The Poetry of Tears For Fears

by Gary C. Devilles

I’ve been a literature teacher for quite some time and ever since I started teaching poetry or other genres I never failed to incorporate songs or popular culture in my pedagogy because primarily, I find a lot of artists or musicians poetic and that secondly, teaching literature through popular culture makes things more interesting for students such that they realize that the songs they enjoy are not far from the literary pieces they struggle to understand in terms of poetic devices or conventions.

One of my favorite artists is Tears for Fears. Back then when we were in high school we were captivated by their music and the strange dance maneuver of Roland Orzabal. Of course, I wasn’t really paying much attention to their lyrics then, probably because of my limitation and second I was more concerned with their melody. If it’s danceable, then most likely it’s good. The 80’s is the age of new wave and people were less concerned with poetics than body language. Now, of course we don’t dance as much. We are more comfortable listening to the 80’s music through our mp3s and iPods and this is when we begin to pay attention to what they were saying and try to make sense of what the songs meant for us then.

Consider Tears for Fears’ album, The Hurting, where almost all the songs in this compilation reflect the tedium, rebellion, and angst experienced in our youth. The first stanza of the song The Hurting sounds like a de profundis or a crying out loud of the soul who experiences pain from the depths of hell:

Is it an horrific dream/ am I sinking fast/could a person be so mean as to laugh and laugh/ On my own/ could you ease my load/ could you see my pain/ could you please explain the hurting/.

The persona here or the one perceived speaking in the song is asking these rhetorical questions addressed to someone who is probably not there since the line, on my own, explains explicitly his or her condition of isolation. In the Greek Tragedy this is called Agon (hence the word, agony, as a derivative of this Greek word agon), the articulation of character’s dilemma and problem. Alienation or isolation is one of the oldest problems articulated in drama and poetry and yet in this song we confront again this problem as though it is something new. This effect of seeing something old as new is known in poetry as defamiliarization, the effect of making the familiar unfamiliar. As one proceeds with the song, one learns that the pain is caused by one’s inability to communicate or understand other situation as articulated in the lines that goes:

Could you understand a child when he cries in pain/ could you give him all he needs/ or do you feel the same.

Such inability to communicate or failure to understand necessary leads to confusion with what one thinks and feels as the song continues with

All along you’ve been told you’re wrong when you felt it right/ and you’re left to fight the hurting.

The song actually ends powerfully with the resolution that fighting is futile and that acceptance of pain and suffering seems like a necessary process or stage that everyone goes through as the third stanza reveals that one has to feel pain and sorrow, touching pain and surrendering to it just like a child does. Perhaps the answer to the lingering problem of loneliness is not in being with someone since psychoanalyst Carl Jung once said that loneliness is not inimical to relationship. One can still feel alone even with others and the constant search for answers becomes the paramount condition of human existence. One asks questions because one continues to live.

Touch the hurt and don’t let go/ get in line with the things you know/ learn to cry like a baby / then the hurting won’t come back.

However, existential questions articulated in The Hurting become more critical in the song Mad World where the loneliness of persona is much more palpable and brought about by the inanity of lack of purpose and sense of direction. The French has a term for this kind of condition, which they call ennui and the ennui in this song is workaday world that seems caught in an endless circle of deceit:

Bright and early for their daily races/ going nowhere, going nowhere/ and their tears are filling up their glasses/ no expression, no expression/ hide my head and I want to drown my sorrow/ no tomorrow, no tomorrow.

This experience of tedium and ennui becomes more problematic as the song in the end reveals that such experience starts much early in life, when children are made to feel good and yet their teachers fail to understand what’s going on with them:

Made to feel the way that every child should/ sit and listen, sit and listen/ went to school and I was very nervous/ no one knew me, no one knew me/ hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson/ look right through me, look right through me.

If teacher-student relationship in grade school can be alienating, it is not surprising that almost all form of social filiations, lovers and even familial are not spared from this trauma and as such becomes the running theme almost in all songs in this compilation. Pale Shelter talks about one’s insecurity despite the provisions given to the persona, and in Ideas as Opiates, security in one’s beliefs becomes a comfortable excuse or relief when in fact admitting almost instinctively that belief is quite arbitrary:

And lies spread on lies/ we don’t care/ belief is our relief/ we don’t care.

