7 March 2012 (Wednesday)

Today was the last class of the Winter Quarter.  Only 6 students came, probably because most people were preparing for finals.  But it was a significant class because it was the last class that Kim, one of students who has been coming each week, would attend before returning to Korea.  (Kim is the one who chose to come to Seattle because he likes the Seattle rock/grunge scene so much.) 

[I am writing this blog a couple of weeks after the class -- I know, I've been lazy! -- and I may have forgotten some of the details from what we talked about.]

The first song we listened to was "My Sacrifice" (video, lyrics, song info) by Creed (info).

I mentioned that even though this band plays heavy/hard music, they are a Christian band, i.e. they sing a lot about their Christian faith.  In fact, the "Christian Rock Scene" -- is really big in America.  There are lots of bands which emphasize their Christian faith and by doing so the have big followings among (conservative) Christians; they like the lyrics and messages.

Creed has been criticized for copying the Seattle sound.  To show how closely they sound like Pearl Jam (info), I played "Jeremy" (video, lyrics, song info).  The class agreed Creed sounds a lot like Pearl Jam!

Speaking of how there is this big Christian rock market that the mainstream isn't even really aware of, I mentioned that I recently saw that a band called The Fray (info) is playing a concert at the Paramount, a big theatre in Seattle.  I wondered "How is this band big enough to play the Paramount and I've never even heard of them?!?"  The answer is that they are a Christian band!  As an example of The Fray we listened to "How To Save A Life" (video, lyrics).

[Here's a side story about that I did not tell in class: Back in 1996 I wanted to learn how to write HTML/program web pages. I needed a goal/project to motivate myself to so I told some friends of mine in a band, Grammatrain (info, band website), who had just released their first official album, Lonely House, that I would make a web site for them. That's how I learned HTML!  When they went on tour they would email me a short report after every concert and I would upload the report to their site every day -- in essence we were "blogging" in 1996.

In any case, Grammatrain was a Christian band and they were very popular in the Christian Rock community around the United States, though in the mainstream music scene there were pretty much unknown.

Here's one of my favorite songs by Grammatrain: "Believe" (song with lyrics). And to see how heavy they could be: "Lonely House (live)" (video, lyrics).]

Somehow after showing the The Fray clip I asked the class if they are familiar with the show Grey's Anatomy (info), which is a popular TV drama series that is supposedly set at a hospital in Seattle (but which is actually filmed in Los Angeles).

At this point we listened to some songs that Kim, the student who is going back home, wrote and recorded during his time in Seattle.  I don't have links to the songs, which is unfortunate because they were really good! He played all the instruments on the songs -- very impressive!

One of the songs Kim recorded reminded me a little of a song by the Seattle band called The Posies (info).  The song it reminded me of is "Coming Right Along" (song, lyrics), which is one of my favorite songs ever, though it's quite a melancholic tune.

After listening to the songs by Kim a student chose "Still Loving You" (video, lyrics, song info) by Scorpions (info). 

The student who chose this song said he did so because it reminds him of his friends back home.




As I did something on the computer in the class I made a mistake and said under my breathe to myself "Duh!". I realized I should teach my students this very useful slang term.  It takes a lot of explaining to use it properly, but it's very "American".  It is often used by itself to say "obviously" ("duh!").  Closely related is "no duh!" which you can say in answer to an dumb question so you are saying "obviously!"  Here's a video explanation of how to use "duh".

Note, "duh" is different than when Homer Simpson says "Doh!" (video), which is more like "oops!".

The next song chosen was "Fireflies" (video, lyrics, song info) by Owl City (info).  The student who chose this song listens to it when she (he? I forgot who chose it, doh!) gets lonely.


In American when a person can't fall asleep they "count sheep" in their mind until they fall asleep.  I asked the students what methods people use in their countries to fall asleep.

For the next song a student from Taiwan wanted to show a Taiwanese band: Mayday (info) playing "I Love You (live)" (unfortunately I can't find the link to the video anymore, doh!).  The song is about a breakup between a woman and a man.  The student likes the band because the lyrics are poetic.  He told us that Mayday made songs sung in the Taiwanese language appeal to young people.


We did watch a second clip by Mayday, "People" (video with lyrics).

For some reason that song reminds me of the song "Wonderwall" (video, lyrics, song info) by Oasis (info).

We had been in class for a long time by now, but the conversation was really fun. Nonetheless, we would soon have to close class for the week and say goodbye to Kim.  Naturally we let him pick another song, and, as so often, he chose a song by Bush (info): "Swallowed" (video, lyrics, song info).  Kim especially likes the guitar sound in Bush songs; the lyrics are not that important to him.  He said the band sounds like they are from Seattle, even though they are from London, UK.

We next listened to "Zombie" (video, lyrics, song info) by The Cranberries (info), but I can't remember now who chose the song.  I guess it was inspired by heavy music of Bush.  I did note that we talked about the contrast of the female singer against the hard music in this song.

The last song we listened to was "Freedom" (video, lyrics, song info) by Love Psychedelico (info), a Japanese rock band with a female singer.

With that we bid good travels and much luck to Kim back in Korea and I took two of the students to the best hamburger place in Seattle, Red Mill Burgers (website).