Bildungsroman Blitz: Musical Storytelling Edition

Consider this the June/July double issue

Jul 24, 2021

Remember when I said this issue of the newsletter was coming out in early July?

Friends, I don’t know what happened. I don’t think I can point to just one thing. Twin Peaks was leaving Netflix on June 30, so I was furiously bingeing that. My precious Oakland A’s might be leaving the city of Oakland, so I was attending baseball games while I could.

Speaking of sports, was there better storytelling going on in the past few months outside of the 2021 NBA playoffs/finals? Even if you know nothing about basketball, please read Dan Devine’s piece about Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks’ victory from The Ringer. A TLDR for non-basketball fans: The threat of a Brooklyn Nets superteam winning a championship and solidifying a disheartening trend in basketball hung over the beginning of the playoff season. And then the Bucks beat the Nets! While I was rooting for the Phoenix Suns (who have never won a championship, true underdogs), I must admit how poetic it was to have the Bucks take it.

Let’s see, what else was going on? I dipped my toe into Round 2430924309 of Cat Person discourse (be blessed if you don’t know what that is), which was relevant to the newsletter:

Maddie Gaw (she/her) @Maddieturg

One thought I had about the Cat Person-inspired convos: it seems like there’s a distinction between writers who are operating in an medium that contains a narrative (prose fiction, film, theatre) and writers who are operating in a first person confessional medium (songs, poems).

Maddie Gaw (she/her) @Maddieturg

The former is more uncomfortable than the latter, IMO, because of the ability the audience has to perceive that narrative as “objective.”

Maddie Gaw (she/her) @Maddieturg

Let’s take the subject ugly breakup/divorce as reflected in these mediums. Sure, when a singer breaks up with/divorces somebody, songs that paint that person in an ain’t-shit light can become associated with them. But it’s still a piece of writing that is about the writer’s POV.

Maddie Gaw (she/her) @Maddieturg

Contrast that with a filmmaker/novelist/playwright who inserts a character that is at least somewhat identifiable as based on a real ex into their work. In that case it’s not always clear that we are seeing the author’s version of that person.

That’s as good a segue way as any into what we came here to discuss: songwriting! storytelling! coming-of-aging!

Olivia Rodrigo (singer/songwriter, teen pop queen)

My original, remarkably restrained, outline for this issue involved me just doing a deep dive lyrical analysis of one song. And technically, that is still true. But first we have to talk about Sour Prom.

Sour is the 2021 debut album of 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo, previously known to me and other millennials/zoomers as a new Disney kid. She’s one of the stars of the surprisingly decent Disney+ original tv series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Her alleged romance/breakup with another actor on the show is the fuel behind the fire that Sour—a 34 minutes and 41 seconds-long tour of teenage angst and heartbreak—has lit on the pop charts.

Despite having writing credits on all 11 of Sour’s tracks, Rodrigo’s Disney roots and comparisons to other young female artists (that’s her Paramore song, that’s her Taylor song, etc.) might have positioned her as just an industry plant, another pop automaton. But do you know what artists do? Release a 30-minute music video/livestreamed concert that enhances the storytelling on the album. Sure, the hits are here, but so are the deep cuts! There’s a goddamn mashup! The imagery of Prom as Hell, the loneliness of an empty lit-up football field at night, and the relatability of piling into the back of a limo with your ride-or-die friends and nobody having their eyes open for the picture:

hope @livscullen

oh to be in the back of a limo with olivia rodrigo, conan gray, lydia night, madison hu, and iris apatow

(Less relatable: all her cool entertainment industry friends. Shout out to Lydia Night and the Regrettes though!)

So now that I’ve established Olivia as a bonafide artiste, let’s discuss “Happier”, track 8 on Sour.

Quite a few of the songs on Sour depict this specific scenario: watching your ex start a new relationship with someone else. Elsewhere on the album she’s righteously angry, pissed, even snarky. In “Happier”, Olivia is grounded, having reached the Acceptance stage of grief. But that doesn’t mean she’s taking the high road.

