I've been spending my morning commute flipping through my programmed radio stations, trying to find a song or two I enjoy and listening for news of alien takeovers. [This is because the only morning talk show hosts I know of are Donna Hanover and the other guy on 710am (ah yes, Joe Bartlett) and while they are okay, I suppose, they really don't pique my interest. Sometimes I listen to Don Imus for the 30 seconds it takes me to distinguish an actual word amid his mumblings. I very much enjoyed Curtis & Kuby when they were on the air but I never listen to 770 anymore because they're gone. But that's a topic for a different thread. Edit: Opie and Anthony are sometimes interesting and always inane.]

So here's the point of the thread: music is cliched. About half the phrases in any given song are repeated in some other song, somewhere. Nearly every song is about boyfriends and girlfriends. Can we get some variety? How about songs about marriage, or childbirth, or old age, or walking in the forest, or homosexuality, or political/environmental issues, or friendship, or anything in the world besides

"I'm all alone"
"When you look at me"
"Like a dream"
"Since you left me"
"You are everything to me"
and even "Big girls don't cry" which I heard in two different songs today.

I try to have at least 20% of my music in languages I don't understand so that I can at least pretend that there's variety.

Political songs:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LC7Xoe7DDSU   Living in a Sovereign Land by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=lyp5we2ySDo    Zombie by the Cramberries
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=JFM7Ty1EEvs   Bloody Sunday by U2
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=QbQzhTCtKyU   Never Being Boring by the Pet Shop Boys
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=vvAVJTQeFiQ   It's My Life by Talk Talk
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vs21ZKrKM  Losing my Religion by REM


bonus: one on marriage:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2eT-sTVys  Du Hast by Rammstein

The reason I have my SN is because I used to be involved in writing lyrics; for six months I worked with a guy who used to be high up in Andrew Lloyd Webber's company. This was a guru/student relationship, and one thing that really bothered him a lot was the predictability of most modern rhyming couplets. Moon/June, maybe/baby, heart/apart etc. One thing he drummed into me was how to make lyrics fresh and rhymes surprising. Unfortunately in the market of most pop/rock/R&B etc songs, with some exceptions, lyrics are so way down the food chain as to almost irrelevant. It's only in the field of show tunes, folk songs, and political songs that the lyrics are as important as the music.

The Music Writers in the Sky must have read this thread because Friday morning I heard this song on the radio:

(Warning, a couple of images of somewhat immodest people dancing.)

(Dance With My Father, by Luther Vandross, for those who don't want to listen to or watch the video.)

It was so refreshing (and touching).