Life Kit - Life advice inspired by graduation songs

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

With graduation season here, our friends at NPR's All Songs Considered asked listeners to tell them about songs that bring back memories of the final days of high school, when they said goodbye to old friends, left home and struck out on their own. Join NPR's Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson as they reflect on graduation through song.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, LifeKit listeners. I'm Robin Hilton, host of NPR Music's All Songs Considered. It is graduation season, so we decided we'd do something fun for it this year. We asked listeners to tell us about the songs that remind them of their final days of high school. And it turns out those songs unlocked a whole lot of memories and stories and also some great advice that we wanted to share with the Life Kit audience. So enjoy this episode, and then maybe share it with the graduate in your life. And as always, you can listen to new episodes of All Songs Considered every Tuesday, wherever you get podcasts. Here's the show. Stephen Thompson, I heard a rumor about you. What would that be,

Robert? And it's a rumor that I just cannot believe is true. So I have to ask. Anything you have heard about me is a dirty, dirty lie. Well, what I heard was that you were actually a very, very good student. Well, keep in mind that half the curriculum in those days was just cave maintenance. How to keep your cave clean. I was a terrible student. I truly was terrible. I never really took to school, I guess you could say. And, you know, I could not wait to get out of there.

Somehow I did manage to graduate, which was around this time of year, a number of years ago. And graduation. It was years ago. Some time. Some time ago. And graduation. It was years ago. Some time. Some time ago. And graduation season is here again. So we did a call out to listeners asking them to tell us about a song that takes them back to this time.

You know, when they ended what was certainly by then the biggest chapter in their lives, you know, said goodbye to friends and family and left home. So we're going to share some of the song picks and memories of this time that we got from listeners. We got a bunch of emails and voice memos. We also have a couple of our own picks that we're going to share, but let's start with one from a listener. Yeah, this is a track that was picked by a lot of people, but this one came to us from Ruthann in Ohio. I'm quoting now, this song was actually released two years after I left high school, but it still wrecks me. It is everything I try to remember about getting older. I sometimes still cry when I hear it. It

reminds me that there is nothing new under the sun. Everything that is happening has happened before. And a very serious reminder, I think you're going to know where we're going with this, to wear sunscreen. Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 99, wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen

have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded.

But trust me. In 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective

as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead Sometimes you're behind The race is long And in the end I'd been out of high school for quite a while By the time this song came out

This is Baz Luhrmann, by the way I didn't actually mention his name in the intro Yeah, everybody's free to wear sunscreen Came out in 99 I remember hearing this for the first time. And you know, much like Ruthann in Ohio, it made me cry. And it still makes me cry when I hear it. I think maybe because at the root of this song, and all these little bits of advice, you know, is one idea. And it's the idea that, you know what, life is pretty beautiful. Life is pretty beautiful. And don't let it just boils down to being young.

And a lot of the advice that you need to hear when you're young is a combination of anxiety management and life skills. And that's what this song really comes through. At one point when he just says floss, I'm like, oh my God, if there's one lesson that I want my kids to take from this song, it's that dental hygiene is important

because if you fall short, and listen people, if you're out there, get an electric toothbrush. The amount of money that an electric toothbrush, a simple electric toothbrush, would have saved me

in periodontal surgery, it's mind-blowing. I really didn't think that this is the direction the conversation was going to go, but sure, it's important. So is all the other advice in this song. And in fact, you know, it was overplayed, you know, became a cliche to a lot of people. I still think everything that is said in this song should be printed in a little manual and handed out to everyone at graduation because it's just one brilliant truth after another. Baz Luhrmann, the filmmaker, he produced it,

but the words are from an essay written by columnist Mary Schmich. It wasn't an actual commencement speech that she gave. It was one that she said she would give if she were asked, and it ran in the Chicago Tribune in 1997, became the song in 99, and people are still finding it today. She's still collecting songwriting royalties. I hope so. I certainly hope so. It's brilliant. Let's go to another listener pick. This one is from Sarah in Queens, and she picked the song I Feel It All by Feist.

