Happiness through music

Looking for greater happiness? Scientists suggest that you listen to music from the happiest time in your life.

"One of the strong effects of music comes from its ability to remind us of previous environments in which we were listening to that music."

It's known as context dependent memory. 

Let’s say that your college years were the happiest time of your life. If you start listening to the music that you were listening to at that time, it can help you feel more connected to that happier time in your life and makes those happy feelings more present.

Makes sense. Right? Sort of suck all the joy of a particular time of your life into the present through song.

But here's the problem: 

How do you determine the happiest time of your life? Is everyone so unhappy that only one particular period of their life sticks out more than the rest?

I had an awful two years ranging from about 1992-1994, when I was jobless, homeless, violently assaulted, and awaiting a trial for a crime I did not commit. And while my childhood had its ups and downs, I still have a treasure-trove of fond memories from that time, too, but there was very little music in my life when I was a kid, so using music to connect back to that time is impossible.

But other than those two periods in my life, what am I supposed to choose. There have certainly been many other struggles in my life, but when was my happiest time?

1986-1989: Teenager finding freedom for the first time, dating my high school sweetheart, driving around town with the music blasting, carefree and excited, traveling the country with our marching band, meeting my best friend for the first time.

1989-1992: Eighteen years old and living with my best friend in a townhouse in Attleboro, MA that we named The Heavy Metal Playhouse. Hosting parties for 100 people at a time, traveling up and down the east coast, staying up all night, living so poor but so damn happy.

1994-1999: Finally fighting my way to college, launching our DJ company, making my dreams of a college education finally come true.

1999-2003: Launching the teaching career that I once thought an impossible dream, finding a job that I truly love, and making some of the best friends of my life.

2003-2005: I meet Elysha. We begin dating and quickly move in together, and get engaged.

2006: I marry the woman of my dreams. 

2006-2009: Elysha and I are married without kids, working side by side, going to every movie and hosting dinner parties. I sell my first and second novels, making my dreams of being an author a reality. 

2009-now: Clara and then Charlie are born. I begin performing onstage for The Moth. We launch Speak Up. I begin traveling the country and the world telling stories and teaching the craft of storytelling. I publish more books. Begin writing columns.

Honestly, how does a person choose the happiest time of his life? I can’t imagine living my life thinking my happiest years are behind me. What is it like for someone approaching 50 years-old knowing that they were never as happy as they were in college? Or high school? Or anytime in their past.

Sure, the music from those happy days might help them feel a little better about their present condition, but knowing that it’s all downhill from here, with no hope for happiness greater than that of the past, also seems pretty depressing to me.

Which coincidence would be more coincidental?

Regina Spektor’s song "On The Radio" - a personal favorite - has a chorus that goes:

On the radio
You'll hear ‘November Rain’
That solo's awful long
But it's a good refrain

You listen to it twice
'Cause the DJ is asleep
On the radio (Oh-oh-oh)
On the radio

So here’s my question:

Which would be more surprising based upon these lyric?:

To hear ‘November Rain’ played twice on the radio (because the DJ presumably fell asleep) or to hear ‘On the Radio’ played twice?

Elysha says ‘November Rain.’

I say ‘On the Radio.’

Honestly, I was just happy that she indulged me by answering my stupid question.

Worst concert ever

On Sunday Elysha and I went to the Blondie/Elvis Costello concert at Mohegan Sun. I’m not an Elvis Costello fan, but Elysha loves him, and the tickets were a gift from me.

And I like Blondie.

Of all the venues where we could see a concert, Mohegan Sun is one of our least favorites. The arena itself is fine, but needing to walk through a smoky casino in order to reach the arena is not fun, and exiting the arena at 10:00 to find parents dragging small children between slot machines and craps tables is not the way I like to end an evening of music and frivolity.

The concert had one other distinction:

It was the loudest concert I’ve ever attended. Blondie’s volume was fine, but Elvis Costello was offensively loud. In fact, he was so loud that Elysha told me later that she had considered leaving for a moment. As a person who has never liked Elvis Costello very much, I had intended on spending the show listening carefully to his music and looking for things to like.

Instead, I couldn’t discern a single lyric, and the more closely I listened, the more my ears hurt.

