I don’t have a particular reason for writing this post today, except that I’ve been meaning to write it for a while. In late 2010, I had the good fortune to see this embedded performance of William Finn’s Elegies, a song cycle he wrote about the people in his life who had passed away. Finn—who also wrote Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee—is my favorite musical theatre composer because his lyrics burst with unusual details that make the characters feel remarkably alive. Matched with his complex-yet-accessible melodies, his words make each song feel like missives from a peculiar, beautiful world.

Elegies is especially rich with songs like that. In “Infinite Joy,” for instance, the singer reflects on the philosophy of a departed loved one:

“Goodness is rewarded.
Hope is guaranteed.
Laughter builds strong bones.
Right will intercede.
Things you said, I often find I need.”

But more than that philosophy, the singer reflects on how easy that philosophy has become to adopt—how much and how potently it makes the drab daily world seem astonishing. And that’s where the specificity elevates the lyrics:

“I see the world through your eyes:
I taste lemon on my lips.
I marvel at the sailing ships
of well-dressed girls and boys.
You told me life
has infinite joys.”

Lemon on the lips. Such a distinct sensation. Marveling at beautiful children on a ship. Such a lovely thing to imagine marvelling at. And it tells you so much about this person who has died. It makes them stand just behind your chair.

And brilliantly, the song is also vague enough to let us fill in the rest. We don’t even know the gender of this person, but we know that he or she found bottomless happiness everywhere, even in the taste of lemon.

That’s something a lot of composers miss, I think. A song like this doesn’t work if you’re just reciting everything you and your lover bought at the market yesterday. Even in its specificity,the song has to give the listener’s mind something to do. It has to tantalize, not delineate, our imagination.

And that leads me to the one-two punch of “14 Dwight Ave., Natick, Massachusetts” and “When the Earth Stopped Turning,” two songs that tell one continuous story. Watch this clip—from the performance I saw at Pace University in Manhattan—and see if you’re as moved by these songs as I always am. (Forgive the home video quality.)

[Read more →]

[#40-31; #30-21; #20-11] [Last year's countdown]

Here they are: The best of the best, the most of the most, the… you know.

[Read more →]

[#40-31;#30-21] [Last year's countdown]
The countdown continues! Get ready for some devastating ballads and a few happy songs that are so happy you’ll probably freak with all the happiness.

[Read more →]

[#40-31] [Last year's countdown]
Welcome back! Let’s keep things rolling with some very, very cute boys. Oh, and some good songs, too…

[Read more →]

[See Last Year's Countdown]

Now that I’ve absorbed the music I bought with Christmas gift cards, I am ready to anoint my top 40 songs of 2011. As you know, this countdown is mandated by my DNA, so I am delighted to once again fulfill my genetic destiny.

2011 delivered a lot of great ballads, but curiously, the first leg of the countdown is entirely uptempo. So think of this as your dance warmup, y’all! Headbands and torn sweatshirts… activate!

[Read more →]

My official music round up will come in early January, after I sort through the albums I get for Christmas. For now, though, I have call your attention to a pair of phenomenal new songs and one extremely disappointing single from a very talented star.

[Read more →]

This week, two tiny tempests have been created by two holiday carols, and both dustups teach the same lesson.

On Monday, news broke that a music teacher at a Michigan elementary school had stripped the word “gay” from “Deck the Halls.” Instead, she had her students sing “don we now our BRIGHT apparel.” (She apparently made this decision because students kept snickering at the word “gay.”)

By Tuesday,the word was back in, amid frustrations from parents about the “inappropriate” substitution and a reminder from the school’s principal that the school’s anti-discrimination policy includes LGBT protections.

Meanwhile, the blog of the excellent, feminist-leaning magazine Bitch revived the debate about whether “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is “rapey” in its depiction of a man and woman deciding if they’re going to stay in on a cold night and have sex. This debate is new to me, but apparently, it’s been going on for a while, and as writer Kelsey Wallace, points out, it largely centers on the moment when the (traditionally) female singer coos, “Say, what’s in this drink?” For some, this lyric implies that the woman has been drugged so that she can’t possibly leave the man’s house.

The lively discussion on Wallace’s post included a link to a 2010 blog post for Persephone Magazine that rebukes the “rapey” reading of that line. The author writes, “‘Say, what’s in this drink’ is a well-used phrase that was common in movies of the time period and isn’t really used in the same manner any longer. The phrase generally referred to someone saying or doing something they thought they wouldn’t in normal circumstances; it’s a nod to the idea that alcohol is ‘making’ them do something unusual. But the joke is almost always that there is nothing in the drink. The drink is the excuse.”

And that’s where the two stories overlap. In both cases, a 2011 sensibility is being used to understand work from a different cultural era. Little kids are laughing at the implied homosexuality of “gay apparel,” and critics are saying there are roofies in the drink.

What’s more, people in both cases are suggesting that the best way to deal with these cultural disconnections is to eliminate the offending phrases. The teacher cut the word “gay” from “Deck the Halls”. Kelsey Wallace ends her post by saying shopping malls should stop playing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” altogether.

Granted, the teacher put the word back in the song and plenty of the blog’s commenters defended “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Given the context of both the phrases, I’d say that’s the right call. Rather than rewriting a standard carol, teachers can tell their students that “gay” means more than one thing. Rather than banning a chestnut, critics can dig deeply into the context of the line that bothers them. If they still object to the song, then so be it, but at least they can ground their opinion in a larger understanding of how the tune was intended. (This is essentially what Wallace does in the comments section beneath her post.)

But for me, this entire situation is a reminder that when you’re having a knee-jerk reaction to something that offends or frustrates you, looking for context is very hard. It’s much easier to just go ahead and follow your first instinct. It’s much easier to justify banning the thing that bothers you than to really explore it.

As someone with a left-leaning bias, I often see misogynist and/or racist and/or homophobic subtexts in things. I typically stand by of those readings, but as the 2011 Carol Wars demonstrate, it’s never bad to step back, take a breath, and investigate the things that irk or offend. There might be calmer, gentler, or more-informed perspectives just waiting to be discovered. Those perspectives don’t have to sabotage our critical responses to culture. They can simply make them more nuanced and satisfying.

"Justin, you're old enough to look at this, right?"

I took deep breaths, counted to ten, and even slept on it… and  Justin Bieber and Mariah Carey’s remake of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” still makes me angry. So won’t you join me as I process these turbulent feelings?

I’ve been aware of the duet for several months, but I didn’t realize it was such an unholy beast until Linda Holmes playfully deconstructed its music video at Monkey See. She nails the cheap consumerism and icky sexuality on display, so I won’t rehash her points. I’m just adding one more grievance to her list.

Take a look and then join me in surveying the horror:

[Read more →]

Recently, my mom mailed me some odds and ends from my childhood—old photos, favorite books, bits of writing, etc.

Imagine my amazement when I uncovered “Cinderella in ’88,” a story I wrote in 1988 that is remarkably prescient about the person I would become. Apparently, my core interests and my love of camp were already cemented when I was nine years old.

After the jump, I am happy to present this story in full. If you are a television or film executive, please email me to discuss development deals.

Note: Punctuation and phrasing are recreated exactly as they appear on the print-out my mom saved.

[Read more →]

Hello everyone! Forgive my lengthy absence. Life has gotten wild recently.

But I’m back today with Roommate Joe to discuss last night’s announcement of the Grammy nominees. Take a look at who made the cut, then join Joe and me as we sort through our many thoughts and feelings. Be prepared for a shocking revelation about Katy Perry, a call to women everywhere, and a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of Skrillex.

[Read more →]