Oh, I hope you're happy
But not like how you were with me
I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go
So find someone great, but don't find no one better
I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

This is one of the most profoundly relatable sentiments about breakups I’ve ever heard. I think it’s underdiscussed how, even when you’ve long past moved on from a person, you still want to assert that you were a good person in the relationship, that there was a reason that the relationship happened. Be happy, but don’t be happy the way I made you happy, because that’s mine and if someone else can do it, what was I there for?

The other part I love about this song is how Olivia recognizes that her instinct is to tear the other girl down, but that by doing so it makes herself unlovable:

And now I'm picking her apart
Like cutting her down will make you miss my wretched heart

May all of us old crones (disclaimer: I’m turning 30 this year) learn something from Gen Z’s esteemed White House ambassador:

The White House @WhiteHouse

Olivia Rodrigo is at the White House today to meet with President Biden and Dr. Fauci and discuss the importance of young Americans getting vaccinated.

Link Roundup:

“Breathe” from In The Heights (musical/movie, 2008/2021)

There have been a lot of important critiques raised about In The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ 2008 musical, since the release of the film adaptation last month. It is largely about the colorism present in the film’s casting (and in the original stage casting as well). This is not my lane, and if you want to read great coverage on this topic, here are a few places to start: Monica Castillo for NPR and Maira Garcia, Sandra E. Garcia, Isabelia Herrera, Concepción de León, Maya Phillips and A.O. Scott for the New York Times.

But do you know what is my lane? Earnest musical theatre compositions AND coming of age stories! Which In The Heights has in spades.

Leslie Grace in “In The Heights”. (Warner Bros.)

“Breathe” is the second number in the musical, and it is our introduction to the character Nina Rosario, who is returning home to Washington Heights, New York, after her first semester as a freshman at Stanford University—which, in case you didn’t know, is all the way across the country in California.

Nina’s story is very culturally specific—she is a first-generation college student; she experiences depression and anxiety going from her Latinx community to a PWI (predominantly white institution)—but the worries and fears expressed in “Breathe” have always spoken to me.

This is my street
I smile at the faces I’ve known all my life
They regard me with pride
And everyone’s sweet
They say, “You’re going places"
So how can I say that, while I was away
I had so much to hide?
Hey guys, it’s me
The biggest disappointment you know
The kid couldn’t hack it
She’s back and she’s walkin’ real slow
Welcome home, just breathe

While I could never say I had the collective pressures of a close-knit community and a family with upwardly mobile expectations weighing on me (both my parents are college graduates), the financial burden of my private liberal arts school did fill me with dread, as I was not expecting to graduate with a job that would put a dent in my student loans, not to mention my parent’s loans.

Nina worries about telling her parents the truth—that she slipped academically and lost her scholarship while her parents’ prestigious dream ate away at her. I worried about telling my parents and friends and relatives that I really had no plan after graduation, and that I wasn’t sure I made any of the right choices during my four years at one of the most expensive schools in the country.

Straighten the spine, smile for the neighbors
Everything’s fine, everything’s cool
The standard reply, “Lots of tests, lots of papers"
Smile, wave goodbye and pray to the sky, oh, god
And what will my parents say?
Can I go in there and say…
“I know that I’m letting you down?”
Just breathe

I saw the Broadway production of In The Heights in 2010, after I finished my freshman year. I was sitting next to my parents, and to this day I don’t know if they knew I was crying when Mandy Gonzalez belted “I know that I’m letting you down”.

Mandy Gonzalez in the original Broadway production, absolutely killing it. I’m crying again right now.

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I was originally going to have a third section here doing a deep dive into the song “Another Man’s Grave” by Amigo the Devil, a dark Americana troubadour whose music I highly recommend. That being said, a dark Americana troubadour has music that’s pretty dark (!!!) and I didn’t feel like plumbing the depths of my psyche after re-living my emotions around “Breathe” and collegiate regrets. Thank you all for sticking with me and Bildungsroman Blitz. See you next month!