Song Stories

In her celebration of the song “Brenda’s Got A Baby,” Danyele Heier describes 2Pac’s musical activism by contextualizing the song’s lyrics in their socio-cultural moment. Danyele’s podcast is engrossing for her sharp analytic ear and careful research, and important for her goals: to show that rap music can serve as a vehicle for community-building in spite of both the racist social structures that affect urban black communities and the racist cultural structures that provoke criticism of the genre.

At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.

In her podcast, Megan Hack excavates the autobiographical elements to Matchbox 20’s hit “3AM”: Rob Thomas’s mom was fighting cancer at the time the song was written. Listening closely and incorporating her own experiences as a listener into her analysis, Megan asks (and begins to answer): “if a person has not experienced a situation talked about in a song, how are they able to feel emotion from it?”

At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.

In her podcast, Riley Fitzmaurice wanders through The Eagles’ classic “Hotel California,” masterfully drawing together its ambient music and wide-eyed lyrics to describe the song’s ear to temptation, rebellion, and what she calls “the glitz and glam side of Hollywood.”

At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.

Zoë Fields focuses on teen angst, catharsis, and rebellion in her sonic, lyrical, cultural, and personal analysis of Marilyn Manson’s “Irresponsible Hate Anthem.” Drawing on what she finds to be the most controversial and anti-conformist elements of the anthem and analyzing Manson’s persona, Zoë skillfully places the song in the context of valid, youthful desires for critique, disobedience, and catharsis.

At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.

In his podcast, Lukas Esser listens peripatetically to Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side,” telling the story of Reed’s social milieu and the queer subcultures that were, and are, so important to rock ‘n’ roll history. Lukas analyzes the song’s lyrics chronologically, listens closely to the music, and brings the song’s characters to life.

At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where he digs deeper into his podcast research, conclusions, and production process.

Jasmine Cao’s podcast begins with the premise that Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” is still wildly popular over forty years after its original release. Her answer brims over with humor and personality; in her podcast, she discloses her own relationship to music alongside YouTube comment sections and music criticism to tell a story of nostalgia, ubiquity, and different ways of listening in the twenty-first century.

At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process."

Beginning with the premise that Kendrick Lamar “embraces music as a medium for storytelling,” Sharon Ahn tells the story of his song, “The Art of Peer Pressure.” With deft lyrical and sonic analysis that moves chronologically through Lamar’s piece, Sharon parses the artist’s multiple positions in the song’s narrative, counterposing what she calls his “self-conflict” to the ways that he creates community through shared experiences in his song.