I saw Guns N Roses at The Orpheum in Boston in 1988. That was a loud concert.

I saw Motley Crue at the Worcester Centrum in that same year. Also loud.

But 64-year old Elvis Costello was the loudest of all. Considering that Elysha and I were two of the youngest people at the concert, maybe Costello was playing for an older, slightly hearing-impaired crowd.

Otherwise why play so damn loud?

While attempting to withstand the wall of sound, I found myself wondering:

What is the worst concert I’ve ever attended?

The answer came quickly:

In June of 2000, I saw Creed with some forgettable opening acts at the Meadows Music Theater. It was an awful concert.

First, it was Creed. While they admittedly had some enormous hits in the 1990’s, they were never my thing. Overwrought lyrics packed with Biblical imagery and hints of Christian rock was never my jam. That really should’ve been enough to keep me away, but a girl wanted to see the band, so I agreed to go.

But it wasn’t the music that made it the worst concert I’ve ever seen. It was lead singer Scott Stapp’s decision to spend enormous amounts of time between songs talking to the audience through a sound system that often made him incomprehensible. Stapp was already a questionably charismatic lead vocalist, seeming a little too preachy for my taste, but being forced to listen to him offer his thoughts between every song was too much for me.

The Meadows - now the Xfinity Center - is also an open air area, and it was oppressively hot that day.

Worst concert ever.

The concert that I expected to hate but surprisingly didn’t was New Kids on the Block circa 1989. I did not like the band at all but agreed to take my sister to the concert to make her happy.

I entered the arena planning to despise everything about the concert, but damn if I wasn’t caught up in the band’s energy and showmanship. I didn’t end up liking New Kids on the Block, but for about two hours that night, I loved those guys.

What was your worst concert ever?

A tribute to Chris Farley (and me)

I have no intention of ever dying, but in the very unlikely event that I do, I expect my friends to sing a song at least as funny and poignant as Adam Sandler’s song was on Saturday night about his friend, the late, great Chris Farley.

It was incredible.

You might want to work now, just in case.

And feel free to perform it on national TV, even before I’m dead. Why wait?

Advice from The Beatles

So many times in my life, I see something clever, brilliant, or truly inspired, and I think to myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Just last week, the trailer dropped for Danny Boyle’s latest film, Yesterday. It’s the story of a musician who wakes up in a world where The Beatles never existed, except that he knows they existed. He knows their music. He knows their songs.

He’s the only person on the planet who knows their songs.

Suddenly he’s in a position to become The Beatles. He can claim every Beatles song for himself. He can become world famous on the backs of other great musicians.

What do you do?

Elysha told me to watch the trailer, so I did. When I finished, she said, “I knew you’d like it. It’s the kind of story you would write.”

I thought, “It’s the kind of story I should’ve written! Damn it!”

So clever. Maybe even brilliant. Also an idea just waiting for the taking, and I didn’t take it. Screenwriter Richard Curtis did.

Kids get mad at "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Our kids love music.

Much of this is thanks to Elysha. As much as I love music, she loves it even more.

But it’s also in large part the result to hours of Spotify playlists playing in the car, the music playing often in our home, the endless conversations about music, and our before-bed ritual of climbing onto our bed as a family and listening to a final song to end the day.

As a result of all of this, Clara and Charlie care deeply about music and already have a great deal of background knowledge about music and the artists who make it.

This is almost always a good thing.

But yesterday morning, I was playing a playlist that featured Queen songs when “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on. Clara was in the front of the house, playing with toys, and Charlie was in the back of the house, doing the same. But about a minute into the song, both of them converged in the middle of the house, where I was working, to listen more closely to the song.

“What is this?” Charlie asked. “It makes no sense.”

“Is he okay?” Clara asked. “And why is he singing about Galileo? Does he even know who Galileo is? I don’t think he knows anything about Galileo?”

“What is this?” Charlie repeated, becoming more irritated by the second.

I tried to explain “Bohemian Rhapsody” to my children, but how do you explain “Bohemian Rhapsody” to anyone?

I tried to tell them that it’s a combination of hard rock, an opera, a ballad, and probably some other stuff that I’m not hearing or have forgotten. I told them that I think it’s a song about a man who is waiting to be executed for murder, but that might not be right at all.

