I did this a little while ago and it was a lot of fun. Last time I took an older song and a newer song and I think that worked out pretty well. If you’re interested, that article is here.
Last time I was vaguely aware of some of the more messed up elements of the two songs I was about to analyze, I had heard them recently and a few things had stuck out to me as pretty damn weird.. This time, I am somewhat unaware of the lyrical content of these two songs. In today’s edition we will take a look at Dion’s “The Wandere” and Powerman 5000’s “World’s Collide”. Here’s the first thing you’re going to learn today: the song “The Wanderer” is by Dion. I have literally heard this song dozens if not hundreds of times and this is actually new information to me.
Both of these songs come out of different phases of my childhood. My dad liked oldies since he was a teenager in the early 60s and music wasn’t quite amazing at that point. I think he also was somehow aware that music from the later 60s and early 70s was very much fueled by drugs and felt that by sticking to the late 50s and early 60s he was maybe shielding us from some of the darker elements of rock. All that to say when I was a kid (like, younger than 10) I listened to a lot of cheesy pop oldies. When I was little older (around age 14 or 15) I really got into Powerman 5000 because they were loud and aggressive and didn’t have too much swearing in them so I wouldn’t get in a ton of trouble if my mom heard me listening to them. The lead singer also wore goggles and if you knew me back in high school then you know that I was all about that shit.
In summary: I listened to both of these songs a lot, knew a lot of these lyrics by heart and never really thought about them until today. Let’s go on a journey through sounds. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