And Sarah says, It came out right before I graduated in June 2007. It was just getting warm. It says, freedom from school, from our parents. It was our first time renting a house together with no supervision and the nauseating thrill of moving away for college. It was so good to have everything ahead of us, and we knew it. I feel it all, I feel it all I feel it all, I feel it all The wings are wide, the wings are wide Wild card inside, wild card inside Ooh, I'll be the one who'll break my heart I'll be the one to hope

again I know more than I knew before I know more than I knew before I didn't rest I didn't stop did we fight or did we talk? Ooh, I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll be the one to hold the gun I love you more You know, Sarah in Queens picked this song One, two, hope that I love you more. You know, Sarah and Queens picked this song, you know, largely because it came out at the time. It was playing at the time. They all loved it. But it is so perfect, too. It speaks to that feeling of the world kind of laying out before you.

Yeah. And this song remains just 10 out of 10 no notes. Yeah, I love the idea. No notes. I love the idea of, like, you see everything, you know, all at the same time. And you feel everything all at the same time. But, yeah, great pick. I was really surprised to see it. Yeah, and very happy, too, because it reminded me how much I love this album.

Because, gosh, I haven't listened to this album in ages. But I had it on constant repeat when it came out. Oh, me too. It is phenomenal. As we went through all of the emails and voicemails we got from listeners, there were so many songs that came up over and over and over again. The Sunscreen song is certainly one of them. Closing Time by Semisonic was another one. Yes, I know it's about, I think about closing a bar or something, but I think,

you know. Sure. It's still, it's an ending. It's an ending. It's transition. Others included Alice Cooper's School's Out. I knew that would be there. Paul Simon's Kodachrome was an interesting one that came up several times. But what do you think was the... And I totally predicted this myself, but what do you think is the single most mentioned song, like no contest? So the problem, Robin, is I've seen the run of this show. But you know... If I had not seen the run of this show, I would say that the answer is Good Riddance, parentheses, Time of Your Life by Green Day. Hundred, hundred percent.

The most mentioned song, like, you know, people submitted a form and I just was scrolling through the results of the form. It's just Good Riddance, Good Riddance, Good Riddance, Good Riddance, Good Riddance. Graduation by Vincenzi, Good Riddance, Good Riddance, Good Riddance. Yeah, so many times. Could have picked any number of the comments or memories or stories, but here's one of the voice memos we got. It's from Rebecca in California. It reminds me of leaving my high school because it was back in the early 2000s, right before 2001, right before 9-11, right before a lot of things that have happened in the past 24 years. And one of my best friends named Danny dedicated Time of Your Life on the radio to me. And I went

and I recorded it on cassette. And I thought, oh yeah, this is the start. This is the time of my life. And it's funny because I haven't listened to that song in a really, really long time. Thank you for bringing back the memories. Bye. But in the end is right I hope you had the time of your life So take the photographs and still frames in your mind Hanging on a shelf in good health and good time. Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial. For what it's worth, it was worth all the while. It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right. I hope you had the time of your life One of the things I loved about Rebecca's memories is it just, these little details she had in her reflections that captured a time when you could call a radio station, have a song dedicated to someone,

and then you would record it on a cassette as it's broadcasting, you know. Record your moment of fame. Yeah, the innocence of that moment is just so wonderful. And, you know, she invokes, you know, that this was pre-9-11. And, you know, it's also interesting to me when I think about when the song came out, I was so much younger back then. And time when you're younger moves, it's just so much slower than it moves now. And if you'd asked me between the time this song

came out and like just before 9-11, I would have thought, I don't know, a decade. It was like three years, you know? I mean, it was just like no time at all. The song was not that old when, you know, at that time. It's such a multi-purpose song. You know, it really just boils down to like events have transpired. Hope you liked them. Yeah. But also just I'm so impressed kind of listening back to that song. And I've listened back to that song a few times in the last year or so. Well, we did that whole show on Green Day.