I said, “It’s not supposed to make perfect sense.”

“No kidding,” Charlie said and stormed off.

Clara listened until the song was done. Then she turned to me. “Do you like that song, Daddy?”

“Yes,” I said. “A lot.”

“Okay,” she said and walked away. Unimpressed. Back to her toys.

I can’t help but wonder what Freddy Mercury would think all these years later if he knew how angry and befuddled my children became upon hearing his song.

I also can’t help but wonder how I reacted when I heard the song for the first time.

Maybe I was annoyed, too. Maybe it’’s the eventual, inevitable transformation of annoyance and befuddlement to acceptance and love that makes us love that song so much. Rather than a simple song with a simple message, “Bohemian Rhapsody” demands something from you, and as a result, it leaves its mark on your heart and soul.

I look forward to watching my kids fall in love with it like I have.

Elton returns.

Back in September, Elysha and I saw Elton John perform in Hartford, CT as part of his “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” farewell tour.

He was fantastic. Both of us left the concert feeling so good.

Then I saw the latest John Lewis and Partners, a high end department store in the UK which is famous for its Christmas ads, and I felt almost as good all over again.

I don’t know how they did it, but it is brilliant and beautiful, and for someone like me who swims in a sea of nostalgia and existentialism, a little bittersweet, too.

Weezer's "Africa" is Toto's "Africa." I don't get it.

You've probably heard Weezer's cover of Toto's song "Africa" at some point this summer. It's been the #1 song in America for the last three weeks and been on the charts for the last 12 weeks.

People love this song.

I don't get it. 

I'm not opposed to musicians covering the songs of other musicians, and I'm not opposed to those covers becoming popular.  

I'm a huge fan, for example of Joey Ramone's cover of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." Rufus Wainwright's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Aretha Franklin's cover of Otis Redding's "Respect." 

Many, many more. The Beatles "Twist and Shout." Guns N' Roses "Live and Let Die" and "Knocking on Heaven's Door." Soft Cell's "Tainted Love." The Fugee's "Killing Me Softly." Johnny Cash's "Hurt." 

But with each of these covers, the bands have changed the original version of the song in some fundamental way. Made it their own. Given the listener a new lens into something they thought they already knew.

Joey Ramone turns Louis Armstrong's classic slow song into high speed punk.

Rufus Wainwright takes a beautiful song that Leonard Cohen performed miserably and turns it into a classic (John Cale and Jeff Buckley probably deserve more credit for this than Rufus Wainwright, but I like Wainwright's version best). 

Aretha changes the meaning of "Respect" completely by singing it from the position of a woman, leading Redding to famously say that Franklin "stole that song from me."

But Weezer's version of "Africa?" As far as I can tell, Weezer tried like hell to make their cover sound exactly like Toto's original song. In fact, when I first heard the new version, it took me a minute to realize that it wasn't Toto's original song, and my first thought upon realizing that it was different was "Did Toto release an anniversary version of the song?"

Why cover a song when you're simply reproducing the song as close as possible to it's original form? And this is Weezer. They are nothing like Toto. They could've done something really inventive and interesting and new with the song, but instead, they did nothing.

They took Toto's sheet music, played the song, and recorded it. They play it well, but they certainly don't make it their own.  

And yes, the song went to #1 for three weeks. It's Weezer's biggest hit in a decade and their only chart topper. It's hard to argue with success.

Weezer will make a lot of money from this song. The success is impressive.  

But when it comes to artistry? Musicianship? Originality?  

Not so much. Weezer's version of "Africa" is fine, but I'll take Toto's version any day, because I prize artistry over mimicry. Originality over familiarity. Creativity over copying. 

Windows down. Music up.

Driving home alone after performing in Maine last week, I decided to spend the last hour of my four-hour drive with the windows down and the music up. 

Music blasted. Springsteen. Tom Petty. Tesla. The Ramones. Guns N' Roses. The Stones. The wind roared through the car. It was fantastic. 

As I roared down the highway, I looked around, taking note of how others were driving. Searching for my proverbial soulmates. Here is what I noticed:

Almost everyone drives on the highway with their windows up. Actually, almost everyone drives everywhere with their windows up. The vast majority of people travel via automobile in their own climate-controlled bubbles of air and sound.

What a shame. 

Part of this may be generational. When I was first learning to driving, air conditioning was far less prevalent than it is today. In 2017, 99% of all new automobiles came equipped with AC as a standard feature.

But in 1970, only 54% of cars were equipped with air conditioning.

In fact, the first three cars that I owned - all built in the 1970's and driven by me in the 1980's - did not have AC. Instead I drove with the windows down. Allowed fresh air to flow through my car. Offered my musical tastes to the world. 

It was glorious. It still is glorious. 

If you haven't done this in a while, you must. The next time you are driving on the highway or any place of any distance, lower all the windows. Choose some of your favorite music and turn it up. 

I drove for four hours from Maine to Connecticut. For the first three hours, I listened to books and podcasts and stopped for breakfast, but can't remember a dam thing about the drive. It was like every other long, forgettable distance drive.

But that last hour, heading west in Interstate 84, wind roaring through the car as Thunder Road and Satisfaction and I Wanna Be Sedated blasted from the speakers - I remember it well. 

I smile when I think back on that final hour.

And when I finally arrived home, I was energized. When I stepped out of my car, I was almost running to see Elysha and the kids. Part of it was the excitement of seeing them after a night away, but a bigger part was that I was excited and happy and filled with music. 

What a joyous, riotous feeling.   

Escape your climate-controlled bubble. Let the wind mess up your hair. Blast your music in the way you did when you were a teenager and understood the power and importance of song.

Grab hold of a some of that primacy again. 

Eric Carmen's "Make Me Lose Control" is weird on many, many levels, including being inexplicably stuck in my head.

Standing in McDonald's yesterday morning, waiting to order, a song came on the sound system that I couldn't immediately identify but oddly knew by heart.

I started singing along and was shocked to discover I knew every single word.  

The song was Eric Carmen's "Make Me Lose Control." It was originally released in 1975 and then re-released following the success of Carmen's "Hungry Eyes" on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Apparently the song rose to #3 on the billboard charts that year, but I honestly have no recollection of ever hearing this song, and yet I know every word of it.

It's crazy.

I was never an Eric Carmen fan.
I never owned an Eric Carmen album.
It probably hasn't been played on the radio since 1990. 

Isn't that strange... knowing stuff so completing that you didn't know you knew?

A similar thing happened to me a couple years ago when I discovered that I also knew Richard Marx's "Should've Known Better" on a drive with Elysha to New York. Had you asked me if I knew the song before it came on the radio, I would've said no, but there it was, trapped in my brain.

Every damn word. 

Realizing that I knew the song caused me to watch the video, of course, which turned out to be interesting, too. 

The video opens on a beach with a woman listening to the radio. We hear a radio disc jockey and Eric Carmen listening to the end of "Hungry Eyes" and talking about the song as the scene shifts from the beach to the actual radio station. The DJ plays "Make Me Lose Control." Carmen and the DJ shake hands, and Carmen leaves.

Then the scene shifts again. Now Carmen is now driving in a car in the 1950's, recreating a famous scene from American Graffiti when Richard Dreyfuss sees a beautiful woman in a T-Bird who mouths the words, "I love you" but they never meet.

This is odd because Carmen is singing about how much he loves Jennifer, the girl presumably sitting beside him in the car. In order to mitigate this problem, the director puts three people in the car. Carmen (who oddly isn't driving) alongside a woman and a man. Perhaps we're supposed to believe the mystery woman in the T-Bird is Jennifer, but he never meets this woman but sings about Jennifer as if they've been in love for a long time.

It makes no damn sense. 

Carmen is also wearing the same clothing in the 1950's version of himself as he's wearing in the 1980's.

Also makes no damn sense.  

Now for the serious question:

Near the end of the video, we oddly flashback to the radio station for a moment, where the DJ is now throwing darts at the photo of a man on a wall.

Who is this person? Why is he throwing darts at his face? What the hell is going on here? Please tell me. 

The video then shifts back to the 1950's before once again returning to the radio station, where the DJ closes the song with classic DJ speak,  and we then return to the beach, where we hear the final bars of the song as the girl picks up her radio and heads off into the sun. 

