Write about the first song
you ever became obsessed with, and talk a bit about your relationship with it
then, and your relationship with it now.
OR
Write about an experience
where you went somewhere else for a limited but extended time (summer camp, a
semester or year at another school or in another country, a brief stint living
in another state) and temporarily became another person (or became part of a
new and different culture).
And when you're done, share your favorite sentence from the Rob Sheffield reading (followed by your initials in parentheses) here.
The title track, OMD's "Enola Gay" (As the video's title info clarifies, OMD=Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark)
Haircut 100's "Favourite Shirt (Boy Meets Girl)". Great song, classic goofy 80's video from the very early days of MTV, when only new wave bands seemed to be actually making videos.
New Order's "Temptation" (alluded to on p. 70 of Sheffield's piece, "Up! Down! Turn around! Please don't let me hit the ground")
The Smiths "Ask" (alluded to on p. 72, "Spending warm summer days indoors")
The band Sheffield discovers in Spain, Mecano, and their hit, "Me cole en una fiesta" (The title translates as "I crashed a party").
Later in the piece, Sheffield mentions the Smiths' lead singer Morrissey's song from his long (and ongoing) solo career, "The National Front Disco" (a song that illustrates that 80's music culture was intimately connected with politics in England as well as Spain).
Sheffield refers to Depeche Mode and Soft Cell in passing, so here's Depeche Mode's "People are People" and Soft Cell's one hit, the classic goth-love torch song "Tainted Love" (which, it turns out, is a synthed-out but fairly faithful cover of a 1964 song recorded by Gloria Jones). He refers to the German band Trio's improbable hit "Da Da Da" (which was a minor hit in the US several years after Sheffield hears it in Spain.) He mentions a number of other non-techo-pop/new-wave bands, but to keep this post from getting too much longer, I'll just link one "See-MOAN y Gar-FOON-kel" song.
If you've never seen Airplane!, here's the classic "don't call me Shirley" joke that Sheffield alludes to:
And, with regard to the title of Sheffield's book, and just in case you've forgotten about (or were not aware of) the infectious appeal of Duran Duran, here's "Rio" (Content warning: Simon LeBon in a really small Speedo)
If you’re already underway
with a topic or direction you feel excited about, write for the rest of the
period, developing your ideas and beginning to or continuing to shape an essay.
If you are still having
trouble deciding on a direction to take in your essay or a way to focus in on a
topic, consider Phillip Lopate’s observation that one important path toward engaging
your audience is to understand that your story can “serve to elucidate a more
widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.”
Consider a moment, a period, or an
experience in your life where you felt “lonely and freakish,” and consider how
you might draw on that. What made you feel less that way? Or, if you’re still
in the midst of feeling that way, what are your thoughts on why you feel this
way and how you might overcome that? And/or, what can you take from that
experience, whether it is in your past or in your present?
With that in mind, expand on the
“How do you feel about your name?” prompt, revisit the “Have you ever or do you
feel ‘split at the root’?”, or begin work some particular path that the
contemplation of “lonely and freakish” leads you down.