One cannot even resort to memories as possible source of solace. If in TS Elliot’s Cats (became a musical and famous for the song Memory) one can invoke memory as the reason for being granted another life, for Tears for Fears memories fade and the scars still linger:

The more I talk/ the more I say/ the less you seem to hear/ I’m speechless in a most peculiar way/ your mind is weak/ your need is great/ and nothing is too dear/ for you to use to take the pain away/ memories fade.

This song may as well an echo of the song Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel in the late 70’s where the persona speaks to darkness as an old friend and sees people talking without listening. We cannot be certain whether Roland or Curt was influenced by the critical stance of the artists in the 70’s, but their songs in this album really captured what it meant to be alone, to live in a dog-eat-dog world, to suffer from the maddening crowd. Almost twenty five years ago, we were dancing to these tunes, couldn’t care less if they are saying something more. Now that we are beginning to feel the grip and extent of what they were saying, I wonder if we can still dance the way these songs were rendered before. Or shall we be forever be in an ironic situation as the song Start of the Breakdown tells us:

We love to laugh/ love to cry/ half-alive/ we love to go slow when we’re dancing for rain/ dry skin flakes where there’s ice in the vein/ and we love to cry/ half alive.

The song asks, is this the start of the breakdown. Can anyone provide an answer?

The world keeps spinning for Julia Fordham

by Gary C. Devilles, Correspondent, Manila Times

Like the troubadours of yore and the romantic poets today, renowned pop-jazz artist Julia Fordham reminds us once again of our myths and ideals about love, warning us of what love may cost, and promising us of the grandeur love brings. This season of romance, Ayala Malls brings Fordham to the Philippines in a rare concert series.

Fordham has recently completed her tenth album, China Blue, which marks a high point in her 20-year career. "I started at 16," she says, "joining bands and playing music and dropping out early from school to concentrate on being a musician." Her first album, Happy Ever After, was an instant hit. Listeners all over the world immediately liked her songs since these captured the essence of the eighties—the enigmatic and flimsy relationships as expressed in the song Invisible War and the innocent musing or the reflective stance of people back then in Where Does The Time Go.

In China Blue, we encounter Fordham seeking once more an inner dialogue with herself only this time more cognizant of a world that has changed dramatically. She says this album speaks of a sense of personal completion and one of the songs included, titled For You Only For You, strangely articulates this experience of moving on and taking hold of one's emotions. As the song goes, one may cry like a river over and over again for heartaches. But one should remember that a sea of love runs deep in veins. The singer intimates that the capacity to love almost always outweighs the pain of broken relationships and unfulfilled desires. She echoes what philosopher Roland Barthes said about lovers and beloved—that the beloved may be privileged to be desired and adored but ultimately it is the lover who becomes more in touch with his humanity.

When Fordham was asked about what she could tell Britney Spears if she will be able to talk to her, she says she only has sympathy for her. "I would want Britney to run away from the maddening crowd and the media that constantly make a circus out of her life. Actually I don’t like to read gossip magazines especially if the stories in them are painful." Fordham understands what it meant to be under the brutal surveillance of a watchful eye being a public figure herself.

She reminds us not to be overwhelmed by the world we live in and that despite the "bad hair days" or what her sister would call as "cake days", one should be reminded of the palpable fragility of our existence that is better spent with someone who really matters as expressed in the songs, Holiday and I Want To Stay Home With You. Fordham confesses that she loves the simple things such as afternoon tea with friends and family at home. "I have this wonderful set of tea cups," she volunteers, "and my house is this cozy space with wooden floors and ceiling, located near a hill I always love to trek."

The Manila Times asked Julia her reason for releasing China Blue via NovaTunes, an independent Internet company. "The world is constantly changing," Julia opines, "and one cannot just fight back or ignore such force. We all know that a lot of recording companies are closing and this is creating a tremendous pressure over artists to be more creative in terms of marketing." The songs in her album can be bought by downloading them.

Regarding the viability of this marketing strategy, she says that the problem of piracy is one that cannot be easily solved by simply promoting the original. In the age of mechanical albeit digital reproduction, the challenge for the artist is still to be able to sell as this is a source of livelihood without totally controlling the very instrument of production. After all, the success of an artist can also be gauged from the "replicating potential" and "reinterpretation" of his or her work.

Fordham lauds local singer Nina for doing a very good job in her rendition of her Love Moves in Mysterious Ways. This for her is also a measure of an artist’s popularity. Ultimately for Fordham, such marketing strategy of releasing work through the Internet is also a philosophical and political conviction on her part as an artist that strives to be independent with only her audience in mind. She feels her commitment to music and the people who love her should not in anyway be hindered by the business aspect of the music industry.