That is a lot for a music video. That's meta before meta was a thing. 

Listening to a song being performed by its musician in the 1980's who then introduces his next song so he can go back to the 1950's to pretend to be someone else from a movie in the 1970's about the 1950's before returning to the radio station in the 1980's (absent the musician now) and finally the beach. 

Damn. 

Someone thought all of that would make for an excellent music video. 

This video has aged badly. Very, very badly.

I like this song. It's always a hit when I play it at a wedding. 

But the video has not aged well. In fact, I would argue that it's become nearly unwatchable. If Michael Jackson were alive today, it would behoove him to scrub it completely from the Internet. 

It's not good in a really not good way. 

It's 9:00 on a Saturday...

During my 21 years as a wedding DJ, I have played Billy Joel's "Piano Man" at 9:00 on a Saturday whenever possible.

Hundreds of times. 

Only once - La Renaissance, September 2011 - did someone notice.

Bruce and Clarence sharing a kiss, over and over and over again

I love these photos of Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons kissing on stage, which they did routinely when Clarence was still alive and performing with Bruce.

I love these photos for three reasons:

1. As a fan, I love witnessing the love shared between two men who I admire so much. 
2. I love the way this expression of friendship and love runs so counter to what you'd expect from two rock and roll icons. 
3. I love the way it enrages the bigots who love their music but are repulsed by the notion of two men kissing each other on the lips regardless of the context.   

I missed so much of '90's culture. Unfortunately?

I was listening to an interview with Bob Saget, who once starred in a show called Full House, which featured the Olson twins. 

Other than what I just stated, I know nothing about this show. I never watched the show, and I wasn't even aware of its existence until well after it had ended its run. This may not seem like a big deal, but it turns out that this show has enormous cultural relevance. 

The Olson twins, for example. They seem to be everywhere. John Oliver makes a joke about them on his HBO show all the time, and every time, I think, "Is this just a twin joke, or is there something more to this joke that I don't understand?"

There was also a guy on that show who wore terrible sweaters (I don't know how I know this or if it's even true) and a bunch of other kids, and Bob Saget, of course, who I know as a comic who tells jokes that are definitely for an adult audience only but who somehow appeared on a TV show with little twin girls. 

The show is a mystery to me.  

I have similar problems with almost all of television, film, and music from the time when Full House was on the air. 

Boy Meets World, for example. I once worked with an attorney whose son was a star of the show, but I had no idea that the show even existed. I also work with a teacher named Mr. Feeney. When I mention his name to people, they often laugh and say, "Like Boy Meets World!" 

I have no idea what they are talking about. 

This is because from 1992 until about 1994, I didn't own a television. I was homeless and then living with a family of Jehovah Witnesses, working two full time jobs in order to pay the attorney who would represent me in court during the trial for a crime I didn't commit.  

Then, from 1994 until 1999, I was attending two colleges full time (earning two degrees) while managing a McDonald's restaurant full time and working in the college writing center part-time. I was also Treasurer of the Student Council, President of the National Honor Society, and columnist for the school newspaper. 

In 1997, I launched my DJ company with my partner.

Looking back, I really don't know how I did it all. But one way was to stop consuming almost all media.  Almost all popular culture from 1992-1999, and especially from 1992-1994, is lost to me. 

This means I have no understanding about things like Saved By the Bell, Family Matters, Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, Home Improvement, The Wonder Years, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and many more.

I've managed to catch up on Seinfeld, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Friends, but not until much later.

I missed out on all those 90's slacker films like Dazed and Confused, Clerks, and Reality Bites. I missed classics like Boys in the Hood, Pulp Fiction, and The Usual Suspects. I've since caught up on many of these films, but it turns out that if you're not watching a movie like Reality Bites in the early 1990s or Clerks when Kevin Smith is still a relative unknown, it's just not the same. 

I missed out on the rise of bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day and Radiohead. Again, I caught up with them later on, but if you're not listening to Nirvana in the '90's, you can't help but feel a little detached to what they are singing about.

