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Two Saturdays ago, I found myself watching Foo Fighters performing "Times Like These" on SNL. (I sometimes watch the end of SNL just for the band. I am also interested in Jimmy Fallon's top-40 song parodies!) I suddenly remembered how much I was drawn to that song. Its theme epitomizes my current inner life, and anway, I just love the unusual 7/4 meter. I decided I didn't mind if Dave Grohl et al. got a bit of my dogsitting money, so I went out and found the CD *on sale* at Zia's. It has replaced White Stripes' _Elephant_ in my car player for now.
Since I've been teaching the understanding of metaphors to my sixth graders, I threw this one up on the overhead for them to analyze. (I hope this constitutes "fair use"...)
"I am a one-way motorway
I'm the one that drives away
Then follows you back home
I am a street light shining
I'm a wild light blinding bright
Burning off alone
It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again
I am a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?
It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again."
Very insightful comments from periods 1, 2, 3 and 6.
Students saw the "one-way motorway" as a reference to busy-ness, confusion, being alone, not being free, not being able to make choices, worrying about "missing your exit." One student saw the metaphor as a reference to Grohl's "lifespan" (the actual word of a four-foot tall person); another student agreed, saying, "You can only move forward in your life; you can't go back." Students in different classes identified the "wild light blinding bright/burning off alone" as a reference to his growing older, his mortality (no, they didn't use that word, but it wouldn't have surprised me if someone had), his loss of a friendship (I thought about that, and wondered about Kurt Cobain), his loss of a "girl," his loss of "something important."
When I asked the students to describe the speaker of the poem, they said he was--their actual words--twisted up, alone, "all that," rebellious, confused, "light and dark," having mixed feelings, a "split personality," lifeless, depressed, daring and happy. A third period girl who gave me her poem about Jesus yesterday, said he was "spiritual," that the poem was a reference to his soul changing. Just so you know the other side of teaching, there was the nay-saying boy who said the speaker of the poem was "nerdy." If I'd had a rotten tomato, I would have thrown it at him.
I told them I thought all of them were right. Except for the last guy!! I pulled him aside after class and made him explain that "nerdy" accusation. Former member of Nirvana = nerdy? Come again, dude? He then complained about poems being hard to understand, and why did they always have to be about difficult things? (Hm, sound familiar, pastors?) Of course, we've already done fun poetry, like E.E. Cummings, and will go on to do other fun poetry, but if the mind is closed, it does not perceive the truth...
As the bell rang, the Jesus-poem-writer also observed that Dave Grohl sounded like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. "My dad listens to that." Another kid said, "Isn't he the guy with the really big mouth?" ;-) Another girl--who never volunteered in class until today-- was happy to tell me that her mom saw the Foo Fighters in concert.
So it was a hard-thinking, accessible, fun day. This is the better end of what God has called me to, baby. |
