5 November 2020 (Thursday)

Today I was joined by 2 students, and the FIUTS coordinator, to talk about "Songs from movies."

The first thing we discussed was whether I should have done a better job illustrating the day's conversation, since only 2 people showed up. In other words, would more people have shown up if I had chosen a more current or popular film to illustrate the conversation topic?

On the FIUTS Virtual Conversation Facebook page I used a picture of the movie Titanic.

 

 

On the Language Of Music Facebook page I used a picture of The Sound Of Music.

 

 

We didn't reach a definitive conclusion about whether either of these illustrations turned off potential participants. I guess I'll never know if more people would have come if I had used a different movie to illustrate the theme.

 

I asked the students if anyone had any musical event in their life in the past week. One of them had! He had band practice with some friends of his from high school. This was one of the songs they played: 

 サカナクション / 新宝島 (video)

 

I also asked if anyone did anything special for Halloween on the previous weekend. One student had a BBQ with friends. They carved 8 pumpkins! Sadly no pictures of the pumpkins, however. :-(

 

Now we started talking about songs from movies. The FIUTS facilitator said that perhaps I would have attracted more students if I had illustrated the post with an image from movie The Fast & The Furious "Tokyo Drift" (video, song info, lyrics) by Teriyaki Boyz (info).

 

 

 

One of the students said, he likes the movie "Walking on Sunshine" (info) because it has lots of songs from the 80's in it. As an example, we watched the title song from the movie (video, song info, lyrics).

 

 

 

 

 

For the next choice the student offered to play us either a depressing song or a happy song. We said we want *both*!

We started with the depressing song: 防人の詩 (An Ode By An Ancient Japanese Coast Guard) (video). This from a movie called The Battle of Port Arthur (info), which is about a specific event in the early 1900's, during the war between Russia and Japan. The film is from the 80's, from the student's parent's generation.

As we talked about this song, it was mentioned that this movie would only be known in Japan, since it is so specifically tied to an event in Japanese history. That discussion led me to explain to the class the American phrase "big in Japan". Generally, we use the phrase ironically. For example:

Person A: "Your band writes terrible songs."

Person B: "That might be your opinion, but we're big in Japan".

The irony/joke of saying something is "big in Japan" is that before the internet, no one could verify whether a band was popular in Japan or not. So someone could claim to be popular in Japan, and no one could deny it. Here's the Wikipedia explanation of the phrase.

A famous true story of an American band being big in Japan before anywhere else in the world was Cheap Trick (info). They released an a live album, At Budokan (info), only in Japan, but it became popular in the United States, selling so many copies imported from Japan that they released it in the US and this album made them stars. 

Cheap Trick's most famous song is "I Want You To Want Me" (video, song info, lyrics). It is a really simple song, with really simple lyrics. But one of the things I have learned in teaching this class, is that people enjoy singing songs in another language, so simple lyrics are *good* for international audiences!

This was also the first of many of their albums where they put the two good looking guys on the front cover, and the two less-attractive guys on the back, hahaha.

 

Now we went to the not-depressing choice from the student: "Lust For Life" (video with scenes from the movie, song info, lyrics) by Iggy Pop (info) from the movie Trainspotting (info).

The reason the student chose this song is because:

1/ He thinks Iggy Pop is great!

2/ He likes this movie. He likes that the movie is about lowlife guys trying to get money, not about idealized heroes like James Bond. He likes that the movie is about real life, not fantasy.

One student had never heard of Iggy Pop before. He said he looks homeless.

I said that looking homeless, or like a total loser, is done on purpose by Iggy. He's actually a very smart guy, but throughout his career he played a dum-dum guy. One of his albums is even called "The Idiot". 

But it takes a lot of intelligence to play so stupid. In fact, David Bowie, who is considered a creative genius, idolized Iggy Pop. They were friends and David wished he could be as free in his spirit as Iggy. The song "Lust For Life" was co-written with David Bowie.

Yes, Iggy had a long history of doing a lot of drugs. It is amazing he didn't die from drugs. But he has always been a very intelligent guy.

BTW, the first CD I ever bought in my life was Iggy's first band: The Stooges "Funhouse" (info). To this day I listen to that album regularly.

With that our time in the discussion group was over. But I have one more song to share!

One student from previous classes was not able to join our discussion, but he took the time (thank you!) to write down which song he would present, if he were able to join us today. Here is his choice + explanation:

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I want to recommend my favorite song from the film. The song is called “Lost Boys Calling” (video, lyrics) from the film, “The Legend of 1900”. (info) 

The film was made by legendary tag, Giuseppe Tornatore and Ennio Morricone. 

As you know, they also made “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” too. 

The song, “Lost Boys Calling” is the theme song of “The Legend of 1900” and was composed by arranging the instrumental main theme song of the soundtrack for pop song. 

In addition, the participants of the song was so gorgeous, Ennio Morricone, Roger Waters (ex-Pink Floyd) and Eddie Van Halen! 

They arranged Morricone’s original soundtrack very well. Don’t miss the beautiful melodies, the lyrics influenced by the story of the film, Eddie’s impressive guitar sound and Roger’s vocal! 

I think the song was a kind of “playing of the gods”.

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Next week's topic: Duets (songs with two singers)