And then there are shows like Full House. I'm never going to watch an episode of that show. Even if I had the time, I can't imagine that it's worth my time. Instead, I will move through life slightly lost, wondering if the Olson twins were two separate characters on the show or body doubles for each other.

Wondering why so many children live with three men and one woman.

Wondering if Uncle Jessie is a Full House reference (he seems to get mentioned in conversation surrounding this show) or a reference to the Uncle Jessie from The Dukes of Hazard. 

Wondering how a foul-mouthed comic like Bob Saget got cast to appear on a show alongside so many children. 

Things I do #12: I worry about people mentioned in songs who are frozen in time.

I first heard Jonathan Coulton's song "Code Monkey" about ten years ago. It's a song about a lovelorn computer programmer who is pining over an office receptionist. 

After offering a soda to the receptionist and being told that she is too busy to chat, Code Monkey slinks back to his cubicle, "not feeling so great."

The final set of lyrics before the chorus go like this:

Code Monkey think someday he have everything
Even pretty girl like you
Code Monkey just waiting for now
Code Monkey say someday, somehow

Tragic. Right. Code Money is waiting for "someday, somehow."

How many people in this world spend their whole lives waiting for "someday, somehow?"

Ever since I first heard this song, my heart has ached for Code Monkey. Coulton's song has trapped him in this moment of yearning, dreaming, and loss.

Does Code Monkey ever escape the mindless drudgery of his job? The disregard of his superiors? Does he find the creativity that he desires to badly? Does he ever get his pretty girl?

It's stupid and ridiculous and a little embarrassing, but my heart breaks every time I hear this song, not for the Code Monkey of the song but for the Code Monkey beyond the song. The future Code Monkey.

Does he make his dreams come true? I want to know. I need to know. "Someday, somehow" are words that haunt me. 

Here's the truth:

I don't think he does. I don't think Code Monkey gets everything. So few people do.

And it breaks my heart. Every single time. 

Crazy. I know.  

When you think the awful cover is the original song

Have you ever discovered that a song you love by a particular band or singer is actually the cover of a much more famous (and better) version of the song?

I hate that. 

I'm not talking about the covers that few people know about. Like Joan Jett and the Blackheart's I Love Rock n' Roll, which is actually the cover of a song by The Arrows. Or Soft Cell's Tainted Love, which is the cover of a Gloria Jones song. Or The Clash's I Fought the Law, which is a cover of a Bobby Fuller Four song.

These are obscure and understandably missed. Also the covers are much better than the originals.  

I'm talking about the embarrassing mistakes. The glaring errors. The classic songs that you simply didn't know existed. 

For me, the most embarrassing song is The Drifter's Under the Boardwalk, which I once thought was a Bruce Willis original from his 1987 album The Return of Bruno. 

Almost as bad was once thinking that Sitting on the Dock of the Bay was a Michael Bolton original. Forgive me, Otis Redding. I was young and foolish. 

These are not the only two. The following examples are not quite as egregious but still fairly stupid. In some cases, one could argue that the covers of some of these songs are better than the originals, but the originals are certainly good enough to be known:

• Mistaking Hazy Shade of Winter as a Bangles' original
• Mistaking Killing Me Softly as a Fugees' original 
• Mistaking Do You Want to Dance as a Ramones' original (it's actually a cover of a Beach Boys song, which itself is a cover of a Bobby Freeman song)
• Mistaking Respect as an Aretha Franklin original 
• Mistaking Twist and Shout as a Beatles original 

Here's one I just learned about:

Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You is the cover of a Dolly Parton original.

Elysha knew this, but she is a legitimate musical savant when it comes to these things, so there's no telling if this is common knowledge or just Elysha being Elysha. 

Lyric Problems: Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth"

Belinda Carlisle claims again and again in her 1987 Billboard #1 hit "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" that:

"They say in heaven, love comes first."

No, they don't. This is not a commonly used (or ever used) expression. No one says this. This song is the only place where these words are spoken.

In fact, I ran a search on the King James Bible. The three words "love comes first" do not appear sequentially anywhere in The Bible.

Also, who are "they?"

Donald Trump is fond of say that "People are saying this..." and "They say that..." but he's lying every single time. Absent of an actual, quotable human being, Trump claims that people are speaking in his favor but is incapable of pointing to any specific person. 

