This Song Saved My Life

“I was broken 
I was choking
I was lost
this song saved my life
I was bleeding stopped believing
could have died
this song saved my life
I was down
I was drowning
but it came on just in time
this song saved my life”

This Song Saved My Life – Simple Plan

At first listen Simple Plan songs seem nothing more than a bunch of Canadians having a whine about how hard life is. And generally, this is the truth for majority of their songs. But as I blogged about last week Simple Plan manage to hit the note with a few of their songs and go places where no other lyrics have quite gone yet. Previously I talked about how happy I was many years ago when I heard a band finally say I’m not perfect. This week, I’ve picked out another Simple Plan song which says what hasn’t yet been said as blatantly as above: music has the ability to save our lives.

This song was written for Simple Plan fans after the band received numerous messages that their songs had touched the listeners and not only changed, but saved their lives. Without doubt it is possible to connect so intensely with a song it pulls a listener out of their dark patch. Music may not cure complicated personal problems, but music does show there are others out there suffering the same problems and things will be okay. And music inspires us to lead better lives and seek change, thus saving what could have been a mediocre life experience into a worthwhile change. Below is the video for This Song Saved My Life which depicts the awful lives of slavery some people are forced into, but by sharing this story Simple Plan have, hopefully, influenced people to save a life.

While researching this blog I came across Music Saves Lives. They are a charity who’ve realised there is a connection between young people wanting to make a change and the inspiration which music can bring, and fused the ideas together. They educate society about the importance of blood donation and transfusion in a way which speaks to people from all walks of society. This isn’t the only way in which music has been used as a fundraising medium. From charity songs – my favourite still being Feel Inside by Flight of the Conchords – through to music festivals which raise money and awareness, music is, all around us, helping benefit people to lead a better life.

I’ve thought about writing this blog for a long time now, and I held off until I was sure I could successfully write about this song. It’s a risky area to talk about the themes in this song, particularly the parts which touch of depression and suicide, and it’s a song which means a lot to me. I thought this blog would be more sombre as I touched on these topics, but instead I feel more at peace than when I started, as though the thought of knowing there is always a way to be pulled from dark spaces and inspired is incredibly satisfying – and life saving.   

This is the video depicting slavery

And the official music video 

Perfect

“'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect”

Perfect – Simple Plan

Simple Plan are the target of a lot of criticism, and most of it is justifiable. They are said to be whiny, over dramatic, immature and simplistic in their music. While catchy at times, their songs haven’t really moved forward throughout the years and it’s all a bit repetitive. I agree with these points, and have mostly moved on from listening as obsessively as I did during my early teenage years. There’s the odd guilty pleasure from their first album and I can’t fault their latest on the catchiness factor. But, in my opinion, Simple Plan have bought out two songs throughout their career which are the only songs I have heard stand up and say what no other artist has yet managed to. Song one is today's blog and the second song is the topic of next week's post.  

Amongst Simple Plan fun, pop rock tracks on their first album No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls was Perfect, and it became one of their biggest hits. When it came out when I was about 12 years old and entering that awkward teenage stage of life where everything seemed tough. I remember hearing this song in year seven and taking it to heart and for the past ten years Perfect has been my favourite song. It has average backing music, an average lead singer and is in an average genre, but the best message I’ve heard.

Finally, someone had stood up and said “I’m not perfect”. And that’s not easy to admit. Making mistakes, coming anything but first and not being the favourite is tough to stomach. I grew up doing competitive sport and I hated not winning. I hated going through school and failing assignments. And I hated disappointing others because I just wasn’t able to reach perfection. But Simple Plan got the message across – there are other people who are looking for you to be perfect, and they disapprove when you can’t make it. It’s not through a lack of trying or a lack of will power, but simply because getting to that level of perfection, no matter how hard we push ourselves, is beyond what is capable for this one person.

I don’t believe in perfection.  And I’m not sorry I don’t. I think the problem society has is we are so busy striving for this perfection we think mistakes and failure are the epitome of terribleness. I make mistakes every single day – in my working life, with my social circle, in decisions and in justifications and actions. And I have failed more times than I can count. But from these mistakes and failures I have learned and grown and tried hard not to make the same errors again. These lessons, coupled with drive and a trying nature to do the best we can, is far more beneficial to us than attempting to gain perfection and crawling away defeated when we can’t reach it.  

Play the Game

“Play the game everybody play the game of love
This is your life - don't play hard to get
It's a free free world all you have to do is fall in love
Play the game yeah play the game of love
Your life - don't play hard to get
It's a free free world all you have to do is fall in love”

Play the Game – Queen

Life is said to be like many things – a box of chocolates, a party, a coin which you can only spend once, a great big canvas or just like a game. If you play the right hand, roll the dice perfectly, make the smartest moves and align with the best against the enemy, you will win, right? But just what game are we talking about here.

