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Sad songs say so much: the enduring appeal of songs that hurt your heart

You don't have to look far to find songs about sadness. Popular music of all genres has trafficked forever in lyrics that tell terrible tales, suggest dark motives and essentially insist that we all live in a vale of tears.

The nice thing is, there's usually a catchy chorus and, if you listen to psychologists, this is all good for us. Earlier this year, an article in Psychology Today noted that sad songs let us understand shared difficult experiences of "rejection, loss, unrequited love, misfortune or other themes," and which gives us a perspective on others' problems. We might have had similar experiences, which give sad lyrics a new resonance, but regardless that empathetic understanding is what helps us grasp our common humanity and, down the road, perhaps overcome our own troubles.

Not that we're thinking about this when listening to songs like Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" or Metallica's "Unforgiven." But music paired with thoughtful lyrics has a way of worming into our conscious in a way little else can: We play our favorite tunes over and over, and even talk sometimes about how some snippets become earworms we can't eradicate so easily.

While I'm a fan of a good, sweet pop tune like Pharrell's "Happy" – I think anyone who isn't must be a little dead inside – I get much more long-term traction from a tune that takes a seriously dark turn. Maybe it's the aural equivalent of picking at a scab – it's questionably good for you, but the itch you reach by listening again and again is deeply, instinctually, satisfying.

And a good dark lyric can even overcome some of my lack of interest in the music or artist herself. Take Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You." She's just about as mainstream as you can get, from her "American Idol" success to her chart-topping hits, Clarkson doesn't seem like the sort of musician who would write a song about being abused – and being forever changed by that abuse. But in "Because of You," we get:

Because of you
I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid

Damn, girl.

Dark lyrics are often best approached when we're in our darkest, loneliest times – when we're teenagers. We may have friends we can talk to, but when the right song sinks its teeth into your spine, it's hard to ever lose the feeling entirely. I'll always know exactly how I felt when The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" hit home the first time:

Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope - but no harm
Just another false alarm
Last night I felt
Real arms around me
No hope - no harm
Just another false alarm
So, tell me how long
Before the last one?
And tell me how long
Before the right one?
This story is old - I KNOW
But it goes on
This story is old - I KNOW
But it goes on

In that short space the band acknowledges that we've all had that dream – waking or asleep – in which we felt totally secure and loved, only to wake and find it was nothing but smoke. Then, at the end, the terrifically brilliant bit: the self-awareness that it's an old story and maybe boring, but it never truly ends.

Noted Psychology Today, hearing those sad songs and thinking them through is like an exercise: We can imagine terrible real-life occurrences without having to literally experience them, and "such mental exercises can promote an attitude of problem solving and a safe venue for hypothetical testing of possible choices," said the article.

This "music-evoked imagination," at least in my case, sometimes went further than the artist may have intended. When I interviewed Juliana Hatfield about her 1993 single "My Sister," she insisted it wasn't actually about killing a wicked sibling. But I have my doubts; the song begins:

I hate my sister, she's such a bitch.
She acts as if she doesn't even know that I exist

She spends the rest of the song talking about how awesome her sister is … but then sister vanishes.

I miss my sister – why'd she go?

Because you took her out and wiped your memory of the incident! Or maybe that's just my imagination going wild.

Whatever the reasoning, I've always been attracted to lyrics that twist and bend, or take us in different directions than just acknowledging how damn happy we are. Whether the surreal (Robyn Hitchcock's "My Wife and My Dead Wife") or epic (Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald") or surprisingly frightening (The Beatles' "Run for Your Life") or literary (The Beautiful South's "Woman in the Wall"), those tunes stir the darkness within year after year.

And, perhaps, make the real world a bit more understandable. As PT notes, "Music-evoked imagination can encourage us to reach beyond our troubles to help others. Compassion for others can comfort us and help us find our own healing."

Or just a kick-ass playlist.

This article originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

David Letterman's caution in the name of comedy: My visit to the first 'Late Show' in 1993

So I guess this is how it happens: You do something long enough and you start being able to flash back on your own work. In 1993 I wrote to Late Night With David Letterman in the hopes of being able to get a ticket to one of his last NBC shows before he jumped to CBS, a move I was concerned would parallel with REM's leap to a major label. Letterman wasn't exactly Letterman then; on NBC, he was Dave. At CBS, he became Letterman, if you get my drift.

Instead, I landed one of the 440 tickets to that first CBS show.