I'm not attempting to compare Belinda Carlisle to Donald Trump, and I understand that there's a big difference between the veracity of the President of the United States and a musician. Carlisle didn't even write the song. That credit goes to Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley.

Still, "they" don't say in heaven that "Love comes first." Not as far as I can tell.  

That lyric has annoyed me for 30 years. 

Lyric Problems: Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe"

Carly Rae Jepsen's 2016 hit song "Call Me Maybe" was a favorite of mine during the summer and fall of that year as it packed floors at weddings where I was working as a DJ.

But I have one problem with the song. One niggling complaint. 

The chorus of the song goes:

Hey I just met you
And this is crazy
But here's my number
So call me maybe
It's hard to look right at you baby
But here's my number
So call me maybe

"This is crazy?" I don't understand what is "crazy" about the scenario described. You meet someone who you find attractive, so you ask for or offer your phone number in hopes of reconnecting. 

This is not crazy. It's normal. It's how dating works. Right?

Or it's how dating worked when I was dating. Many a time I met a girl at a party or a dance club or the beach or the mall or a concert or Disney World or the the produce section in the Stop & Shop in Attleboro, MA or a rest area on I-95 in New Hampshire or a liquor store in Myrtle Beach (to name a few), and after talking for a while, I asked if I could have her number and call her sometime. 

Not crazy. Just dating. Right?

Lyric Problems: Rachel Platten's "I'll Stand By You"

Rachel Platten is a popular female soloist who is best known for her anthem Fight Song but also for her almost equally popular I'll Stand By You.

I like I'll Stand By You, but I have a serious problem with a specific lyric that ruins the song for me. 

Platten sings:

Oh, truth, I guess truth is what you believe in
And faith, I think faith is helping to reason

No, Rachel. Your definitions of truth and reason suck. They aren't even close.

In fact, "truth is what you believe in" is one of the biggest problems in our country today. 

Truth is not what you believe in. Truth is verifiable fact. It is fixed and immutable, regardless of what Donald Trump may want you to think..

As many times as Trump may say that his inauguration crowd was historically large or Barack Obama wasn't born in America or his most recent healthcare bill failed to pass because a GOP Senator was in the hospital, none of these things are truth, even if Trump wants you to believe them.

Even if Trump believes them.

And "faith is helping to reason?" 

No, Rachel. Also not true. Faith is the belief and a trust in something or someone absent verifiable fact. Faith is what you belief in. It a belief in the love of a parent, the bond of friendship, or the existence of a god or gods. 

It has nothing to do with reason. Nothing at all. In fact, if the definitions in her song were reversed and read:

Oh, truth, I guess truth is helping to reason
And faith, I think faith is what you believe in

... this would make sense. Maybe not complete sense, but a lot closer than how Platten sings the song. 

And honestly, I have to wonder:

WAS NO ONE LISTENING WHEN SHE RECORDED THIS SONG?

No producer or fellow musician or audio technician or manager or agent or record executive heard the stupidity in these two lyrics and said, "Hey Rachel, hold on there a minute. I'm not sure if that makes sense. Actually, I know it makes no sense whatsoever."

I like I'll Stand By You. I really do. At least until I hear those dumbass definitions.  

Someone wrote a song about me! About me!

Spotify recently added podcasts to its offerings. Wondering if my podcast, Boy vs. Girl, had been added, I asked Alexa, our Amazon Echo, to play Boy vs. Girl.

She told me that she couldn't find it on Spotify.

Then I asked her to play "Matthew Dicks," hoping it might pick up my name as one of the hosts of the podcast. 

"Playing Matthew Dicks on Spotify."

Then Spotify began playing a song about me. 

You can imagine my shock. Also my glee. 

It's a song produced by the Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library in conjunction with a TEDx Talk I gave in Somerville back in 2014 about the importance of saying yes.

I had no idea it existed. I was fairly exuberant about its existence. Elysha was also exuberant but became less so as I continued to play the song and express my excitement, pride, and lust for the tune.

I may have become insufferable in the span of about 15 minutes.

Still, a song about me! Mistakenly discovered on Spotify! I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

When you put things out into the world (in this case, a TEDx Talk), you never know what will come back to you.