In honor of the marriage of two of my favorite people (who I met while I was in journalism school), I have put together a list of songs that journalists should at least hear once.
1. Kodachrome by Paul Simon
For those who don’t know, “kodachrome” refers to a Kodak film camera from the 1970s.
The song Kodachrome is an upbeat hit about this type of camera and film
Kodachrome, they give us those nice bright colours
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away
This is great for the photojournalist who can appreciate the work of the first people to use color film for print media.
2. It’s Good News Week by Hedgehoppers Anonymous
It’s really hard to find songs that speak even remotely well about journalists or the news. This song doesn’t speak well about journalists, but it does have a dark humor to it that I think journalists would find funny.
It’s good news week
Someone’s dropped a bomb somewhere
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the skyIt’s good news week
Someone’s found a way to give
The rotting dead a will to live
Go on and never die
If you’ve ever worked in a newsroom, you know that is how the industry works, and while it seems like a horrible moral issue to most, news people know better.
3. Sunday Papers by Joe Jackson
If you want to know about the gay politician
If you want to know how to drive your car
If you want to know about the new sex position
You can read it in the Sunday papers, read it in the Sunday papers.
As my wonderful boyfriend noted, I’m not sure how many newspapers print new sex positions in the Sunday paper, but this song says they do, so it must be true….haha.
I had never heard the song Sunday Papers by Joe Jackson until today after I saw another blog refer to it, but I think it might go on my regular playlist soon. It’s got a great reggae beat that you can’t help but love, and Jackson calls the words you read in the Sunday paper, “words of wisdom” and says that we “wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t the truth.” What journalist doesn’t like to hear such optimism?
4. American Pie by Don McLean
This very popular song is about the death of Buddy Holly from the perspective of the singer Don McLean, who was a paperboy at the time.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.
While this is not the focus of the piece, it does show how much newspapers were part of the culture.
5. Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend
This hilarious song is about how the oxford comma (or the serial comma). For those who don’t remember the terminology from English class, the oxford comma is the comma that goes before the conjunction (and, or) at the end of a series of items. The Associated Press decided several years ago that this comma was a big waste of space and ink, so they stopped using it. What’s funnier is that the Oxford stylebook doesn’t even use it in a normal series.
Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?
I’ve seen those English dramas too
They’re cruel
So if there’s any other way
To spell the word
It’s fine with me, with me
In this article from Vanity Fair, the songwriter Ezra Koenig says he came up with song after he encountered a Facebook group called Students for the Preservation of the Oxford Comma, ” I didn’t think about it too much but, a few months later while sitting at a piano at my parents’ house, I started writing the song and the first thing that came out was ‘Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?’”