There are ten songs in this album that tell us who to love, what to do if betrayed, and how to cope if we fall out of love. Indeed, we are constantly in love— searching, longing, losing, and pained by love as the song The World Keeps Spinning tells us. The hypnotic and seductive poetry of Julia Fordham in this collection also discloses that despite the overwhelming feeling of being in love, the world continues to spin beyond the reach of time, with no finality, but with a future that we can only call an assurance. One poet says that the heart is a landmine, and in the Glorietta Mall as Julia Fordham croons everyone with China Blue, bidding us like lost lovers and absent friends, with a breeze that sends a sad tune as the song goes, our hearts explode from within.

Build Me Up Buttercup

Why do you build me up
Buttercup, baby, just to let me down
And mess me around
And then worst of all
You never call, baby
When you say you will
But I love you still

The version which most of us know is actually a Torch remake of a 60's classic originally sung by The Foundations. And I remember the song being repeatedly played during PCC's Foundation Day in the early 80's - 1984 to be exact, if I remember it correctly. Yes, that song has become so distinct in my mind's aural memories that I actually identify it to mark my very own musical awakening.

Memories of the usual Foundation Day funfare are triggered by just hearing this particular song. Kids chasing around the campus as the DJ in the Dedication Booth announces that all marshals catch everyone wearing white rubber shoes. That "random" handcuffing with that particular CBCian you've been eyeing since you saw her coming out terrified from the Horror Booth. Or simply enjoying the rides which usually occupied PCC's softball field (yes, PCC used to have one, remember?).

I need you
More than anyone, darling
You know that I have from the start
So build me up
Buttercup, don't break my heart

Who doesn't know this song? Anyone from our generation who doesn't recognize this particular song will be cursed to suffer in eighties' hell wearing blue-polo-over-yellow-t-shirt-matched-with-faded-baston-jeans-and-mismatch-colored-US-Master-shoes.

Build me up, buttercup. The lyrics are simply unmistakable. The melody, frantically infectious. The beat, relaxingly bubbly.

I'll be over at ten
You told me time and again
But you're late
I wait around and then

For those who know my musical tastes can say that my range can be eclectic at the very least. From eighties' new wave to nineties' disco, from RNB to hiphop and dancehall, from vocal house to the dark and hard house, from techno to hypnotic trance, from slow to alternative rock, from standards to jazz, and from classical to world music. I love music, in most of its forms.

But eighties' music holds a special place in my heart. I can usually name a track's title and artist just based on its first 3 notes or intro drumbeats. My wife usually gets impressed with this geeky talent I display when driving home on Friday nights, listening to 89.9 Magic Madness playing music coming from our era.

I walk to the door
I can't take anymore
It's not you
You let me down again

No other era in music, in my opinion, shows so much character as eighties music. The Beatles may be the single most prominent band of all times, with hits that still live on to this day. But apart from them, the musical character of their era wasn't as diverse (yet identifiable) as when compared to the eighties bands of London, for example. From the sound of the synthesizers to the distinct timber of bands' vocalists voices, one can identify eighties music from those of the other eras. And even as the artists, who became that generation's music icons, are somehow responsible for the horrible fashion trend that invaded the eighties, it even added up to the distinctive character of the personalities from that period.

Baby, baby,
Try to find
A little time
And I'll make you mine
I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone
Waiting for you

I am an eighties kid. I may have already cut short the bangs that notoriously hindered our vision way back then. And I may have already retired from the ritualistic chasing-of-the-girls tradition. But I still sing out to the lyrics of most of the music we all fell in love with. So, everybody now…

So, why do you build me up, buttercup…

"Dear Casey..."

“Here we go with the Top 40 hits of the nation this week on American Top 40…”

If I recall correctly, it was during our first year in High School when a group of classmates – Regan Bernabe, Nelson Juinio, Boyd Monje, Jonathan de Veas, and yours truly – first stumbled into this radio show being aired on 99.5RT FM, The Rhythm of the City. Manny Santana, whom we then referred to as “Australian Kid” later joined our group during our fourth year in High School. Hosted by Casey Kasem, the show was aired every Sunday from 2pm to 6pm, and played the top 40 songs on Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 singles chart for that week - from 40 to 1. If you know your division, it’s about 10 songs per hour with additional portions for long-distance dedication and music trivia (speaking of trivia, Careless Whisper by Wham! was the number 1 song that time we first listened to the countdown).

“Now on with the countdown…”

Almost every Sunday, we would meet at my house in P.Burgos Street, armed with our big composition notebooks (which most of you have probably seen at one time or another) and pens, to listen to each week’s countdown. I would turn up the silver cassette radio my father had sent me from the US – which had proved to be a very vital member of our AT40 family. At one time, when I had mistakenly plugged in the poor radio into the wrong electrical outlet, I had to cry for help from my mother’s friends in Bagong Katipunan to help save the burnt out radio – I was so thankful when they were able to fix it! We would all go to my room and listen to the radio for the whole duration of the show, chat about goings-on at school, compare notes, and do our homework. Most of the time, my mother would also prepare us snacks or order one of us to stop by the bakery so we can get some pastries to eat. During the few times that we were unable to meet at my place to listen to AT40, at least one of us would be tasked to listen to the countdown – sometimes I would listen to the first hour, then Regan would listen to the second hour, then Nelson would listen to the third hour, and so on. Ultimately, we also discovered that Odyssey Records posted the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart on one of their walls and we would flock in front of the list to our hearts’ content. That following Monday, we would all exchange notes so we would have a complete top 40 countdown in our notebooks. The notebooks had become a reference material not only for us, but to most of our classmates, when it came to music. We would get asked a lot of questions about what song dropped off from the countdown, which songs made it to the top 10, and why some songs we listen to that were very popular at that time never made it to the countdown (as Casey would often say, “AT40 originates in Hollywood”). It was the last question that even prompted us to do our own countdowns; suddenly it was countdown fever in PCC High! I think I kept myself in control (and I’ve got lots of it! Sorry I had the urge to put that in somewhere Ms. Jackson) amid the pressure I felt during high school through those countdowns. I made countdowns of my own top 40 – so that songs that never made it to the AT40 countdown such as (Feels Like) Heaven, Blue Monday, Body Dancer, 628, A Smile in Your Heart, and the eternal Bituing Walang Ningning would all have their chance at being the “number 1 song in the country” – or at least in my book. It didn’t stop there, I found myself conducting surveys of all our classmates to find out the top 10 most handsome, most popular, and nicest classmates – and then count them down. At one of our class Christmas parties, we even had our own top 10 countdown of the songs we liked – Wishful Thinking beat Tenderness for the number 1 spot on that fateful day (I think I even sang It's A Miracle, too).

“Before we reveal the number one song on AT40, let’s check out the other number ones on other charts…”

Fourth year High School – Jonathan Manalad was #1 in our Student Council chart. Manny Santana was #1 in our Crusader Editor chart. Irving Raymundo was #1 in our Spelling Bee chart. Ferdinand Evangelista was #1 in our Academic chart. And holding on to #1 for the sixteenth (or seventeenth to some) consecutive year (insert drum roll here) – each one of us in the eyes of our family and friends! My last day in high school felt like the numerous Sundays when the pendulum clock at our house stroke six o’clock in the evening, when the number one song is revealed. Regan, Nelson, Boyd, Manny, Jonathan would gather all their belongings and head home and bid farewell to me as I looked out by the gate, our house dog Tutu barking his goodbyes, until I could hardly see them from the distance. In June of 1988, I migrated to San Francisco, California. My grandmother kept my silver cassette radio until it finally puffed its last breath of melody. Manny, the Australian Kid, returned to the Land Down Under to go to college and live there permanently. Regan, Nelson, Boyd, and Jonathan remained close even after high school. While miles apart, we continued to listen to AT40 and wrote each other – making sure we had a listing of the latest top 40 songs enclosed in our letters to each other. Regan would even write to Manny and include the AT20 listing he had cut out of the current TEMPO he got from the Sari-Sari store next to their multi-story house in Pinagbuhatan. As the years went on, the Internet technology caught up with snail mail (and maybe to some of us technologically-challenged). Billboard Magazine started hosting its own website listing the Hot 100 Singles chart, along with its other charts for quicker access, and all of us kept in touch via emails throughout the day. Just like old days, we would chat about goings-on in our lives, movies, music, and once in a while one of us would mention quotes from those memorable days in High School. Right now, as I imagine our old pendulum clock striking six o’clock, I smile and recall Casey Kasem saying…

“Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars!”

By B Espiritu