27 November 2013 (Wednesday)

I didn't assign a theme for today. Only 6 students came.

The first song was "River" (video with lyrics in the notes, song info) by Joni Mitchell (info). The student who chose this song discovered it by reading reviews of how great her album "Blue" (info) was. As we talked about last week, at first he didn't like her voice, but now he does.

Because this week was the Thanksgiving holiday in the US we talked about family gatherings in the students' home countries and whether the students enjoy spending time with the family or whether it is stressful.

Somehow that conversation got me to thinking about how children get money and I asked each student if they got an "allowance" (money the parents give their children each week or month) when they were young. And I asked if they had to work for their allowance, or if it was just given to them. It was interesting to hear their stories.

Back to music: the next song was "Empty" (video, lyrics, song info) by Ray Lamontagne (info). The student who chose this song knows it from the movie Detachment (info). The song was used in the movie in a long scene that makes it like a music video.

I noted that the two songs we had listened to so far were sad songs. I mentioned that I like sad songs. And that I like the Smashing Pumpkins (info) song that has the lyric "I'm in love with my sadness"; "Zero" (video with lyrics, song info).

The theme for the day was now "sad songs" so the next song was "Fade To Black" (video, lyrics, song info) by Metallica (info).

This was followed by "The Fletcher Memorial Home" (video, lyrics, song info) by Pink Floyd (info). This song is depressing and also a political statement of the times. The student who chose it feels that rock bands should often be political and anti-government.


Because we had talked so much about family holidays and the tradition of children getting an "allowance" that was all the music we had time for this class!