The Distance Between

I just finished reading the "33 1/3" series book Murmur. One of the most intriguing ideas put forth in the book is the idea of the distance between pop music and the listener, that the distance itself is a text we read unconsciously. I found myself pondering this notion in the music appreciation elective class I teach (this year it's titled "World of Music" and aims to expose the students to many types of world music that lie outside the norm of pop radio). The big class project I run is to have each student do a presentation giving the history of a song and why they love it. As a result, I listen to a lot of music I would normally dismiss as pop drivel, but today, as I listened to Chris Brown and Justin Bieber singing "Next to You", I got caught up in the idea of the distance between a pop song and the listener, and why top 40 pop is perpetually the domain of teens (and especially girls).

Pop music has always been about the pin-up of a boy's dreamy face in girl's bedroom (locker, cell phone, facebook profile, etc.). Anyone remember Tiger Beat? I, too, know the twitterpation a good pair of eyes can cause.

Some teen girls spend inordinate amounts of time writing things like "Mrs. Bieber" on their binders, or changing their surname to Bieber on homework assignments. A few of them feel comfortable announcing to the masses that they are already (top secret!) married to Justin Bieber.

A long time ago, some evil genius (probably Shakespeare) realized the fun to be had in tossing the body-chemistry-induced emotions of teen girls to the the lions of lust and longing (though girls emotions regenerate a bit like Prometheus' liver- it's a never ending blood bath). There is no ceiling on the amount of melodrama a heterosexual girl will tolerate in order to have the opportunity to fantasize that a storyline involving a physically/emotionally attractive male could, in fact, happen to her. There is perhaps no better medium for this than a 3-5 minute pop song. Just ask the Beatles.

Check out this video (I know...but it'll help the conversation):

Pop songs like this one have an inherent space in them that capitalizes on fantasy (vague, literal lyrics), and the "Next to You" video does a great job representing this visually. The video is not about the girls in it, but rather the gaze of the males on the females, the actions the guys will take to be near them. Lyrically, it's about the guy's feelings, the way the girl makes him feel, what he wants from her. (There is definitely another post lodged in the subtext here, about how pop songs enforce gender stereotypes. In the interest of staying focused, I'll save that for another post.) There is plenty of space available between the listener and the song, plenty enough to contain the fantasies of millions of teen girls.

Pop songs appeal to the developmental state of late tweens/early teen: their brains are a-whir with focus on their personal needs and desires. Empathy is a long way off yet (college, I'd say). All that space meshes with a closed bedroom door, lights turned off, iPod juiced up, the energy to make those young men ("Well, Rihanna made him mad!" "Bieber is just confident") into exactly the guys they want them to be. They can even imagine that the voice singing is just for them.

And baby, everything that I have is yours
You will never go cold or hungry
I'll be there when you're insecure
Let you know that you're always lovely
Girl, 'cause you are the only thing that I got right now

I generalize, of course, because not every teenage girl is into pop music (and some teenage boys are!). I also recognize that my inner teenage girl remains: she's just a lot smarter about what kind of man she's willing to drool over.

(Cheesy) Pop Songs of the 80s Sing Stories from My Life

How do we know the difference in our lives between story threads that are going to be dropped, and those strange, mystical instants when a little detail, a golden moment stands out in the text?

I have selected cheesy 80s pop tunes to accompany three auspicious plot developments in my life. What's better than the obviously-not-really-stringed-instrument synths, the ensemble super-songs, the soundtracks, the tender vulnerability, and the bordering-on-naive lyrics of the 80s to represent the awe a person can feel when they reflect on the twisty root systems that have somehow led to the blossoming now?

As a gawky teen, I'd flip through my textured, brown photo album, peer at the faces of my classmates, and fiddle with the sticky cellophane just to hear the noise it made as I peeled it back.  While scrutinizing how each of us were placed on those fuzzy choral risers, I counted the years I'd known each kid. Much to my chagrin, I was usually the tallest. These days I think the wide-banged kid-mullet I sported at the end of grade school is more disturbing.

The first page of that photo album was the class picture of Our Redeemer Lutheran preschool class of '85. This class 8x10 was different because each person had their own photo. It was the year my mom foolishly gave me an eye-stinging home-perm that is responsible for my continuing aversion to the notion of curls; while scanning the page, I'd often confuse my picture with another curly-haired girl in my class. That is the same picture I saw of my sister-in-law when I first visited her home. When I met Ana again-- for what I thought was the first time-- I recall looking out from behind the one-hour-film counter from my position at cash register one, and the immediate warmth expressed in her gesture of hello signaled to me that this was a person I was going to love.

This one's for you, hermana ;)

Much art has been created to explore the small choices that alter people's lives; I think of the sunny June, end-of-8th-grade-band-trip that hooked this F Hornist and that trumpeter together like Construx as we went from middle to high school. Walking that mile back to school side-by-side with my fiery, ambitious Angie changed my life.

Love you, friend!

Ryan and I have been together a long time, married almost nine years, long enough that people don't frequently ask us how we met. Most times I just say that we both worked in Fred Meyer Photo Electronics, but here is the truth: a young Colleen, while being cash-register trained, saw Ryan saunter by in hounds-tooth pants and spent a moment in cosmic drool mode, thinking a thought very unlike any she'd had before, that she would make this man hers.

And then the moment passed. I spent a year alternately pining and second guessing before my quarry succumbed to love for me.

Ryancito, this one's for you!

And, as the 80s labor to regain their street cred, I hope the sentiments that defined so many songs and films of the era-- the pressing into the moment, the overly-romantic longing, the searching for eternity in the gaze of another, and the ache for human connection-- return in full force, because 80s pop is the type of refined sugar that really does a body good.