Fast Car Meets Paradise City

Both Rock songs “Paradise City” by Guns and Roses and “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman tell the same underlying message. “Paradise City” was produced in 1987 and “Fast Car” was produced in 1988. Guns and Roses is a white rock band and Tracy Chapman is an African American artist, both giving the same view on the city from a different perspective. They sing of the city as a wondrous and great place to be at a first glance, but in reality it is not the pretty picture that it’s painted to be.

The lyrics from the chorus of “Paradise City” state “Take me down To the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty, take me home.” This portion of the song is stating the city as a place of paradise; it makes it sound like the place to be. Tracy Chapman does the same in her song “Fast Car” with the lyrics, “We won't have to drive too far just across the border and into the city you and I can both get jobs and finally see what it means to be living.” In a later verse she describes the feeling she remembers from the city, “See I remember we were driving, driving in your car the speed so fast I felt like I was drunk city lights lay out before us and your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder.” She describes the city as a place where she can make something of herself and that being there gives her a good feeling. She describes it as an inviting place.

Now looking at the rest of the lyrics from each song, the city is described as a cold, a deceitful, and a hard place to live. From the Guns and Roses point of the alternative aspect of the city is expressed in the lyrics, “Just a' urchin livin' under the street I'm a hard case that's tough to beat.” He compares himself to an urchin which is a bottom feeder on the sea floor. In another verse the lyrics state, ”Captain America's been torn apart Now he's a court jester with a broken heart.” Here Guns and Roses is talking about America as the mighty nation it is as corrupt and torn down. Tracy Chapman gives her perception on how the city will be at first, ”I know things will get better you'll find work and I'll get promoted we'll move out of the shelter buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs.“ She knows she will have to work from nothing and build her way up. Later her lyrics express another understanding of the city, ”You got a fast car and I got a job that pays all our bills, you stay out drinking late at the bar see more of your friends than you do of your kids.“ These lyrics express how city life can change and corrupt people and their values.

It is interesting how these two different artists from diverse backgrounds come to the same conclusion about the city.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/gunsnroses/paradisecity.html

http://www.elyrics.net/read/t/tracy-chapman-lyrics/fast-car-lyrics.html

"Lush Life"

 "Lush Life" - Hartman and Coltrane

I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingue traces that used to be there
You could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day, twelve o'clock tales

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness
I thought for awhile that your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness of a great love for me
Ah yes, I was wrong
Again, I was wrong

Life is lonely again and only last year
Everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful again
A trough full of hearts could only be a bore

A week in Paris could ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it

I'll forget you, I will while yet you are still
Burning inside my brain romance is mush
Stifling those who strive

So I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I'll be
While I rot with the rest of those
Whose lives are lonely too

     The song "Lush Life" is a jazz standard written by Billy Strayhorn in 1933-38. Along with "Take the "A" Train," "Lush Life" is one of Strayhorn's signature compositions, having been covered by many widely known musicians such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, and Queen Latifah. The song has a low tempo, but is full of complex chord changes that result in a dreary, and almost dissonant sound at times. Listening to this song reminds me of Toni Morrison's novel Jazz because the frequent chord and key changes which constantly change the mood of the song  echo the sporadic mood and perspective changing of the narrator in Morrison's novel. The lyrics of the song also parallel different themes, places and even characters from Jazz. The "come-what-may places" that Strayhorn refers to are the jazz clubs that were prevalent throughout the early 20th century. These are the very same jazz clubs that Dorcas was drawn to in her time with the Miller Sisters. Another theme the song and book have in common is the theme of loneliness and getting left by someone. Strayhorn states that he was wrong about the "smile tinged with great sadness of a great love," which parallels the dynamic between Dorcas and Joe. After Dorcas stopped seeing Joe, Joe could not stop thinking about her, much like how in the song, Strayhorn states that "Burning inside [his] brain romance is mush." The "Lush Life" that Strayhorn refers to in the final stanza of the song is a life of going to "dives," or jazz clubs. The significance in the title "Lush Life" for the novel written by Richard Price is that in the book, the lower east side is an incredibly dense and diverse area, and although the word lush literally means dense with vegetation, the lower east side is lush with an array of different backrounds, histories, and cultures. 

      

Queen Latifah's rendition of "Lush Life"

Tiananmen Square Protest of 1989

The Tiananmen Square Protest of 1989 took place in Beijing and is an example of violence within a major city.

In the morning of May 4th, almost 100,000 students and workers protested in Beijing by demanding freedom of media and a better communication between the communist government and the student representatives. In addition, the protest group urged the Party to accelerate political reform as it had promised previously.

The government, however, rejected the proposal and only agreed to talk to a few student representatives, which also proved to be futile. The situation worsened when groups of students occupied the symbol of Beijing, the Tiananmen Square on May 13th, which was two days prior to the highly-publicized state visit by USSR's General Secretary Gorbachev. Hundreds of students went on hunger strikes, lasting more than a week.