We did a whole show about Green Day. And the strings are doing so much heavy lifting in that song. They really managed to sweep in and kind of guide your emotions through. And it's not an excessively sappy or sentimental song, really, when you break it down. It's just basically saying, like, this time is over. Yeah, yeah. But it's also, you know, I think much like the Sunscreen song, that it has been so overplayed and parodied over the years. And, you know, but really undeniably a brilliant song.

And it's just a great melody. Everything about it, it just comes together perfectly. Yeah. We've got to take a quick break, but we will have more memories of graduation, leaving home, and the music that takes us back right after this. I'll do my pick, I guess, here. You know, I thought of a lot of songs from that time that I could play. Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up. The song This Must Be the Place by the Talking Heads.

I listened to a ton of Kate Bush back then, pretty much anything by her. But I'm going to go with one by Rikki Lee Jones. This is from her album Pirates. It's a song called We Belong Together. Thank you. I say this was no game of chicken You were aiming your best friend That you wear like a switchblade On a chain around your neck I think you picked this up in Mexico from your daddy. And your daddy only rules in this brand new reality.

Now it's a dean on the doorway with one more way. You can't play the secret toy. So you drag her down every drag and it's forbidden fit of love. And you told her to stand tall and you drug her out of your drag And it's forbidden fit of love And you told her to stand tall And you kissed her But that's not where you were thinking I could have nearly Would knock himself

Into a scene so custom-tuned But now look who shows up In the same place In this case I think it's better To face it. We belong together. So my favorite part in this song comes a little bit later, so I'm going to actually scooch ahead here to it.

Sure. This is just before Steve Gadd, the drummer, comes in. But the sailor's instincts are brought down in the dark and in the fair to turn it into a tattoo that I'll whisper in the back of time. comes in. And I promise we belong together We belong together Man, I'm in my beater of a VW Bug, my 1969 VW Beetle. I'm speeding down the highway saying, See ya! Off on my way to college.

Never looking back. Never looking back. You'll never see me set foot in Iola, Wisconsin again. Reader, I turned up in Iola, Wisconsin many more times in the years since. Yes, yes. Same. You know, I think, you know, this isn't a song that just like screams graduation, high school graduation or anything, you know. And maybe it's nothing more for me than the fact, you know, that I was just listening to this album a lot back then.

And, you know, so I had this song on repeat. But there is a sadness in this song and a sense of loss, I think. And, you know, on the one hand, it's, you know, it's a broken hearted love song about, you know, like, well, we should be together. But, you know, it's also a sense of moving on and letting go, even if you don't want to. And I don't know, more of a feeling maybe than anything. But the song, I actually listened to the song recently and got all weepy listening to it just because it made me think of, you know, all those years ago, I think. Yeah, I get that completely.

And I appreciate it. It's a very Robin Hilton song. I appreciate that you scooted ahead so we could hear the... I'm air drumming in here. Which is such a Robin Hilton move. Think of you as Mr. Drumphil. If you want to really experience this song, by the way, find someone who has like a $25,000 stereo system, which I did one time. I went to a friend of mine, worked at Martin Logan, which is a speaker manufacturer.

And they make electrostatic, amazing speakers. And they put this song on for me once on this amazing, it was like a $25,000 pair of speakers. And it revealed that this is the most exquisitely recorded album ever. It is just incredible. Nice. We belong together. Love it. By the way, I went to the record store recently to get it on vinyl because back in the early 1990s, I made a terrible mistake and I got rid of all of my physical records. I got rid of all my vinyl because I'm like,

