How To Tell Stories
Or rather, (can you teach me) how to tell (really engaging and memorable) stories?
I was listening to the The Moth on a long-ish ride recently and became utterly inspired by the artistry of the storytellers. The podcast featured stories from far and wide, which evoked emotions on all corners of the map; stories that make you gasp, laugh, cry, and believe that everyone has a story to tell. But, how do you tell a story?
How do you tell a story worth hearing? How much detail do you share from the beginning? At what points do you describe the feelings? Or are the feelings intuited? Do you even start at the beginning? How do you know you’ve reached the climax? What if you haven’t figured out the moral of the story? How do you relate to the audience? Does it even matter?
Then I think about music. Some of my favorite musical artists are those that are equally brilliant storytellers, using rhythm and rhyme to riddle a story, and instruments to add to the story during gaps of words.
So this week, I have two songs/stories from 2013. There’s no thematic reason why they’re both from 2013. Apparently a lot of music came out then.
History Eraser by Courtney Barnett
I really didn’t want to feature this song because it’s my favorite of hers and there’s something about choosing to a favorite song that is unsatisfying because it makes the task of choosing much too easy. But alas, here we are.
The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas turns out to be in typical Courtney Barnett style at a time when we didn’t know what that meant. She’s a natural storyteller and master of wordplay. In “History Eraser”, we’re taken on a wild Melbourne ride with a droning two line chorus in between verbose verses that leave you hanging on to every word.
Taro by alt-J
I was once posed the question “If you could only listen to one band for the rest of your life, what band would it be?” and the process of answering this question helped me conclude that alt-J is indeed my favorite band.
Why I could listen to alt-J forever is twofold. From a sheerly musical perspective, they sound like nothing else: simultaneously catchy and bizarre. Then you hear it a few times or few hundred times and the bizarre becomes merely unique. And the catchiness is a pacifier. It creates a sense of familiarity and homeyness, which is then soothing.
Then there’s the intricacy of the lyrics, which is the key to the longevity of the songs. Who knew Taro was about two 20th-century war photojournalists? Finding out this fact after hearing this for the first 500 times makes me listen to the song with different ears the next 500 times. I keep coming back because always so much to uncover.
Happy listening,
Angela
All previous weeks’ songs in this playlist: