by Cari Cole
Music reflects life. And at certain times in our world’s history, music comes to the fore expressing opinions and bringing to light important social topics as we move through them. As social movements for peace and justice rise up, once again, music is bringing the messages of the people to the fore. This time the social focus is fastened more on others than ourselves. We see more than a few Interesting trends happening in video and song content.
We saw it recently with Lady Gaga and Diane Warren’s powerful song and emotional video: ‘Til It Happens to You. When you watch the video, you see the tragic heartbreaking vignettes of college campus rape, but if you listen to the song (or browse the lyrics below) without watching the video, the song relates to anyone who has experienced abuse or trauma and is not specific to the subject of rape. Powerful songwriting and video making. We are entering a new era where artists are making social statements again. But equally as interesting is that while Lady Gaga’s voice pushes the song deep into your solar plexus, nowhere in that video does she make an entrance. A video made by a celebrity music artist with no appearance? Not even a cameo? Nope. It’s all about the subject. We are not distracted by the self-promotion, self centered “celebrity.” And now the song has even a stronger impact.
Til It Happens to You by Diane Warren & Lady Gaga
You tell me it gets better, it gets better in time
You say I’ll pull myself together, pull it together, you’ll be fine
Tell me, what the hell do you know? What do you know?
Tell me how the hell could you know? How could you know?
‘Til It happens to you, you don’t know how it feels, how it feels
‘Til it happens to you, you won’t know, it won’t be real
No, it won’t be real, won’t know how it feels
You tell me hold your head up, hold your head up and be strong
Cause when you fall you gotta get up, you gotta get up and move on
Tell me how the hell could you talk, how could you talk?
Cause until you walk where I walk, this is no joke
‘Til it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels, how it feels
‘Til it happens to you, you won’t know, it won’t be real
(How could you know?)
No it won’t be real
(How could you know?)
Won’t know how I feel
‘Til your world burns and crashes
‘Til you’re at the end, the end of your rope
‘Til you’re standing in my shoes
I don’t wanna hear a thing from you, from you, from you
Cause you don’t know
‘Til it happens to you, you don’t know how I feel, how I feel
How I feel
‘Til it happens to you, you won’t know, it won’t be real
(How could you know?)
No it won’t be real
(How could you know?)
Won’t know how it feels
Til it happens to you
Happens to you
Happens to you
Happens to you
Happens to you
Happens to you
(How could you know?)
Til it happens you
You won’t know how I feel
We also see it in Melody Gardot’s incredibly gripping video of “Preacherman” from her 2015 release Currency of Man (produced by multiple Grammy winning producer Larry Klein: Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel, Diana Ross, Tracey Chapman). A story of tragic loss, oppression and the racial divide… the video like Til It Happens to You, has no images of the artist, only the story and actors telling the story as a short film.
“Preacherman” by Melody Gardot
Preacherman gon’ tell me
where his body lie
said he down by the river now child
let him there to die
One by one we tumble
one by one we fall
if I had a solution now honey
I would fix us all
‘Cause I believe in a world
where we all belong
and I’m so tired of seein’
every good man gone
Take me to that river
lay me by his side
let the water wash me clean now honey
man done stole my pride
I have seen the darkness
lord knows I’ve seen the light
don’t recall the lord
sayin’ there’s a difference
if you’re black or white
‘Cause I believe in a world
where we all belong
and I’m so tired of seein’
every good man gone
(ooooh ooooooh oooooh ooooooh)
In another video release “It Gonna Come” Melody tells the story of a homeless man she befriended during the making of the record who is the central figure on camera telling his story. Again, no appearance by the artist. Multi Grammy Award Winning producer Larry Klein says about the new album “some of the songs are about social topics, more than she has ever written about before.”
Melody says: “I think artists in general, our job, is to put on our lenses and look at the world and see how that makes sense to us, and how that makes sense to the world.”
Is it a new age in music? If so (and I believe it might actually have arrived), it gets a HELL YES from me.
What do you think?
The post A New Trend in Music Videos: Using Star Power for Social Statements appeared first on Cari Cole Music Co..