Is life like a game of Scrabble, where if we choose the right words we get the highest points? Or is it more like Monopoly – the best thing to do is own property, build on and take a chance every now and again while avoiding jail. How about The Game of Life, which makes living seem like plain sailing through university, easily getting married and securing top notch job. Or is life the murder mystery that is Cluedo or the bluffing nature of Poker, the strategy and chance of Risk or even a puzzle like a jigsaw? Is it, in fact, not based on a bestselling rainy day activity, but something sporty? Is life the brutal force of rugby, the precision of golf or the patience of cricket? Is life like a game show where the point is to answer the right question and win the money?  How about life being like a drinking game – drink with your mates until you forget and you will be merry.  Or is life just a stupid game someone invented and if you think about it, you lose (you just lost the game).

And even if we did know which game to play in life, do we play the same game for each part of our varying lives? I can see scrabble going terribly wrong if you use the wrong words with the one you love. And imagine trying to take over different departments of your job like in Risk. Then there are the rules: everyone has different ideas of the best way to play. For example, when I partake in a game of Circle of Death each card represents something different each time. And finally, the biggest question of all: who do you choose to play your game with?

To me, if life is a game and you have to play it, I feel you should play your own game. Call me cliché but if all the games above can be invented by someone, then surely your own life’s game can be invented to. From all I’ve read and heard over my years, we should play by our own rules and form alliances based on our own opinions and most importantly abstain from cheating our through life. 

My House

“I’m gonna take you back to my house
I love the feeling when you touch me baby
It’s not as good when I’m by myself
You know you make me go woohoo oo oo oo”

My House – Kids of 88

When you were younger did you ever split your vegetables into three different categories? There were the ones you loved, the ones you hated, and the ones you were indifferent to. Nowadays, you still love the ones you loved (mmmm carrots) and probably hate the same ones ( I’m looking at you capsicum), but the indifferent ones have again been divided into two categories. There’s the one’s you are still indifferent to (spinach), and that one vegetable you have recently rediscovered and realised tastes amazing and you’re all like WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE (PARSNIPS)!?

The point of this blog was not to get you to like parsnips or complain about vegetables, but rather make you think about that feeling of complete joy when you discover just how good something is when you dive a little further into it. This is the feeling I got a few weeks ago when I heard Kids of 88 live for the first time. This duo has been spinning tracks for quite a few years now, but they’ve somehow slipped under the radar of my musical listening. I knew who they are and I knew some of their music, I have a couple of tracks on my iPod, and I even threw a few into playlists on the student radio last year, but I had never taken the plunge into full on fandom.

Until now. Until I agreed to go to see them at Homegrown a month ago. I remember walking into the Pop Tent at 8:30pm after seven hours of dancing to Luger Boa, Clap Clap Riot, Villainy, Aaradhna and Elemeno P. The crowd were getting tired; they were getting pushy and snapping at strangers and the air, though excited, was a bit tense. This was, however, all forgotten from the first moment the stage lights came up and the duo (well, quadruple) kicked into Downtown. I’ve said it in so many blogs but it is so prominent; nothing is better than that moment you see a band live and you forget everything except for the people on stage and the music they are making. Kids of 88 sucked me into their world for the whole hour and made me dance and sing like no one was watching. I couldn’t believe these guys hadn’t been part of my music listening before.

Now, their music is in my iTunes library and gets blasted out of the car stereo constantly with sing-alongs. My friend and I are scouring the internet looking for their next gig because we can’t get enough of them – we’ve already seen them open for fun. since Homegrown. So, thank you Kids of 88 for your music and your amazing shows and making NZ music fantastic. You are welcome at my house any time. Perhaps for some parsnips?

How You Remind Me

“Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
Tired of living like a blind man
I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling
And this is how you remind me

This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am”

How You Remind Me – Nickelback

Ahh, Nickelback. The band everyone hates, loves to hates, or loves but pretend to hates because everyone else hates them. This is the band with the lead singer described as the ugliest man in rock music, and this is the band ridiculed over and over again in movies and on television and all over the internet.

So how does such a band manage to hold the number one most played song on the radio in the 2000’s? Yes, you read that right – How You Remind Me topped the charts for weeks in 2001 and was the only rock song to take the number one spot on the Billboard charts between then and 2008, when Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was released. How You Remind Me was also named the number 4 song of the 2000’s in the USA, playing more than 1.2 million times between 2001 and 2009, and was nominated for a Grammy - record of the year. To top it all off, in the 2000’s they managed to be the second best-selling act in the USA. Number one was The Beatles. Not bad for a band everyone hates.

So … how does this happen? Sure, it may have been one of their first hits, and certainly their break out hit, but there’s no way this has carried them for most of the 2000’s. They had the rest of Silver Side Up and two more albums during that time – surely someone would have realised Nickelback’s generic rock song and stopped playing How You Remind Me, like, immediately.