In the ensuring years Letterman's become a national treasure. Since the network jump I've paid little attention to his show; when he abandoned his silliest routines and traded spotlights on oddfolk like Harvey Pekar and Ostarro the Discount Magician for effusive celebrity guffaws, I lost interest. Generic Letterman wasn't for me.

But that's fine; give the people what they want.

Having landed one of those 440 tickets way back then, I took advantage of the situation: I pitched my attendance at the Boston Phoenix (pause for moment of silence for the departed) and editor Jon Garelick gave me one of my very first assignments to cover TV.

I'm still doing it today. Thanks, Jon ... and thanks, Dave.

Here's the piece I wrote:

Easy Street
Hey, I got tickets to the David Letterman show!
(The Boston Phoenix, September 1993)

Like an often-absent uncle, Letterman is just "Dave" in my household. And today, August 30, he has invited me into his home. I've watched Dave since 1983. I have earned this ticket. So standing on line, schvitzing in sunny, humid Manhattan as we wait to get into the first of his new CBS shows, the news that the fat lady behind me from Long Island "never watches his show - it's on too late" nearly spurs me to violence. And it strikes me: are we going to have to share Dave now, with a bunch of people who don't deserve him?

Quite probably. Dave is open for business. I expected CBS to be thoroughly unprepared for the arrival of Dave: the ticket department had no idea how tickets were to be doled out as recently as July, when I called to check on my request. And the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Late Show is now filmed, had rats, not phone lines, until just a few weeks ago. But I forgot one thing. Dave is the boss.

He's just letting CBS air his show. The ticketholders' line had started forming at 12:30 that afternoon, and standby ticketholders had been waiting since the Saturday evening before, hoping to be one of the 440 selected by the efficient, scurrying, laminated-pass-wearing worker bees. CBS pages swarmed up and down the line, updating impatient ticketholders with tidbits:

"Once you get inside, you will have a limited time to use the bathroom, so go to the Roy Rogers across the street now." Limousine chasers got their reward when Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel arrived and were thronged by television camera crews and thrill seekers in line. Next to me, last-minute alterations were being made as carpenters constructed wooden dollies in record time, then slid them into the air-conditioned building. A CNN camera filmed a posse of ticketholders waving their very important blue cards, like a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Paul Newman, a surprise pop-up in the first episode, wondering where the hell the singing cats were.

Once in the building we were held in winding queues as though waiting for the Batman ride at Riverside Park, then herded by yet more pages into our cushy, suede seats with a precision that would have impressed the Marines. While minions scurried to round up last-minute details - one assistant gasped, "I never want to do this again" - Paul and the rest of the CBS Orchestra, the World's Most Dangerous Band fleshed out by a second guitarist and keyboard player, launched into a loud, tight version of "1999," segueing neatly into the locale-appropriate "I Saw Her Standing There."

Everything felt like the inside of a new car, fresh and spotless. At NBC, Dave's studio held the audience on a tight incline of bleacher seats, leaving people blocked by lights and dangling monitors. At the Sullivan Theater, Dave's desk sits higher than the first row. The stage is only three steps up from the audience, and though it looks spacious on television, those thousand-pound cameras teeter perilously close. One of the show's writers, dressed eerily like Dave five years ago, even down to sucking on a cigar, took the stage and introduced us to the show, adding that we were very lucky to be witnessing television history. History? Phoo, we were witnessing Dave. And then Dave emerged jacket-less, striding onto the middle of the stage, looking thinner and handsomer in person than television would lead you to believe. He made a short speech, acknowledging much of what his writer had already told us, but he did not ask, as he does traditionally, if there were any questions or out-of-town guests - it seemed he just wanted to get on with the show. Once he departed, without so much as a countdown, Calvert DeForest (Larry "Bud" Melman) was guffawing from the iris of a huge black eye: "This is CBS."

From there the roller-coaster never stopped and never had to. Controlled anarchy reigned, Dave wise-cracked, he stole an in-joke for the rest of the show from Paul Newman. While cameras rolled, all staff paused to watch the action, leaning pleased against theater walls. Dave's assistant Rose twirled her skirts giddily. During the breaks they were all action: darting about to meet Dave's changing coffee needs, to roll Calvert away, to set up Billy Joel's equipment. This bustling activity seemed organized; no one ran screaming across the stage about last-minute changes, Dave never broke a sweat. From the start the Late Show never resembled a maiden voyage. Of course, Dave had taken no chances; two practice shows were taped to work out the bugs. Caution in the name of comedy seems to work for Dave.

As my friend and co-Dave ticketholder Valerie remarked, "It feels less planned on TV," and she's right. What makes Dave remarkable after 12 years is that though what you see on tape feels, as he would say, "slapped together," Dave has it planned down to the last cigar puff. Of course you know putting together the Late Show takes massive manpower and endless energy. But Dave, our favorite uncle, knows how to make it all look easy.

Remake, remodel: "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the delicious taste of a reboot done right

When I go to the grocery story for ice cream, I know exactly what flavor I want. Maybe I'm flexible on who's making the flavor but in general, give me what I know I already like.

Ice cream makers aren't the only ones in on this truism; advertisers are well aware that once consumers find something to our liking, we keep going back to it. Then movie executives got on the bandwagon a few decades back and boom – we're awash in remakes, reboots and sequels.

Of course, when you're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a two-hour entertainment venture in an industry that's slowly leaking customers, original vision and story is not high on priority list.

Last week, the latest edition in how this tale plays out hit the press. On Thursday, Sony Pictures announced it would remake the 1996 supernatural cult favorite The Craft to much wailing and moaning among people who feel it's a touchstone. (Confession: I have not seen, and I have no opinion on the remake.) Then on Friday, Mad Max: Fury Road premiered after a three-decade hibernation of the franchise.

Remakes and reboots and sequels, oh my! It's easy to see why they get the studio executives excited; they're a proven favorite flavor. It's also easy to see the dismay in potential consumers, who're left bewailing "why?" And while it's less easy to see, I imagine there's a significant disappointment in the creative screenwriters whose fresh stories are buried once again under the same stuff we've already seen. Hiring writers for remakes and reboots must appeal to those who like the strictures of fan fiction: Here are your borders, your canon, and a beloved lead character. Go!

The moaned "why" is not important here. Why is easy, why was decided by the accountants who saw that Craft made $55.6 million in worldwide box office with a budget of $15 million, and that the last entry in the Mad Max franchise, Beyond Thunderdome (1985) earned $36.2 million with a budget of $10 million. (And that one had Tina Turner in a skimpy mesh dress!)

The "why" that comes next, however, does interest me. Clever writers who avoid aping the same movie again can make or break the good do-over film. And while I can't speak for Craft (though there's hope in the indie horror director Leigh Janiak and screenwriter Phil Graziadel, who worked together on her film Honeymoon), I can address why Fury Road is the best kind of do-over film possible.

There are a number of reasons to ignore Fury Road, including:

1. No Mel Gibson, perfect as the haunted title survivor. (Pretend the last decade of his behavior never happened.)

2. The Fast and Furious franchise already has a lock on two hours of racing cars.

3. Dystopic sci-fi largely has gone beyond shoot-em-ups.

4. Ain't nothin' wrong with the first three Max films (aside from the absurd replacing of Australian voices with American ones in the 1979 original).

But having seen Fury Road, there are even more reasons to go see it. Fury Road, is exactly what you want from a big, loud (very loud), dumb (not entirely dumb) summer action picture. The movement is nonstop, the dialogue is minimal but effective, and the visuals are jaw-dropping and original. It succeeds because:

1. Original director and screenwriter George Miller has remained fully in the driver's seat.

2. He's not cashing in on his creation; he's re-crafting it for a new age.

3. He understands that women watch action films – and has weighted not just his cast but his story in their direction

Was there a screenplay for Fury Road? Ostensibly yes; writers (including Miller) were deployed at some point to craft at least a skeleton of a story. But what they did best was not in the line-by-line readings, it was in the world-building of a post-apocalyptic landscape of little water, acres of sand, plenty of grinding metallic engines, and an abundance of shell-shocked, possibly insane survivors. The film is predicated on a brilliantly realized, layered world of intertwining backstories – white-faced creatures exist to serve with religious fervor underground; women are sequestered as breeders for the leader (or used as milk-producing cows); there's a determined, take-no-shit female leader (Charlize Theron) who makes a bold break for freedom that propels the plot; and there are multiple factions of differently-motorized tribes scattered around the blasted landscape. Each calls out for its own film, or at the very least more explanations and explorations, but none of those are forthcoming. You are in this story, and the story owns the viewer from the first startling moments.

And the payoff works, for the most part. Angst, loss, determination, conversion, reunion, loss, survival. Max (played ably if not electrically by Tom Hardy) is almost beside the point. Instead, for this go-around Miller has used his Mad Max creation as a Trojan horse to tell a story today's audiences will lap up like ice cream – a brilliant packaging switch that more than justifies the need for whatever this film is: reboot or sequel.

"We don't need another hero," Tina Turner sang in the theme song to Beyond Thunderdome. And she has a point – most remakes feel like a chance to capitalize off of an established franchise and ring that cash register again. Fury pulls off a magic trick with this new edition, expanding its universe and providing several new, unexpected heroes. That it will more than make its budget back should comfort the accountants, but it's unimportant to those who care about story. Fury Road gives us the heroes we didn't know we needed.

This story originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

Let's get retro: My 2007 'Mad Men' review for The Hollywood Reporter

_{Back in July of 2007, I was about a year and four months from getting laid off from The Hollywood Reporter after a pretty good run at the troubled trade publication (which has very much bounced back in the years since after going through a visionary rethink). But they were at loose ends in a lot of ways, having laid off plenty of other folks -- giving me some room to maneuver into the TV reviews section now and again.}

_{Along with a clutch of other media types, AMC invited me to a lunch at a nice restaurant with the premise that they were getting into the original programming business (that was funny back then, this network that chopped up classic movies and added commercials, coming up with anything original worth watching) with a new show about the advertising business in New York City during the 1960s. They had a legendary ad man there, they (probably) had Matthew Weiner, but memory does not serve.}

_{They showed some of the pilot episode of Mad Men, gave us a portable flask-and-shot-cup box with a nifty leather handle, and lunch. I went home fired up to write the review of this first episode and got permission to do so. The fact that I had to plump for it -- "this is AMC's first original series, non-premium cable networks are starting to do their own original programming" says something about how the eye was off the ball at THR in those days and that nobody really took this new series seriously.}

_{That means that I got to review the show outside of the zeitgeist bubble it would become, away from the highfalutin' discussion on its meaning and interpretation, and aside from the success it turned into. At the time, it was just another series to watch. And while it had lots to say for it, I had my doubts. From episode one it was clear that this was the apex of the white straight Christian American male, and things were only going downhill from here. (I say as much in the review.) Why would we want to invest in a lead character who hadn't a clue he was about to lose it all?}

_{Well, we did and we have. (And actually, Don Draper's world has upended, but he's turned out all right.) Tonight, Mad Men goes off the air in what will undoubtedly be an understated meditation many will discuss extensively. So before that happens, I'm including the review below (to my surprise it still exists, with no images or credits, on the revamped THR site. Enjoy. I still hold true to a lot of what I said then, but -- to my great pleasure, the show has turned out to be much better than its pilot would suggest.}

_{Enjoy, and stay Mad, people.}

"Men" delivers retro charm but succumbs to soft sell
By Randee Dawn
The Hollywood Reporter (July 17, 2007)

Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness, says Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director on AMC's shiny new hourlong drama series Mad Men, which takes place in a 1960s-era Madison Avenue ad agency.

Clearly, as writer/executive producer Matthew Weiner portrays it, the era is packed with happiness: There's smoking and drinking and extramarital sex and oodles of charming of secretaries (2007 translation: harassment). It was the gilded age of white, male, heterosexual Christians (Draper's agency, Sterling Cooper, has but one exotic Jew in the mailroom). Little did they know that the rest of the century would be a slow, privilege-stripping roll downhill.

Which makes watching the agency's alpha males (who seem to have matriculated from the Patrick Bateman school of style and manners) prowling their natural habitat a glorious thing. There's crisp, knowing dialogue: Secretary Joan (Christina Hendricks) plays up to her bosses but knows their M.O.: "Most of the time they're looking for something between a mother and a waitress." There's competent, if not standout-worthy acting (Hamm's square-jawed woodenness likely is part character-based, but it would help to know there's something there). There's beautiful camerawork from Phil Abraham (a Sopranos vet like Weiner and director Alan Taylor) that paints 1960 in clean, natural tones.

Yet if the pieces are in place for Mad Men to break big, why does its center feel so hollow? Watching characters indulge with relish in what today are vices has a transgressive quality, yet it's all done with an insider's wink to the audience. A fawning tone would grow just as tiresome, but who can identify with characters from whom even the writers seem to shrink?

A lack of an obvious narrative entry point also keeps that distance -- viewers are just shot back in time and plopped into the agency, expected to run with the pack. That the rest of that episode's soft spine focuses on little more than character introductions and a B-story of how to sell cigarettes without touting their health benefits (an issue solved by the credit roll) is hardly compelling enough to bring those eyeballs back.

