29 October 2020 (Thursday)

Today 4 students joined us to share "scary songs" in preparation for Halloween.

Before we started talking about scary songs, I first asked one of the new students to tell us what kind of music he likes. He said he likes Pop music. 

As an example of the kind of music she likes, he chose the song "Shape Of You" (video, song info, lyrics) by Ed Sheeran (info). 

He likes this song because it is pop and has a sexy/romantic feeling to it.

 

 

One of the other students said she likes Ed Sheeran, too. But she has a very specific reason: on her birthday a couple of years ago her boyfriend made a video for her with the song "Perfect" (video, song info, lyrics) as the soundtrack. What a romantic, thoughtful guy! 

 

 

 

The story of her boyfriend making a video for her reminded me of a video I have shown in the past: it's a video showing how a man got all his friends together to do a live-dance in the street for him to show his girlfriend how much he loves her. And at the end of the video, he asked her to marry him! Here's the video.

Ok, so we got sidetracked from scary songs by romantic songs! To start songs for Halloween, one student chose "Devil In A Midnight Mass" (video, song info, lyrics) by the band Billy Talent (info). 

The student who chose this song says that when he was young and heard the song, musically it made him feel uneasy. 

Something that makes the song even more unsettling is that the lyrics are based on a true story about kids being abused by Catholic priests. The fact it is a true story is very sad.

The next song chosen was "A Faker" (video with lyrics in the comments) by 跳房子. This song has dissonant tones and clearly the singer wants to express a bad feeling. But I'm not really sure what the song is about.

Next was "Welcome To The Black Parade" (video, song info, lyrics) by My Chemical Romance (info). When she was younger, this was the favorite band of the student who chose this song. What is most scary about the song is the visual of the video; it is made to be unnverving.

 

 

 

Now I chose a classic Halloween song: "The Time Warp" (video, song info, lyrics) from the classic movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show (info). 

This movie is a favorite among students and young people in America. One of the unique things is that when it is shown in the theater, people in the audience go in front of the screen and play the parts of the actors with the movie. And they throw rice in the theater. And the audience talks to the actors on the screen. It is an immersive experience. Here's an example of what it's like.

I asked the students which Halloween costumes they would wear if they could go to a Halloween party this year. The funniest answers was one student saying he would dress up like Covid. That is dark humor! :-D .

Then a student showed a video with the joke of "What is a skeleton's favorite snack?" (In case you don't understand the answer to the joke in the video, here it is.)

For the last song of the day, we heard "The Caterpillar (芋虫)" (video) by the Japanese band Ningen Isu (人間椅子) (info). The song is based on a story by the Japanese author Rampo Edogawa (info; more information about his books). (The student noted that this artists name is taken from the real author Edgar Allen Poe's name.) 

Musically this song sounds heavy and unhappy, like Black Sabbath (info). But it is the text which is very scary: it is based on a Japanese story called The Caterpillar (movie info) where the guy has no arms, no legs and can't move his body at all, but his mind is still functioning. In other words, he is trapped in his body. That *is* a very scary idea!

There is a real life story similar to that, about which the movie "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (info) was made.

 

With that our time was finished for the week.  

Next week's theme: Song from movies.