Tell Me A Story

A teacher I greatly admired once asked a question: In pop music, what is more important, the lyrics or the melody? Now, this was an English teacher--a person educated in the written and spoken word, someone I considered a soul sister for that very reason--so, I was pretty sure I knew what our answer would be. Except for how I didn’t. To my surprise, my teacher and literature mentor claimed that the music was most important…because it came first and therefore had the place of most prominence. Despite the raging case of cognitive dissonance it caused in me, I disagreed then for many reasons and I disagree still for those reasons and others I’ve formulated over time. But then, when I couldn’t yet fully verbalize how I felt, and now, when I can, the primary issue I have with her theory is this: The words tell the story, the story draws us collectively together, and that collective forms the community that embraces the artifact--in this case the song. In other words, without words, there is no common experience. And that is what culture, popular or otherwise, is for. Stories have permeated culture, indeed formed and preserved it, since humans achieved speech. We were a narrative species eons before we got that whole writing thing, and our stories are what tell us who we are. In David Wisniewski’s Rain Player, a Mayan boy embraces the stories of his ancestors to bring rain to the parched land. Good thing someone was listening.

http://www.amazon.com/Rain-Player-David-Wisniewski/dp/0395720834

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wisniewski