There's much to admire about Mad Men, and much worth tuning in for. But so far, it's all soft sell. At one point, Draper advises a cigarette exec (John Cullum) that they'll promote his product's "toasted" quality," thus ushering in the era of pitching lifestyle over product, the birth of selling nothing. Unfortunately, at this stage, Mad Men is giving its audience pretty much the same thing.

Bonus: My chat with Jon Hamm (Don Draper) for the L.A. Times in 2011.

Contain yourself! Four shows whose “bottle” episodes are short bursts of perfection

Into the life of every TV series, a breather must fall. Here you have a successful plot engine chugging along, peopled by a beloved ensemble cast, all of whom who up every week to continue an ongoing story. But that can get tiring. Everyone needs a palate-cleanser.

Which is what happens when a showrunner and his or her set of writers step back and create what’s known as a “bottle episode.” The term refers to a self-contained episode within a series; technically, they’re supposed to be a money-saver since they rarely venture off of the main set (or even one room on the main set). But this is a lie – bottle episodes run over budget all the time.

What they really are is a chance for writers to crack their collective knuckles and go deep rather than broad with storytelling. The best bottle episodes are like one-act plays, taking place in an enclosed environment with a limited number of characters who may not do very much, but who undergo emotional or psychological changes. They are my favorite types of TV episodes.

Here are four that were done exceptionally well:

Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Data’s Day” (1991)

Written by: Harold Apter and Ronald D. Moore

Any discussion of the bottle episode would be remiss not to include something from Star Trek, the series that reportedly originated the concept (the “bottle” refers to a “ship in a bottle”; in this case, the Enterprise). In this episode, the artificial intelligence character named Data goes through a typical day in his life on the ship, narrated by his portrayer Brent Spiner. He experiences dramas small and large, but the script tells several small stories rather than a single overarching one that imperils a crew member/the ship/the universe. While no one would want to watch the heightened mundanity of a day in the life of a character each week, thanks to skillful writing and storytelling, plus the ultimate “outsider” character as narrator, the episode is charming and fulfilling.

Homicide: Life on the Street, “Subway” (1997)

Written by: James Yoshimura

How do you solve a murder that’s a kind of Schrödinger’s cat of a mystery? In this episode, which takes place almost entirely on a subway platform, commuter John Lange (Vincent D’Onofrio) is pinned at the waist between a subway train and the platform. His injuries are such that he cannot be removed without instantly dying, though whether he moves or not he will be dead within an hour. The detectives are tasked with trying to find the man who pushed him while also trying to keep him calm and track down his girlfriend so that he can make his goodbyes. The episode is moving and uncompromising – there is no last-minute save or easy ending. The best anyone can do is to find the not-yet-late man’s killer. The episode won a Peabody Award and earned two Emmy nominations (for the script and for D’Onofrio’s performance).

Law & Order: SVU, “911” (2005)

Written by: Patrick Harbinson

Though the show eventually leaves the Special Victims’ Unit precinct, most of the episode involves Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) speaking on the phone with a little girl who says she’s in a locked room. Tracking her down while calming her down is both harrowing and exasperating, but Olivia has to remain cool while marshaling all the forces of the unit to first determine it isn’t a hoax, then to actually locate the girl. Hargitay won an Emmy for her performance in this episode.

“When we finished the episode, I knew this was going to be nominated,” said then-showrunner Ted Kotcheff. “In 1967 I did a TV movie, The Human Voice, with Ingrid Bergman. She gets on the phone with a lover and off the phone. As her mood changed, the walls subtly changed colors to objectify her feelings…. The script [of “911”] did come to me because of [that film]: ‘Let’s put Mariska Hargitay on the phone for an hour.’”

 

Mad Men, “The Suitcase” (2010)

Written by: Matthew Weiner

Though not fully contained within Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm’s) office, the episode largely focuses on interactions between Draper and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) over one long night in which emotions get spilled and secrets are discussed. Both characters are going through life upheavals: The niece of Don’s friend is dying of cancer, and Peggy has sabotaged her relationship with her boyfriend by remaining at work. By the end of it they’ve had a rare (if brief) discussion about the baby Peggy gave up for adoption and Don has gone to sleep with his head in her lap. They’ve never been lovers, but in this moment they’re as intimate as two people in a long, meaningful relationship.

“In ‘The Suitcase’ you see a vulnerability from Jon,” Weiner said. “A lot of people look at that character and see someone who is reserved and a presence without dialogue, and to have an excuse to let go of that reserve and be adrift – he’s pitiful at times, he’s ashamed about having to break down his emotions, and that’s a satisfying thing to see him down… [With Peggy] you see this mutual respect between them.”

