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MUSIC | POP CULTURE | WRITING PROMPT
Songs of the Fallen–Rate a Record. Vol. 15
Songbirds with broken hearts vs. Crooners with tortured souls.
Johnny Cash never did hard time, but listen to Folsom City Blues, and you feel like you’re standing in a cinder block cell wearing a striped prison uniform and staring through a 5 x 5 iron rod window, watching freedom pass you by.
David Bowie never sailed into outer space, but if you sit in a dark room and listen to his Space Oddity, and suddenly the earth shrinks away to a blue marble in the recesses of your vision.
Great lyrics and captivating artists transport us to their reality, even when it’s utterly unreal. That’s the magic of music, and the mood can overtake our surroundings.
For Vol. 15, in my Rate-a-Record offering, I ask you to listen to four songs, two from men and two from women, that set the stage and paint a picture with song.
As per all Rate-a-Record submissions, the scale system remains unchanged. Using the American Bandstand point calculation bar, brought to us by Rate-a-Record’s founder, Terry Barr, readers/listeners are asked to rate each song on a scale of 35–98 in the comments section.
