Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Pop Music

My cyberpal Jennifer Jones has a lovely, uplifting blog called Goodness Graciousness. Her postings never fail to make me reflect, smile, and remember what we're all made of. Recently she added a YouTube clip of The Monkees theme song. I was a great fan of The Monkees' made-for-TV music back in the third or fourth grade, and enjoyed singing along to their simple lyrics: "People say we monkey around; but we're too busy singing to put anybody down."

I sang a lot of other songs too, some not so light and carefree:

"I just can't get over losing you
And so if I seem broken and blue
Walk on by, walk on by

Foolish pride
Is all that I have left
So let me hide
The tears and the sadness you gave me
When you said goodbye"

(Walk On By, by Burt Bachrach)

What an attitude to take on by the time you're nine years old! There's a painful belief in every line; ouch.

You know the way love songs take on deep meaning when you're in love? After I began questioning the concepts that caused me to suffer, the silliest songs took on deep meaning for me. I started to wonder if songwriters were all enlightened beings.

"Hey life, look at me
I can see the reality
'Cause when you took me, shook me out of my world
I woke up
Suddenly I just woke up
To the happening"

(The Happening, by Brian Holland et. al.)

The rest of that song isn't so uplifting, but you get my drift.

I didn't pay a lot of attention to the meaning of song lyrics in my youth. (As my mother complained, many of the words to the rock songs I listened to were barely audible anyhow.) However I can't help but think the words made an impression on me, consciously or not. While I wasn't too busy singing to put anybody down, especially myself...I wanted to be. I knew at at early age that being mean didn't feel right. I didn't know how to do it differently and not feel like an oyster out of its shell. Sometimes I still feel that way; unsafe, unprotected, broken.

And yet, moody or blue, I have always known my true nature. All of us have always known it.

"And when you stop and think about it
You won't believe its true
That all the love you've been giving
Has all been meant for you....
It's where we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need"

(Question, The Moody Blues)

Sometimes we appear to forget who we are, that's all.

And the remembrance—being mindful once more—is so sweet, and simple...like a popular song.


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.