Category: Modern Music

Amanda Marshall’s “Dark Horse”: Song Meaning, Young Love, and the Beauty of Risk

The 1990s were a time of deeply human songwriting connected well with the human experience, and we see this play out in Amanda Marshall’s song “Dark Horse.” The song invites us into the experience of young love—its immediacy and intimacy and bright hope. The lyrics are evocative, placing us right in the scene with the…
Love Is a Battlefield: The Sadness & Meaning Behind the 1980s Classic

Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benetar remains an honest and vulnerable expression of the dysfunction that so often accompanies our modern search for romantic love. Its meaning only grows all of these years later—it was released in 1983—in the context of today’s tragically common use and abuse between men and women, and the listener…
What We Keep Reaching for in Pop Music, but Rarely Find

Overstimulation, emotional hunger, and lack of meaning in modern pop music The hunger beneath the surface Many people find pop music empty and reject it entirely. Others seem oblivious to how hollowed-out so much of it has become. Everyone, it seems, is exhausted by overstimulation and a deep emotional hunger, and reaching for its fulfillment…
“Happy for You” and “Maria” from Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism: Pop Lyrics of Sincerity and Kindness

Like a breath of clear, cold, beautiful air on the coast, “Happy for You” by Dua Lipa offers simple, sincere lyrics and a soaring melodic line that point to something refreshingly real. Wise kindness in a pop song is rare, but that’s what we find here on the pop singer’s Radical Optimism album. As Lipa…
Ben Howard — “Keep Your Head Up,” “Bones” and “Old Pine” and the Persistence of Authentic Songwriting

From Ben Howard’s Every Kingdom album, songs like “Keep Your Head Up,” “Bones,” and “Old Pine” prove the undying persistence of authentic songwriting. Despite mainstream culture’s mostly sidelining of the true songwriting craft post 2000 and this period’s rapid digital music revolution, Howard’s emergence a decade into the new millennium revealed a poetic root humanity…
Saskatchewan, Memory, and the Early-Life Making of Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell’s hometown is Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It could be anywhere in the whole world that this titan songwriter comes from and spent her early life. But it’s Saskatoon: a small city in the Canadian prairies, where winter winds bring the experience of cold sometimes to -40 degrees celsius and where everyone you know is either…
Lifehouse’s “Hanging by a Moment”: Meaning, Hope, and the Edge of Nihilism

“Hanging by a Moment” by Lifehouse is a song pulsating with meaning and hope. The song serves as something of a hard line to the beginning and end of an era—of the older 1990s irony and nihilism that dominated in the grunge scene, as well as the edge of a new and in many ways…
Coldplay’s “Yellow”: Song Meaning & Remembering an Era

“What does Coldplay’s song “Yellow” mean?” is not a question I remember ever asking. It was a different era, where the remaining overhang from the last period of relatively normative cultural depth in the mid to late 1990s was playing out in its perhaps final popular breath in early 2000s alternative male rock in bands…
Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” and the Sound of Emotional Collapse and Fragile Attachment (with Birdy’s famous reinterpretation)

When Birdy entered the music scene many years ago with her remarkable 2011 reinterpretation of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love,” she rightly cut through the noise. The song is full of the reality of emotional collapse amidst fragile attachments and she captures this essence starkly: There is a notable intelligence to the whole production, including the…
Alanis Morissette’s ‘Head Over Feet’ a Lasting Commentary on More Mature Love

The groundbreaking success of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 third studio album, Jagged Little Pill, is home to her most persistent hits. It’s phenomenally rare—especially from that 1990s era where substance was still a cultural demand even in the pop arena—to squeeze so many singles out of one album. But Morissette was seemingly unstoppable. Alongside favorites like…
Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car: A Still-Prescient Song About Fading Hope