Initially the Communist Leader Deng XiaoPing hoped to control the chaos through verbal warning to the students, but as the demonstration grew bigger and bigger as students from Shanghai, Xi'an, and Wuhan also joined the protest, Deng sent soldiers and tanks from the 27th and 38th Armies of the People's liberation Army to clear the area around Tiananmen Square. On June 4th, when the riot could not be contained by the soldiers anymore, tanks were ordered to crash the cars and even students protesting in the square. Although the Chinese government blocked the official death toll, the total fatality number was rumored to be around 7000 to 10000.

Both of my parents have experienced the riot themselves as they were both living in Beijing back then. From their point of view, I could conclude that the root of this disaster was the failure of communication within the city. My mom, an undergraduate student at the time, was actually a part of the demonstration. As she recalled, the student protest was a mess since the group lacked the true leadership that can provide the demonstrators a real chance to talk with the government officials. The leaders within the Party also failed to communicate with the students as it refused to let the young population give them advices about national policy. Furthermore, both the government and students had trouble in terms of their relationship with the military. The PLA, for example, was forcibly sent by the government to suppress the protesters. Initially when they were not allowed to open fire, students harassed the soldiers by spitting, cussing, and in some cases even physically abusing them. So when the government on June 4th ordered the army to hit back, huge number of deaths was inevitable since hatred between the military and the civilians was already severely elevated beforehand. This example had shown that malfunctioning communication within an urban city could seriously threat the city's security as the violence in Beijing could have been completely avoided if the military, the government, and the students had a better understanding of each other.

Source: Wikipedia

Jamaican Me Crazy

When people think of visiting Jamaica, they imagine a tropical paradise of beautiful beaches and green mountains where people do nothing but dance and listen to reggae music. And this is the Jamaica most tourists will see.

But my freshman year at St. Stephen’s, I got the opportunity to see Jamaica as it really is with the soccer academy. The beaches and mountains are not as picture perfect as the brochures suggest, and life is sometimes hard for Jamaicans. Still there’s a lot of beauty and joy to be found even in the hidden Jamaica I saw.

When we first arrived in Montego Bay, on the northwest coast of the island, we did experience something of the stereotypical Jamaica. The song “Welcome to Jamrock” was playing loudly over the speakers outside of the airport, and the smell of ganja was thick in the air. On the two and a half hour bus ride to go sixty miles across the island to Kingston, the stereotype was quickly replaced by less familiar impressions of Jamaica. First the drive itself was pretty scary because the roads over those picturesque green mountains were narrow and steep.

Second, the city of Kingston was much poorer and more rundown than you might see in the beach side resorts. Even the nicer areas of town would lack what any of us would consider to be basic features such as clothes dryers. The prep school where a former St. Stephen’s boarding student went looks no nicer than the oldest and most neglected schools in our city, quite a contrast to St. Stephen’s. Without the school’s name on the side, one might easily mistake it for a prison.

Life is also not a nonstop party. On our trip we visited an orphanage, not a place most tourists would visit. Still, despite the poverty, the Jamaicans we met were almost universally happy and friendly. The orphans greeted us with smiles, merchants along the road were happy to introduce us to local snacks, and life in many ways seemed very similar to life here in the states. The cities in Jamaica that I saw were rougher and dirtier than I was expecting but were also warm and welcoming.

Chicago

The Ciy of Chicago, also known as "Chi-town" or "The Windy City" is the third most populated city in the United States, and is the largest city in Illinois. Chicago is a very unique city. It is very clean and well maintained with many flowers lining the medians. Unlike New York City, the people that live in Chicago are very friendly and not pushy. Chicago has a different mix of architecture from some of the oldest buildings to new and modern ones built within the past 10 years. A very historical building would be the "Water Tower Place" which was the only building left standing after a huge fire in the early 1900s. An example of a more modern piece of architecture would be "The Bean." The Bean is a symbol of Chicago portraying how it has grown to be a great center for music and tourism. There are large outdoor musical amphitheaters which is a great environment for people to gather.




Home of the Chicago Bears professional football team, the Chicago Cubs professional baseball team, and the Chicago Bulls professional basketball team; Chicago is a city very well known for its sports teams. The Cubs play on the very famous Wrigley Field shown to the left. In chicago, everyone are die hard fans no matter what sport you are talking about. Whether it is baseball, football, basketball, or hockey, Chicago locals are serious about sports.


Chicago holds a huge music festival called Lollapalooza on its very own Grant Park. From Grant Park you have the view of the downtown Chicago skyscrapers. Everything in Chicago is easily accessible. Near Grant Park is a great museum district that holds something for everyone from art to science.