16 January 2015

Music Day - Backyard Changes

This is how I like my pop songs -- fun musically, but not insipid lyrically.

Musically: well, come on, it's Crumbächer. What do you expect besides keyboard? And I, for one, wouldn't have it any other way. The sax is a bit overdone at the end, but aside from that it's Crumbächer pop goodness as you've always known it.

Lyrically: This is easily as hard-hitting as anything with Steve Taylor's name on it. But while Taylor tends to look at societal ills, here Crumbächer takes a slightly more introspective view.

It starts out as your general older-teenage-angst song, sympathising with the frustrations of every sixteen or seventeen year old:
Nothing ever changes
In your own backyard
So you wanna get out when you can
You say your folks don't understand
You wanna make a difference...

Oh, I know. I've been there. I've felt trapped in my own home. I've raged against the four walls of my bedroom, feeling like my parents didn't care that I wanted a break from the pressure of being the perfect oldest.

But while Stephen Crumbacher offers sympathy, he also brings up a good point:
You wanna make a difference
But you'd better start
Closer to the heart
With some backyard changes...

That is, if you can't (or won't) make a difference in your own neighbourhood/school/workplace, what makes you think you'll make a difference anywhere else? If you leave your backyard, you'll still be the same person, just in a different place.

Title: Backyard Changes
Artist: Crumbächer
Album: Thunder Beach
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline Records
iTunes here; YouTube here (live version here).

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