Tracy Chapman’s still-prescient song Fast Car, from her self-titled 1988 album, captures the essence of the fading promise of love and the hope so often welded to that youthful love. The song enjoyed a well-deserved revival after her 2024 Grammy performance of the track with Luke Combs, revealing a classic, timeless quality to the themes…
Brooke Fraser Pt. III: Album Flags Signals Deeper Spiritual, Human, and Artistic Encounter

New Zealand-born singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser—more commonly known these days as Brooke Ligertwood via her worship music—shows a consistent progression in her artistic voice throughout her mainstream music albums. In her third studio album, Flags, we see clear evidence of this ongoing trajectory. As spoken of previously, she exemplifies excellent, integrated storytelling in song, rooted in…
An Ancestral Story of Grief in Song: Oh, Ireland, What Am I to Do With You?

In honor of my Irish history on St. Patrick’s Day, the following demo song is about my great-great grandfather’s story of immigration from Ireland in the wake of the horrific potato famine. This event, many argue, was the genocide of the Irish Catholic population by the British Empire, whose officials refused to send aid while…
Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero) by Choral Scholars of University College Dublin: Stunning, with Staying Power

The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin absolutely stun in their choral rendition of Mo Ghille Mear (Gaelic for “My Gallant Hero”). To hear it once is to be arrested and changed: the notable melancholy paired with the characteristic Irish lilting and soaring melody enters the depths of the soul and mind, filling it with…
Why the 1990s Are a Critical Reference Point for Songwriting

The term “singer-songwriter” has come to mean something very different from its original meaning, and this is a direct outflow from the digital age beginning at the end of 1990s. It has instead now come to mean something mostly mechanical and descriptive, rather than alluding to a unique kind of spiritual insight and human perception.…
Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ Continues to Pull in Listeners

One of the great Joni Mitchell’s most famous songs, Both Sides Now, offers a simple invitation into an honest encounter with life and its varied experiences. Because it rings true to experience in a way that Mitchell accomplished par excellence, eschewing vague poetic language in favor of a more visceral lyrical approach, several generations have…
Brooke Fraser Pt. II: Albertine Album Reveals a Maturing Soul and Songwriter

Brooke Fraser, also known as Brooke Ligertwood for her worship music work, released her second album, Albertine, in 2006, revealing both a maturing soul and songwriter. Following on her debut album, What to Do with Daylight, the album unfolds a clear growth arc and the maturing of both soul and songwriting capacities. Central to the…
“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi a Standout Song Offering Lasting Impression of Loss

“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi is a song that instantly captivates the listener, and offers a lasting impression in the heart of the seriousness of loss. Evidently about some kind of breakup, the ache of Capaldi’s voice cuts through the noise of the normative pop music blaring in grocery stores. In a world where…
Brooke Fraser Pt. 1: What to Do With Daylight Album Remains a Solid Listen

New Zealand songwriting sensation Brooke Fraser, now arguably better known now by her married name, Brooke Ligertwood, released her debut album What to Do with Daylight in 2003. Signed to a record label in connection with Sony Music, her career skyrocketed quickly, notably accompanied by her involvement in the worship music scene via Australia-based church,…
Joni, 50: Reflecting on Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ Album Decades Later

There are few albums that have transformed the creative music scene like Joni Mitchell’s album Blue. Known best for songs such as California, River, and A Case of You, the album continues to persist in influence to this day, decades down the line. Written and recorded at a young age where songs of confessional love,…
Things Recede: Songs About Loss, Memory, and Longing

Things recede under the deep waters of your life, and they never really go away. This phrase for a song came to me as I sat in the steam room at the gym after a heavy workout, processing some of the loss, memories, and longing I found myself still wincing over. I remembered someone wise…
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats Reminds Us of the Real Needs of the Human Heart

One of W. B. Yeats’ most well-known poems, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” is an important reminder of the deep needs of the human heart for solace, silence, peace, and natural beauty. The poem articulates Yeats’ experience of a real place he remembered from childhood, in contrast to his bustling life in the city at the…