To get some answers I googled “why is Nickelback so terrible but How You Remind Me a number one song?” This generated some interesting views but there was one which really caught my eye*. It talked about how Nickelback is the most popular unpopular band there ever was – and he’s right, there is no other band like Nickelback. No one else is this terrible but this popular. Nickelback know they suck – but they don’t care what society thinks because they make so much fucking money.

This blog was neither to stick up for and slam Nickelback – I like a bit of their music and enjoyed their concert a few years ago, but they are far from a favourite band. No, this blog was to get you thinking and see if you can answer the question I am puzzled over: why is this band so hated yet so successful?

*This article was the rather interesting one on this topic http://www.chelsey.co.nz/entertainment/music/defending-nickelback

Let Her Go

“Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go”

Let Her Go – Passenger (aka Mike Rosenberg)

To make my life simpler and easier I name my blogs after the title song. This blog is technically called Let Her Go – but if I could give it another name it would be How to Confuse Your Audience in Five Songs.

Let me explain. Last Saturday night the gorgeous and talented Ed Sheeran took over Vector Arena with a fantastic performance. Like with most concerts there were the opening acts to sit through. I thought I had my faith renewed in these acts since discovering Luger Boa, Clap Clap Riot and other great Kiwi musicians. Alas, it wasn’t so with this recent event, as Mike – or “Passenger” - came on stage for a quick visit before handing over to the world’s favourite red head.

Passenger started off his set with a new song. It was so new, Passenger informed us, we should bear with him if he got the lyrics wrong or messed up the chords. Okay, not a convincing start. Onto song number two, which was a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence. Passenger said he wanted the crowd to be ... silent for the song (I see what you did there, Mike). The cover was, most unfortunately, one of the worst, overdramatic covers I’d ever heard. I just didn’t get it. Song three: a novelty song where the audience was sing along some lalalala thing if you agreed with the things Passenger was singing that he hated. For the record, Passenger hates include racism and pointless Facebook status updates (yes, in the same song). Song four was his single, a bit forgettable in my opinion. And song five was a sweet sing a long about having hope in our hearts (though I got confused with his accent and accidentally sung about having holes in our hearts). Amongst all this Passenger was joking about his life and career and being in New Zealand. Yes, all very, very confusing – from the performance to the mash up of emotion I was left with, I was mystified.

Right, so if I didn’t like his performance so much, why dedicate a blog to him? Because I kind of liked him too – he amused me and got the crowd enthused in his own way. I would love to see him in a pub over a few beers with some mates. There’s a great market for singing stand up comedians and I wish Passenger toured the world doing this, because I would pay to see it. This has stumped me even more though – how do I love and hate something at the same time!

This is music though: the amazing, the terrible and the utterly confusing. 

By The Way

“Standing in line to see the show tonight,
And there's a light on,
Heavy glow.
By the way I tried to say I'd be there,
Waiting for.
Dani the girl is singing songs to me,
Beneath the marquee,
Overload.”

By The Way – Red Hot Chili Peppers

I’ve written some rather big confessions on this blog, but this could be the most shocking.

I used to hate the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I hated their music, their style, their place in society and their chopping and changes of band members. I didn’t get them and I didn’t understand how they had become so famous. Despite numerous friends tying to get me into them, their songs made no sense to me. Five years ago I wouldn’t have a bite of the Chili’s.

Then I started to find over the years I was picking up on a song or two which I didn’t mind listening to. I liked The Zephyr Song and enjoyed the chorus bits to By The Way. Eventually Scar Tissue became a bit of a favourite, Snow (Hey Oh) gave me a reason to sing along, and Dani California and Californication grew on me more and more. It was a year or so ago when I succumbed to the Chili Peppers, bought one of their Greatest Hits albums. And then, a few weeks ago, I went to their concert (albeit on a free ticket) and sang along to the songs – and loved it when the crowd got in on the lyrics in Under The Bridge. Though most of their songs still make little sense to me, or hardly relate to things I know about – after all, I am not one to go by drugs under the bride, or ‘fly’ away on my zephyr, I have a lot more time and respect for the Chili’s.

I find it rather interesting how our music tastes change over the years. I have noticed many people have a ‘moment’ in their mid to late teens when they realise how good classic rock music and it becomes their new old favourite. Some people change genres all together; I know someone who spent their entire time as a teenage listening to the heaviest rock music and playing bass guitar, and then became a trance music DJ in their early twenties. It seems as we grow and mature in our lives our music choices reflect our changes, influenced by friends and family, and what we see in media and society. I have also found I have a lot more time for other genres nowadays. As a teenager, I was determined only to like that pop rock genre; now I can switch from Taylor Swift to fun. to Bon Jovi to the Lion King soundtrack in the space of about ten minutes. I still stick by my childhood bands for a bit of nostalgia now and again. After all, it’s getting the more out of the best of the music industry.