This article originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

Very kind of Curiosity Quills to include me in their Blogging from A to Z list! https://curiosityquills.com/j-is-for-jason-purdy-and-randee-dawn/

A love song for Howard Jones: Why pop lyrics matter to the teens we are and the adults we become

The world teaches us to think that life is full of limitations
The world tries to make us think that there are loads of limits
— “Conditioning,” Howard Jones

 

Two things happened in the world of music during the week of March 23, neither of which had anything to do with one another – unless you happen to live in my head.

Zayn Malik left One Direction, a band I do not listen to. And I went to see Howard Jones, a musician I fervently listened to when I was the median age of most of 1D’s fans.

In this column, I generally address great (and poor) writing on TV and in movies. But when I was a teenager, all the words in the world that mattered to me came not from TV or movies – or even books. I was voracious in my consumption of of music and spent hours flipped on my stomach in our living room parsing the lyric sheets of albums by my favorite artists, explicating every line for deeper meaning.

Music lyrics do that to us. The music is the bird that pokes holes in our conscious; the lyrics are the seeds it leaves behind, and they flower all the rest of our lives. My mentors never spoke to me directly, but left behind legacies of words put to a good beat you could sometimes dance to that still conjure up adolescent memories even today. When I was 14 and 15 and 16, I wanted someone to give me guidance about what the hell was going on in the grown-up world, and pop tunes did that for me.

 

Here I come now got no time to frown
Nothing in my way now nothing can bring me down
Feel that surge open the doors around
Higher and higher the world is my hunting ground
— “Hunt the Self,” Howard Jones

 

So 1D fans, I know none of your band’s lyrics and can hum none of their tunes, but I feel your pain: Your bedrock is crumbling and everyone around you who isn’t a fan is laughing. I’m way, way old and I’m not. Because I remember that whether the words are deep and meaningful or shallow and simply-rhymed doesn’t matter; as long as you’re listening to them, they are the scaffolding on which you are hoisting yourself to the next stage of life.

I listened to a lot of bands and took in a lot of words in those formative years. Howard Jones was never No. 1 on my top list of bands but I put him quite high up in a rarefied position, thanks in part to the words he wrote – he was a guru to me. Legendary rock critic Robert Christgau may have vilified Jones’ first album Human’s Lib for being self-help twaddle, but I wasn’t listening to it as a grown up; I heard it as a kid.

So when I listened to some of those songs all over again some 30 years after hearing them for the first time in New York City the other night I confess: I took a little side trip in my head and remembered all the things I had learned from my guru, and the places those lessons took me.

Places like these:

Veganism and Taoism.

Howard Jones was the first person I ever heard of who was full-on vegan. He did it hard-core in the days before the world ever heard of a Boca Burger and even wrote songs about the cruelty done to animals in the name of feeding humans (“Assault and Battery”). So I went vegetarian. And had some eggs. And fish. OK, I was terrible at being vegetarian, but it was a blow for independence at a young age.

In addition to being a vegan, Jones referred both directly (with a B-side song title) and indirectly to the Tao Te Ching, a religion/philosophy/book/way of thinking I’d never heard of before. I still don’t know if I fully understand what “the way” really means, but it has a lot to do with letting go and understanding that you are just a speck in the river that carries you along.

Professionalism.

I’ve never met Jones (other than waiting hours in line outside Tower Records in 1985 only to have him sign my “Things Can Only Get Better” 45 record sleeve “To Mandee”), and it’s not important that I do. But early on in my journalism career, I interviewed him over the phone – in the most irritating way possible. I peppered him with dozens of nerdy fangirl questions until he finally asked, “Do you think we’ll talk about the new album soon?” which was of course why we were here in the first place. I went scarlet. I scrambled, recovered, did the job I was supposed to do and learned a hugely valuable lesson. You really do often learn best from your mistakes.

Acceptance.

When I went out to visit a friend of mine I’d been pen-pals with since she moved away after we were in kindergarten together, I was 16 and crushing hard on a guy in school who was still two years from coming out of the closet. He gave us ladies some hope by, well, dating us – but we knew the truth even if we (and he) didn’t want to admit it.

Meanwhile, my pen-pal had begun a deep dive into evangelical Christianity, and when I told her about my hopeless devotion to my uncertain friend she became first sincerely concerned for my soul. Then, when she couldn’t convince me to abandon my friend, she wrote me a letter quoting the Bible extensively and explaining that she could no longer associate with me.

It begged for a response. So I went to a different bible for my recourse: I shot her back the last letter we ever exchanged, covered with my own favorite lyrics about equality, tolerance, what is natural and what is not – Jones’ lyrics.

