Upon researching for songs to analyze for my podcast I came across this song by Jenny Lewis called “Just One of the Guys” released in 2014. I had never heard of this song or the artist before so I decided to try it. I was surprised at how blunt but also mysterious the lyrics are at the same time. I am curious to study this song further as I feel it is an accurate representation of what women, especially women in the workforce have to think about every day. I think the social justice aspect of this song is the theme of women trying to be taken seriously by men, but only being recognized for their reproductive parts. The song has a line that says “No matter how hard I try to have an open mind, there’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’” referring to the societal pressure for a woman’s need to find a man to have a child with. 

I think that this song will lead to me other music that has more of a female-centric experience. I am not super familiar with the Indie / Singer-songwriter genre but have enjoyed listening to this song so far. I think that this is an important genre to look into because smaller artists that are usually represented in this genre do not have as much pressure from big record labels to produce certain songs. There is more freedom to write lyrics that make sense to the artist’s experience. I think that through studying more music in this genre I will be able to find more raw emotions and experiences of social justice issues through the music. 

Though a new song to me, I do feel a strong connection to it. Even as a college senior, trying to find a career, I think about what my future will be. Will I have kids? Will I find a job? Will I be taken seriously at said job? Upon listening to this song for the first time already embodied many thoughts that I have wondered about regarding my future. As a woman society puts pressure on us to do things a certain way, and this song embraces that frustration. I am willing to dedicate 10 weeks to studying this song because it represents a topic that is not talked about in music enough. There are not many songs that I have heard that share a similar theme. 

The other song that I would be interested in analyzing is “American Idiot” by Green Day. This is a song that I have grown up listening to. Though I have heard it a lot before, I have already noticed new themes that I had not before when reading over the lyrics. Using what we have already learned in class, I am finding that this song is a lot more relatable to this time than I had originally thought. Though I am familiar with the song I think that this will still be a challenge. Diving deeper into other people’s words is always harder than I anticipated. But I think that this will be a fun and interesting challenge due to the fact that we are learning more and more about the musical aspect of protest songs and the music to this song is quite chaotic. 

I think that this song will lead me to learn more about the history of the United States in the early 2000s that I did not experience consciously. As a young child, I was not able to feel the culture of the country shift post 9/11 or during the Bush Administration. I think that I will learn more of the darker aspects of that time that I currently know. Personally, this song is one of rebellion in my eyes. I was obsessed with this album and the Broadway show that was created based on it. Either way, I am eager to learn more about the public perception of the song before it was adapted to Broadway. 

One concern that I have about this project overall is being able to articulate my thoughts into an insightful podcast that makes sense to others, and not just myself. I have gotten so used to writing papers of analysis that I am not sure how I will write something that is supposed to sound natural when I say it. Other than that, I am excited to begin this process and start analyzing the Jenny Lewis song (hopefully).