Today I was joined by three students to talk about "Songs about snow".
(I had chosen this topic for this date a few weeks in advance, hoping our conversation might coincide with a snowy day in Seattle. But it doesn't look like we will have snow in Seattle this year. Just rain. I could make the theme every week "songs about rain" if I want it to coincide with the weather in Seattle...)
When I first chose the topic of snow, I thought it would be an easy one to choose songs about. As easy as "Songs about rain". But in fact, it's *not* that easy! I had trouble finding more than a couple of options, and the students said they did, too.
Before we started talking about songs in the theme, I mentioned that I read a news article that referred to the song "Do you hear the people sing", which the Taiwanese student had introduced to us under the theme "protest songs".
But the news article I read was about how it was posted on social media in China to protest the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, a doctor who raised the alarm about the Coronavirus in Wuhan early. It was interesting to hear that people on mainland China used the same song to protest as the people in Taiwan had done years ago by posting the video to social media. Were the Chinese inspired by the Taiwanese to use this song?
Being able to connect these dots in the news I was reading with songs I had learned about in class highlighted once again why I love doing this English class -- I learn so much about cultures in the world!
Now we moved on to "Songs about snow". We all comiserated that it is hard to think of a song about snow that is not a Christmas song. Someone mentioned the song "Last Christmas" by Wham!, but we are all so sick of hearing that song, we didn't play it.
So for the theme, he focused on a song that creates the mood of tension, like people can feel when caught in snow.
To illustrate this feeling he told about driving 300km through the snow one day last year in a car without tires for driving in snow. It was a nerve-wracking experience for him, worried that his car would lose control while driving.
What a cool way to approach the theme of "Songs about snow"!
Related to how snow can be un-romantic, the student from Taiwan told about his first experience seeing snow. The first time he experienced snow was in Kyoto, Japan. For the first 15 minutes he was excited to see the snow. But he didn't have a jacket with him, so for the next 50 minutes he felt like he was so cold he was going to die.
No one else had a suggestion for a song about snow. Apparently the topic was too hard!
So I played my first choice: It was to be a song by Kate Bush (info).
Before playing it, I told two stories:
1/ There is a saying that the Eskimos have "50 words for snow". It means, that since Eskimos live in a place covered with snow, they have many words to describe the variations of it, whereas most of the rest of the world just thinks of white frozen water. But it is a myth that Eskimos have 50 words for snow.
2/ Kate Bush is one of my favorite singers. But when I was young -- a teenager and into my 20's -- I couldn't stand her voice! If I ever heard a song of hers come on the radio, I would immediately turn it off!
However, at some point through friends I was forced to regularly listen to Kate Bush songs (they were playing her music and I wanted to hang out with them, rather than leave the group). And one day, as if struck by lightning, her voice suddenly made sense to me! From that point on, I am a big fan of Kate Bush: I think she is an amazingly creative artist and performer, with an amazing voice!
This song comes from an album Kate did all about snow called "50 words for snow" (info). This song is sung from the perspective of being a snowflake, which is an interesting perspective of the world to have.
The album is not my favorite by Kate Bush, but it fit the theme for the day.
I also had a little story about this song. This song is the first song where I consciously realized I love electric guitars. I heard it at a friend's house when I was about 15 years old. Until that time, I just listened to the radio and had no idea about different genres of music. Looking back, I realize I liked songs with guitars a lot (ex. "Sultans Of Swing" (video, lyrics, song info) by Dire Straits (info)), but I did not know there genres called "rock" or even "heavy metal".
That day at my friend's house I heard the guitars blasting from the speakers as "Snowblind" played, and it filled my mind with wonder! I loved it! I immediately went out and bought the album (Vol. 4 (info)) and listened to it every day for months.
I have listened to that album at least 1,000 times in my life. And it led me to listening to many more albums featuring loud electric guitars. And it all started with the song "Snowblind". Which is not about snow. For me, it's about guitars!
We only had a few more minutes in the class, and I brought up a video that had nothing to do with music or snow: it was a TV commercial for a Seattle brand of beer (Rainier Beer) from the 1980's. The series of commercials are great examples of Washington State culture.
The sound of this commercial made one of the students think of this video with car racing.
We all laughed a lot, and with that our conversation time for the day was over.
Next week's topic: Songs with music from one country, but lyrics in the local language.
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