I have always felt good about that.

 

You don’t know
I don’t know
Nobody knows
This is an answer to every question
This is a place to begin
— “Always Asking Questions,” Howard Jones

 

It’s easy to mock pop lyrics. Easy to say Taylor Swift’s words are all about the same thing, or that the guys in One Direction don’t even write their own lyrics. But teenagers don’t care – they’re still listening hard, still using those lyrics to ascend into adulthood. Pop singers, rock singers, rap singers – those are the grown-ups kids listen to; they are their teachers as much as, if not more than, the ones paid to instruct them in school.

Awards strictly for lyrics don’t exist, so far as I know. Songwriters get prizes for the combination of words and music, but that’s a significant difference. And lyric writers, the good ones, really should get some recognition for a clever rhyme, the hidden pun, the evocative image. A well-turned lyric, aimed at the right person at just the right time, gets under the skin of even the hardest-to-reach young people. That’s a rare power that deserves respect – and love.

So thanks, Howard Jones. You weren’t the only musician who raised me into adulthood, but you were a significant player in the group. Long may you – and the beautiful simplicity of your words – reign.

This column originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

Writing Dead: Why Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse still ask the big questions in ‘The Leftovers,’ ‘The Returned’

When Lost first aired in 2004, I was prepared to be hooked. Plane crashes on deserted island, people learning to survive. That’s my kind of story – Survivor without the gimmicks. Creation of a new community, a new society.

That was not going to be Lost’s story. Yes, there was an airline crash. Yes, survival was an issue. But Lost was never about day-to-day events; it had a lot of smaller stories and a much bigger ambition (if not always perfectly realized) than almost anyone – including those who stuck it through to the end – were planning on ingesting. Creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (and to a lesser degree J.J. Abrams) wanted to ask the big questions about life, death, and meaning.

I wasn’t expecting that on ABC primetime.

“One of the thematic things that was always interesting about Lost is this idea of is this arbitrary? Is it happening for a reason? And that’s the fundamental question of life,” Lindelof told me. “That’s the fundamental question of life: Is there a purpose? Am I part of some grander design?”

I bailed on Lost when it didn’t give me what I expected, and though it clearly was worth going back to, I never did. One of those things I’ll get to in the nursing home, I expect, but there’s just so much good TV and only so many hours in a day.

But then I did it again, with Lindelof’s latest TV project. Last year, I gave HBO’s The Leftovers a real kiss-off in this space. The book is always better than the movie (or the TV series), said I, and here was just the latest evidence. And then I bailed on Leftovers.

Well, I’m going to give that one another try. As shows like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have shown us in recent years, going off the reservation in terms of telling story is all but a requirement when you’re adapting a book for the long term. A movie of the week or even a miniseries is one thing; if you’re going to spin out a slim novel like Leftovers for more than a season, you’re gonna have to rethink things. But that’s not exactly why.

I’m interested in the big questions, and now I think I have a better grip on Lindelof’s (with author Tom Perotta) mission. And Lost fans, take heed: Lindelof’s writer-in-arms Carlton Cuse is also back on TV (well, he’s been there overseeing Bates Motel and Strain) with a new adaptation of the terrific French series The Returned. It’s another show that addresses those life-shaping questions – what if the dead returned to you, unchanged and unharmed, exactly how they were at the moment of death?

“It is interesting that we’re both working on projects that grapple with the idea of life and death and loss and absence and grief,” said Cuse, who meets with Lindelof approximately once a month for lunch (though they don’t talk shop). “But The Returned and Leftovers are vastly different in the way they’re executed, even if they are exploring both of the same themes. There’s plenty of room for both shows.”

Undoubtedly so. TV doesn’t always do very well asking, or answering, the big questions; we couch potatoes are fairly happy being spoon-fed good guys and bad guys and satisfying resolution within 42 minutes of screen time, once a week. But there are shows that go deeper, and are worth grown-up consideration. In just the last week I watched the latest episode of The Walking Dead challenge me with the question of what happens when a bunch of PTSD-ridden survivors of the zombie apocalypse find Eden? Could they be the ultimate snakes in the grass? And then on The Good Wife, atheist Alicia believes her God-fearing daughter may be losing her religion, which prompts a moment (that takes place in her head) in which Richard Dawkins visits her to ask why this troubles her so much.

