remixes and covers than any other song I've seen in the last 17 years of my life. It's pretty much ridiculous how many are out there! There's one's on itunes, one's on spotify, one's on iheart radio, pandora, and my personal favorite one's are on soundlcloud. Don't get me wrong, I love this song and everything about it. And heck yeah I have ALL the different remixes downloaded in my music. All I'm saying is people are crazy about this tune.

Even so, the world loves this song for many different reasons. The sound of the song, the singer of it, and even just because everyone else likes it and listens to it. But only a fraction of the listeners really pay attention to what the song's lyrics are saying. First she says, "... I eat my dinner in my bathtub... Then I go to sex clubs... Watching freaky people getting it on... It doesn't make me nervous... If anything I'm restless... Yeah I've been around and I've seen it all...".  She is basically summing up her life at this point in time, saying that she's not nervous about the freaky things these people are doing in all the clubs she goes to and that she's "been around" which means she's slept with a lot of people.

From the tone of the song, I feel like it's more and just about a break up like most people think it is. I think it's about the death of a loved one. Everything in her life has gone down the drain because of her loss. She says that she "spends her days locked in a haze, tryin' to forget you babe. I fall back down. Got to stay high all my life to forget I'm missing you." She is basically spending all her money on alcohol, drugs, and she is just throwing her body around to any stranger that will take her for the night.

She also says that she "picks up daddies at the playground, how I spend my day time". She is pretty much saying that she hooks up with dads she meets at parks. It kind of makes me feel that she likes being a homewrecker, because once she is through with these guys, she won't be the only one who is miserable, because she has messed up the marriage.

Obviously this song is very depressing when you really listen to it. I don' know if this was really based off of what has happened in her past or to a friend or something, but whatever it is, the song has captured the world's attention and maybe makes us feel a little relaxed or on a "high" as she says.

Green Day: Wake Me Up When September Ends

Green Day was one of my favorite bands when I was younger and I have still always liked them because of their sound and that I can just lay down and relax listening to some good ol Green Day. My favorite song by them probably has to be Wake Me Up When September Ends. I used to listen to that song non stop when I was a little kid. Every day on the bus to school, on my way home from school, and pretty much any time I could.

But since I was so young, I had no idea what the actual meaning of the song really was. The lead singer of the band, Armstrong, finally reveals his feelings about his dad who died in September of 1982 when he was just ten years old. However, this was not the only meaning that the song bears. For most Americans when they think of the month of September, they think of the terrible event of 9/11 and the loved ones that suffered and lost their lives in this terrible happening.

The song Wake Me Up When September Ends is a song of wisdom and acceptance. "Drenched in my pain again, becoming who we are" is the realization of the fact that everything we go through, all the pain and losses and suffering we go through in life happen for a reason and they are meant to make us stranger and shape our personalities and who we are.

Wake Me Up When September Ends is believed to be the most detached song of the album because it mostly portrays the author's personal feelings and is barely linked to the story of the album. But, it is still one of the most moving songs of the entire album.