3. Analyze a popular song you heard on the radio (present or past) what exactly does it all mean?
I don’t know what it is I love about picking on Laina so much. Maybe it’s her dramatic responses that I love, maybe she’s an easy target and I’m a horrible person, or maybe it’s because she’s the middle child and that’s what you do with middle children…whatever it is, I do enjoy teasing her.
As a former English major, I’ve always enjoyed searching for deeper meaning in the music I listen to. What is the message? What is the symbolism? Who it written for? And my kids so far are not really the type to dig into a song line by line, but Laina especially strikes me as one who could honestly care less as long as she enjoys the beat.
One of my favorite things to do is ask her about the meaning of a song we’re listening to. Ariana Grande’s “Thank You, Next” is about thanking her ex-boyfriends because she learned something from each of them and is ready to move on to the next stage of her life. When the song first came out I turned down the radio and was all, “Hey Laina, what do you think this is about?” and she was just like “I don’t know, maybe will you turn it back up?” and then I was like, “but why do you think she would be thanking her ex-boyfriend??” and she was like, “stop mom.”
I turned a song off in the car the other day that is called “Talk Dirty” by Jason Derulo and Laina was all, “I like that song!” And I was like, “but what does it mean?? Talk dirty to me?” and she was all, “I don’t know, nevermind.”
When we were on the way to her volleyball tournament I was jamming out to Cutting Crew’s “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight” and I was all, “whoa LAINA, did you HEAR that?? He died in her actual arms?” And Laina was like “what? I’m not even listening to this.” And I was all “No listen though!” Because the next line was “It must have been something you said…” and I was all “LAINA!! What could she possibly have said to kill him!?”
And Laina was all, “Mom…Dad doesn’t talk this much when he takes me to volleyball.”
She keeps avoiding the topic, but these questions are going to haunt her forever and I will not stop until she satisfies my need to analyze songs with her.
John Holton says
The poor kid! One of these days she’s going to prove she can dish it out as well as she takes it…
Abby says
HA! I love how she shames you with “…Dad doesn’t talk this much…”
Tables turned a bit here. My middle son analyzes song lyrics, then clues me in and I’m all , “Really, THAT’S what this song’s about??”
Morgan says
My daughter is the middle child also, she gets it from me. It drives her crazy. I think it’s hilarious.
madamdreamweaver says
Good for you. Keep asking questions. What the words are saying behind the music is so very important. So many songs are about drugs or sex (including rape and brutality or other violence against women), suicide and so on. The hot song when my 14 yr old step-son was living with us back in the late 80’s was “I want your sex,” by George Michael and the girl he was “going with” in junior high lingo wrote him a note with those lyrics all written out. I was neither pleased or impressed.