This is big stuff, and the fact that it happened on one of TV’s top rated shows (Dead) and on the staid, older-skewing Tiffany Network (Wife) blew me away. But maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, just as I shouldn’t brush off a show because it fails to meet my preconceived notions – and actually posits more challenges to my perception of storytelling. And of what couch potatoes can absorb.

“I feel like a lot of TV shows avoid religion,” said Lindelof. “It’s a very dangerous topic and that’s why I really responded to Tom’s book. He was talking about religion in a very interesting way, and the same thing is happening in The Returned. Leftovers doesn’t deal directly with death, but it is a death metaphor. These people have departed, they’re gone. But … you didn’t get to bury them, so could they come back? That’s what we’re trying to explore here.”

This article originally published in Curiosity Quills.

“Last Man on Earth”: Laughing, or not, at the end of the world

Can the end of the world be funny?

It sure can be serious: One of TV’s most popular shows has been showing just how un-funny the end of the world can be for five seasons now. In fact, The Walking Dead has pretty much rubbed our faces in not only how bad it is when the world ends, but how it continues to go on ending every day as the survivors lose their humanity inch by inch. There are zero laughs (except when Carl stuffs himself with pudding). It is well-written, a question I have to ask before praising anything in this column - most of the time.

But can it be something that’s not jut bleak and bloody? Can laughs be wrung out of the most divine joke of them all; namely that the machine of civilization has seized up and perished?

Answer: Yes. If you’re willing to squint.

Squinting is crucial when it comes to Fox’s new series The Last Man on Earth. The premise is, thus far, as stated: Will Forte appears to be the only survivor of a virus that has wiped everyone else out. The squinting begins when you have to set the hyperbole of the title aside - no network show is going to permit 22 minutes per week to be a one-man operation. So, there’s a woman. Also, while Forte is shown scouring the U.S. and parts of Canada in a big RV, he’s not exactly done due diligence on the entire planet.

The fact that Forte is an interesting actor helps. He does sad and thoughtful and absurd all at once, most nimbly shown off in the movie Nebraska. All three are needed to enjoy Last Man, but by the time the show gets moving, squinting’s not enough. We’ve all seen too much of this kind of thing not to have some crucial questions that invariably invade any attempt at funny. Like:

• Where are all the bodies?
• Where are all of the car pileups on the highways?
• Why would anyone choose to live in the inhospitable, arid desert of Tucson following civilization’s collapse?
• Why (other than for purported comic reasons) would a man who can appreciate fine paintings decide it was OK to use a fountain as a toilet, rather than dig a trench?

A well-written series can get away with anything, even when it does veer off course. Set the tone, set the mood, set the tension between the conflict and the characters in just the right way and you’re free to experiment. Last Man Standing, however, isn’t all that well written and so it doesn’t fly. Whether you like Forte’s character or just find him sexist almost is beside the point - the fact that I’m left with questions rather than chuckles as the show goes on means they haven’t set this world up very carefully. I’m constantly aware that this is going to be a sitcom and it will follow sitcom rules, like never leaving the immediate vicinity or considering things in a practical manner.

That leaves me sad, and a little bored. What could have been!

Yet the end of the world can be funny, if you do set it up right; this is why I have hopes that Comedy Central will let Matt Porter and Charlie Hankin make more episodes of New Timers, a web series whose heroes don’t seem to fully grok the challenges they’re facing now that the end has arrived. We first meet them 281 days after “the event,” just two guys hanging out and making condiment dip in a tool box to take to a gathering.

The party they’re expecting to attend turns out to be an escape from the hellhole the city around them has become - a handsome hero has fixed a car so they can flee with a handful of others who have been invited. But the gathering turns into a “who is more equipped to survive the apocalypse” bicker-fest (one of them suggests his narrow wrists come in handy more than you might expect), and the hero drives off alone. The cluelessness, the vague nature of the disaster, and the general reflective, mundane complaining that goes on is what makes this funny. It’s sly, and it’s subtle: You totally know guys who would be like this when the world ends.

It may also help that each episode is less than 10 minutes long; funny and the end of the world may work a lot better as a sketch than a thought-through narrative series.

The problem in the end is this: If Last Man insists on being what it has so far set itself up to be - yet another half hour of men and women clashing over their various differences - then who cares if it’s set in the apocalypse or not? If the only point of having to grow their own food is so they can be at odds over fresh vegetables - why should we bother? It’s plug-and-play battle of the sexes, with two members of the sexes who really do have much bigger battles to wage. The most interesting thing that series could do right now is to have both characters remember that it’s a big - and now empty - world out there, and start chasing down some actual plot.

This article originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.