{"id":29306,"date":"2021-12-08T16:15:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T22:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=29306"},"modified":"2021-12-08T16:15:39","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T22:15:39","slug":"the-same-story-from-two-different-points-of-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/08\/the-same-story-from-two-different-points-of-view\/","title":{"rendered":"The Same Story From Two Different Points of View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, as I was taking my youngest into school, one of my favorite Elton John songs, if not my <em>favorite<\/em> Elton John song, came on the radio:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wy709iNG6i8\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road&#8221;.  I asked him what he thought it was about; he said, &#8220;<em>The Wizard of Oz<\/em>?&#8221;  I said it was about a guy of humble origins elevated by a relationship with a wealthy person, but who comes to think that the wealthy person does not care for him, but rather likes the novelty of having a partner of lower origin.  So the poet-narrator (if they have such things in songs) is breaking it off and returning to his roots.  I pointed out how Elton John and the brown dirt cowboy (Bernie Taupin) used a lot of metaphor in the song, which gives it depth you don&#8217;t find in much modern pop.<\/p>\n<p>I changed the radio stations; after we caught the last chorus off &#8220;All Star&#8221; by Smashmouth, &#8220;Don&#8217;t You Want Me, Baby?&#8221; by Human League came on.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uPudE8nDog0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s basically the same story, but from the other perspective,&#8221; I told him.  A partner with a better station in life elevates a cocktail waitress, but she breaks it off with him.  This song presents both sides of the story, though, so one gets sympathy for both sides of view.  But it&#8217;s not as deep as the Elton John song, probably because of the metaphors and imagery in the former.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, on the way to school, perhaps we will talk about the monomyth in love songs.  I mean, the young man has a mind to an engineering track and career, but there&#8217;s no reason I cannot infect him with some comparative literary criticism skills for fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, as I was taking my youngest into school, one of my favorite Elton John songs, if not my favorite Elton John song, came on the radio: &#8220;Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road&#8221;. I asked him what he thought it was about; he said, &#8220;The Wizard of Oz?&#8221; I said it was about a guy of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29308,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29306\/revisions\/29308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}