Musical Biography Essay, Research Paper

Dear A&E,

First off, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my musical biography interview with you. I have many friends that would get a thrill out of seeing my biography on A&E. My life has been filled with many peaks and valleys, many hardships that I wish no one would have to face. I have not been graced with a beautiful life, but I feel that I have done the best with what I have got. The following list of songs is an attempt to capture my struggle through life, with them I will try to convey that struggle to you. In my life, I am not happy or sad, but I am joyous.

I will start out with one of my childhood favorites, Lion King s Hakuna Matata. This song embodied everything that I wanted at this point in my life, the idea of absolute freedom, to have No worries, for the rest of my days. This song was produced along with the motion picture in my early middle school years. This time in my life was not the pinnacle of happiness, to say the least. My parents had gotten separated when I was eight years old, and roughly five years later, finally completed the divorce. I needed to find something to get me through the pain. Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase, too bad it does not work. A person living with the idea of having absolutely no worries is living in a dream world. As much as I wished that I could live in that world, I knew that lifestyle was not beneficial. It was then that I realized that I did not want to be the kind of person that song was referring to. If a person lives without worries, I feel that he never really lives. I also realized this type of person was more like a lounge lizard, who does not take responsibility for their actions. I tried to take responsibility, and it was not working. I found myself in troubled water and tried my best to swim through those distressed years. Then soon enough I was graced with a chance to cross a bridge in my life and put some of my hassles behind me.

A Bridge Over Troubled Water had presented itself to me, things were starting to look up. I started gaining more friends by the minute and the quality of my schoolwork had increased a great deal. The growing number of friends became a bridge to get through my parents divorce and all the other pain that I was enduring. Each friend was like a small span in a large bridge that I was able to slowly cross. When pain is all around, I found a helping hand in my friends to pull me through the valley and get myself back up onto a bridge. I was treading lightly through life during this period, trying not to rush things. I feel the tempo of this song represents that. It was my eighth grade year that I first heard this song and Bridge Over Troubled Water still is a largely influential song in my life. The meaning has changed to some extent now as from when I first heard it, but the message is still the same. In eighth grade the meaning of this song that I understood was based on my friends and the people around me. This song has a more spiritual meaning to me now that I have gotten closer to God. In my sophomore year in high school, I was introduced to my best friend who helped me continue my spiritual walk with Christ, which has been my bridge to get through many of my current problems.

My father is also a somewhat spiritual man, but he is a hypocrite. It is true that he is in a walk with God, but he is the black sheep in his walk. He is also the black sheep of the family, quoted out of a Jimmy Buffett song Remittance Man. He is always in remittance for the things he has done, always paying for his mistakes. One of those mistakes is losing his marriage with my mother. Everyone is permitted a mistake every once in a while, but my father has run his Bank of Bad Habits down to the bone. That song, Bank of Bad Habits, by Jimmy Buffett, speaks about a man that has used up his bad habit credit. My father knew Jimmy Buffett when he lived in Key West Florida, and every time I hear these two songs I can not help but think that Jimmy is speaking about my dad.

Sometimes I think my father lives by a song that is reminiscent of my childhood years, Lage nom ai. This song has the same meaning as Hakuna Matata does, but is set to a more adult tone and tempo. My father has an attitude sometimes of, Nobody else cares, why should I , and this song supports that view. I pity him because he still has somewhat of the attitude in his 50 s as I did in my teen years, thinking that, life is just a game. My father had a large impact on my life and the way I viewed myself. Through his teachings I matured faster than most of my peers, and with maturity came love.

With love came heart break, and I felt my first heart break when I lost my first love after a year and six months. Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play. Now I realize it isn t a game at all. It is a hard to manage job that takes a great deal of effort. Yesterday sums up how I felt about my first love. I did not know why she had to leave and as soon as she did, I felt like less of a man. But I learned that losing her was actually a building block that made me a better man. Another span in my bridge through life. The song Yesterday is a classic song made back in the 60 s by the Beatles, and has been a good song to explain lost love. It intrigues me that a song made over thirty years ago can still mean so much to so many. Its one of life s little morals that you learn: Love is eternal. My idea of this song has also changed somewhat. I have applied this song to saying goodbye, saying goodbye to my past and opening new and exciting doors into my future. Its so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

I am not always a happy person, but I am also not sad. I feel sorrow, but I also feel happiness. I am a joyous person, because to have joy is to know that even when you are sad, you can always look towards the future and know that happiness will be there. I have learned that you can also worry about problems you are facing, and still have joy.

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