"Shout" by the Isley Brothers

The Isley Brothers sing a song infused with energy. Contextually, this song represents an individual who is in awe from another's presence in their life. Semiotically, this song represents a chain from a presence of being together (sign), to them sharing personal experiences with one another (object), to the subject being in a joyous state (interpretent). The song itself is very upbeat with a lot of passion. The fast pace of the music and the meaning of the lyrics definitely help to assist in the songs overall description as a joyous one. As a personal note, this has an indexical meaning to me. It was the final song that was played at my high school graduation. So when I heard this song on pandora, it immediately reminded me of the joyful time I had all throughout high school. 

"Dance With My Father" by Luke Vandross

In this song, Luke Vandross grieves the death of his father. The song suggests that he is regretful for not spending more time with his father. He says, "If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him, I'd play a song that would never, ever end."Often times, people do not get an adequate amount of time to say good bye to loved ones. This seems true through the lyrics that Vandross created. An overwhelming majority of people feel a great deal of sadness when dealing with the loss of a close relative. Consequently, Vandross constructed a very sweet and innocent melody accompanied by powerful and loving words. Many times, slow songs like this have a very sad connotation. This mellow song definitely gives off a sad/mournful impression. The semiotic chain in this song starts at the sign, Luke Vandorss's father, followed by the object, bringing up the father's funeral, and then the interpretent, the sadness of losing a loved one. 

"I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace

This song is the epitome of an angry song. The lyrics speak for themselves, "I.... Hate....Everything....About you!" Clearly, the subject of this song is enraged. Not only does this song lyrically represent anger, but it also does musically. It is a very crude and blunt song which is choppy, loud, and hateful. If this song had no words at all, it would still be an appropriate song to fit under the category of angry because of its sheer rawness. Interestingly, this song was my favorite warm-up song for my soccer games. It's upbeat and loud which sort of pumped me up. It helped to get me in the right state of mind for flow to kick in. It is extremely hard to run for ninety minutes straight on the soccer field. But when I was in a state of flow, it really was not bad at all. This song and the flow that it provided for me helped me exponentially in my athletics. 

"Family" by Dolly Parton

This song is all about special relationships that most people have with their family. Typically, family gets special treatment. If some random person at school punches you, you may develop a sense of hatred for them. Most times, if a sibling were to come up and punch you, you would be mad at first but then would get over it because you are family and you love each other. Dolly Parton mentions that there are a lot of people in the world who are preachers, who do drugs, who ran away from home. No matter their success or failure, the simple fact that they are blood relatives to you makes you love them in most cases. Family are people that you can turn to with troubles. Dolly Parton most likely stresses this importance of family through song because it is how her personal family operates. They are people that you can trust, and they always have your back. These family values are very similar to mine and I'm sure many others. 

"I'll Make a Man Out of You" by Mulan Soundtrack

As childish as this song sounds due to its nature of being in a kid's Disney movie, it provides precise feelings of sexuality as a man. Stereotypically, men have characteristics of being strong and powerful. The song goes, "(To be a man) We must be swift as the coursing river. With all the force of a great typhoon." This part illustrates the strong and powerful man mentioned previously. To me, this song more so means that men need to be strong emotionally. Men are the ones who protect the family most often so they need to be able to have adequate abilities to do so. 

Hello everyone and welcome to my personal blog! In order to give each of you a feel for who I am, I would first like to offer an extremely abated version of life as Logan Skelly. Currently I reside in the quaint town of Zionsville, Indiana with my two brothers and parents. As it is with many other male dominated households, all of us were extremely competitive; especially when it came to athletics. Although I've never lived anywhere besides Indiana, my family was quite mobile throughout the entirety of my youth due to my father's occupation. Albeit this was quite difficult on me, it ultimately provided great assistance in developing my maturity and developing my character.



"Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman

The title "Fast Car" is a very misleading title because the song itself has absolutely nothing to do with an automobile. The song is an autobiography of Tracy Chapman's childhood which involves having to drop out of school because she needed to provide income for her and her father because her father was physically incapable of working. As shown by the line, "Momma went off and left him [dad]", she was left by her mother and forced to take care of her father single-handedly. She worked hard to fight through her difficult adolescent years and continued her education at Tufts University. Although she was presented with social and financial hardship, her hard work surfaced, making her an amazing individual. Personally, this song highlights my value on the importance of working hard for things that you want. You can not expect everything in life to come your way if you do not work hard for it. This song also highlights the importance of family. Loved ones are definitely the most valued parts of my life. They are always there for me when I need them, and like Tracy, I will always be for them when they need me.


"Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion

I lead a life that is highly focused on close friend and family relationships. My family always does everything together. We eat dinner together every night and go on vacations on a regular basis. People who care about me are surely the most important to me. Celine Dion shares a similar message throughout this song. She asserts that loved ones, whether it be a significant other or family, are with you the entire way. No matter what, they have your back and do what is best for you. When you are going through a tough time, family can give you strength. This is exactly what Celine points out when she says, "You were my strength when I was weak". Celine Dion intimately expresses her love for this person. Similarly, I also try to lead a life full of love. Hate is an over-practiced principle that encourages destruction rather than construction. If everyone tries to lead lives full of love, the world would be a better place. Just like John Lennon said, "All you need is love".


"Hakuna Matata" the Lion King Soundtrack

Hakuna Matata is a Swahili phrase that literally means "there are no worries". Occasionally, times are tough and it seems like nothing is going your way. This song from Lion King simply reminds us to live without being in constant fear of failure. If you live with this fear in the back of your mind at all times, it will limit you in life. Being overly cautious depreciates the value of your time here on earth. I define myself as someone who lives life one day at a time. I do not see any need to be worried all the time. From a literary standpoint, in Don DeLillo's novel White Noise, Jack and Babette (the parents in the novel) live in constant fear of death. Because of this worry, they are two of the most unproductive parents that I have ever witnessed. A huge weigh can be lifted off of people's shoulders if they live with a little less worry. Hakuna Matata!


"Fly Over States" by Jason Aldean

Like I said in my biography, I have lived in Indiana for my entire life. Typically, fly over states are not places that are visited often by others. They are stereotyped as being boring compared to states like New York and California. Aldean says that people never "met the man who plowed that earth, planted that seed, busted his ass for you and me." Most people see my home state as "miles and miles of of back roads and highways, connecting little towns with funny names. Who'd want to live down there in the middle of nowhere?". I really do not see The Hoosier State like this whatsoever. I think Indiana is a beautiful place that is very family friend. There are areas like Fort Wayne, Evansville, Indianapolis, and Gary that are densely populated. There are areas like Zionsville, Brownsburg, and Fishers that are sparsely populated. Contrary to popular belief, Indiana is amazingly diverse. To be honest, there is not another state that I would prefer to live in. I love my native state!

"What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong

This song exemplifies many of my values in life. Essentially, this piece describes environmental surroundings and biological surroundings. This song has a simple purpose and it is to announce that we live in an awesome place. I value our environment and maintenance of earth. This "wonderful world" that we live in also helps to define me. My environment has a direct impact on my daily life and my surroundings determine what kind of person I am. For example, had I grown up on the Pacific Coast in California, I could totally see myself being an avid surfer. I might even take it to an extreme level of going surfing nearly everyday. I do love the ocean and I have always thought that surfing is a lot of fun. I live in Indiana, where there is not an ocean, so I naturally chose to do something else with my time: soccer. I have been playing soccer ever since I was about four years old. This comparison of geography determining my lifestyle kind of relates to ethnomusicologists studies of music. People often listen to music solely based on the region they live in. This ethnomusicologist approach to thinking about why I do what I do definitely helps to determine who I am and what kind of life i live.

"What I Got" by Sublime

The meaning of this song coordinates nicely with my values of life. Life and personal skills are precious and should be appreciated. Being happy for what you do have is more empowering than being unhappy with the lack of stuff that you wish you could acquire. Don't be too infatuated with materialistic things. Be proud of yourself and where you are in life.