19 November 2020 (Thursday)

A small group today to talk about "Songs about family or thankfulness".

In fact, while we waited for more people to join us, we talked about other things than music, and that conversation ended up going quite long. Which is fine with me: this group is about practicing conversational English, and whichever topics that ends up being is fine with me as long as the conversation flows.  

One of the students talked about his experience back in his home country taking a group of young kids learning English to an event. I taught him one of my favorite American English idioms: "something is/was like herding cats". It is used when a person has to get control of a chaotic situation. It usually means a person is not successful at getting it all organized. Imagine you have 10 cats and you need to get them all to go together down the street. It's impossible, right? Here's the Urban Dictionary definition. 

We also talked about what we will do for Thanksgiving. The student from Taiwan said he will have hotpot with his friends. Even if that's not turkey, it's a good Thanksgiving meal! And most importantly, with friends!

I mentioned at some point in the conversation that on the weekend I will go for a walk at Magnuson Park. Magnuson Park is a very large park in Seattle, northeast of the University of Washington on the shores of Lake Washington.  

Until 1970 it was a military base with an airfield. That is why it is so big. In 1975 it was given to the city of Seattle to be converted into a park.

For music fans Magnuson Park is a landmark: there is an outdoor scultpture here called A Sound Garden (information) which makes sound as the wind passes through the pieces. It's a very cool thing to hear. As you might guess, the Seattle band Soundgarden named themselves for this sculpture.

Somehow that talk about little-known-Seattle-facts led me to tell the students that water that the University Bridge crosses ("the Montlake Cut") is actually man-made: until 1916 Lake Washington and Lake Union were two separate lakes, unconnected. In 1916 they cut a channel in the earth, connecting the two. This lowered the water level of the entire Lake Washington by 8.8 feet (2.7 meters)! Short history of the project. (long history).

Much time had passed, but I wanted to be sure to talk about some music!

The first song suggested was "Lean On Me" (video, song info, lyrics) by Bill Withers (info). 

The lyrics of this song are about people -- friends and family -- supporting each other, and is therefore a *perfect* choice for the theme. Bill Withers is one of my favorite singer/songwriters from the 1970's. 

(If that version of the song is too slow for you, check out the Club Nouveau version from the 1990's.)

Another song by Bill Withers that would have fit this theme very well: "Grandma's Hands" (video, song info, lyrics).

"Grandma's Hands" was sampled for the famous rap song: "No Diggity" (video, song info, lyrics) by Blackstreet (info).

We talked for a while about rap songs that use samples from old songs from the 70's. I think one album that used the most samples was Paul's Boutique (info) by The Beastie Boys (info). 

From Wikipedia: In total, 105 songs are sampled, including 24 individual samples on the last track alone.

For the last song of the day on our theme, I chose "We Are Family" (video, lyrics, song info) by Sister Sledge (info).  

(Note, I chose this version of the song because it includes Avril Lavigne, who was mentioned as a favorite singer earlier in the quarter.)

 

 

But wait, there's one more song that was sent to me via email by one of the regular students from Japan!

"Mama, I'm Coming Home" (video, song info, lyrics) by Ozzy Osbourne (info). In his own words, why the student chose this song for today's theme:

Now it seems like "Mama" in this song means his wife Sharon, but it can be interpreted literally as your mother at least for us listeners. Either way it suits the theme for this week. I also like how Ozzy, the Prince of Darkness himself, is proudly releasing such a wholesome power ballad even though some of the fans might hate it a lot.

There will be no conversation group on Thursday, 26 Nov due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. 

The last conversation group meeting of Fall 2020 Quarter will be Thurday, 3 December. Theme will be "Favorite songs of 2020".