I'm moving to CDs, baby. Nobody's ever going to want vinyl again. I went to the record store just this past weekend. I said, hey have pirates i'm looking through you know i can't even find any ricky lee jones and he's like uh you're gonna look in the dollar bin that's a dollar record and i said that is not a dollar record what is wrong with you he's like hey man i'm not passing judgment on the you know like the the sonic quality is worth a dollar i'm saying nobody wants to buy that record it's it's it's it's in the dollar bin. And I was like, blasphemy, how dare you? And I stomped out of there. But not before I bought a few other records. All right, Stephen, how about you? What do you got? Your own pick? But I don't think I was listening to good music. I don't think the music I was listening to was as good as the music you were listening to. I have a vague recollection of Black Sabbath and their song Changes playing the perspective of a parent. And I mean, that's certainly something you're kind of getting a little bit with like the Baz Luhrmann,

people who are approaching these milestones from a grown perspective. But the song I picked is by a band called Cloud Cult. And if you know the history of Cloud Cult, you know, they're kind of an experimental indie band. They made a ton of records. And at the center of Cloud Cult was a husband and wife. And they had gone through terrible loss. They had lost a child. And, you know, written a record about that.

And then over time, you know, they went on and had another child. And so in 2010, they released an album called Light Chasers. And there is a track on this record. It basically makes me feel all the positive feelings about being a parent at the same time. It is an almost overwhelming emotional experience listening to this song. And to me, this is a perfect graduation song

that I don't think has necessarily gotten played at a lot of graduations. And so I'd like to submit this song to the graduation canon as an incredible song about sending somebody out into the world. The song is called You'll Be Bright, parentheses, Invocation Part 1. Travel safely. They're calling out. Travel safely. Every first kiss. Every crisis. Every heartbreak and every act of kindness. They're calling out.

Travel safely. They're calling out. Travel safely. Every empire. Every monument. Every empire. Every monument. Every masterpiece. Every invention. They're calling you.

Travel safely. They're calling you. Travel safely. All the things you love. All the things that may hurt you. All the things you shouldn't do. And all the things you want to travel safely

travel safely I found stars on the tip of your tongue You speak Portuguese So do I So do I So do I So do I So do I Yeah, this is a song that you could camp out. It could stay just that sweet little lovely song in the beginning, and it'd be totally effective.

But this song builds and builds, and so Rob and I am going to ask you to scoot the song a little bit forward and get into some of the meat of how hard this song goes. So bring the death to life. Take your blood to the wine. All your life you have waited for this moment to arrive in your bed. Yeah. I mean, because that's what life is, right?

It is this build and it's this triumph. And I can tell this song's really moving you. I love this song so much. And like part of it is it's like just this emotional bloodletting. All my feelings are happening on top of one another when I listen to this song. And if

you are a parent and you're having big feelings about your kids and what you want for your kids, this is the song for you. Yeah, I've got a long, long, long way to go before I send my kids out into the song for you yeah no i i've got a long long long way to go before i send my kids out into the world uh one is about to finish third grade but um but this is exactly what i would play for them it has everything that i would say to them except for maybe don't let the door hit you

on the way out um when you're 18 you're out the door. See ya, suckers. But no, it's so many great lines. There's one moment when he says, turn your blood to wine, which invokes, I think, all kinds of themes and imagery around the idea of your life being full of miracles and wondrous things. And also you yourself doing amazing things with your life. You know, gosh, so many songs and stories that we got from listeners that we could keep on sharing. But let's go out on another song that was mentioned a bajillion, bajillion times. And at least I think maybe everyone from a certain generation, that being our generation. Yeah, you say that, but man, songs never go away now.

That's true. I still hear this song on the radio all the time. We're talking about Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds from 1985. It was on the Breakfast Club soundtrack. Dory in California wrote in about Don't You Forget About Me. This song and the film, The Breakfast Club, came out in the middle of my senior year of high school and captured all the complicated, angsty teen feelings I had then. I had to switch schools between my junior and senior years of high school, which in retrospect was not all that big a deal, but at the time felt like a major upheaval. I went from a very small school

with a close circle of friends to attending a much larger high school part-time so that I could enroll in college classes at the local university. Even before graduation, I felt like I had already left. When I attended my old school's graduation as a guest, I felt like an outsider when I should have been a participant. And because my parents insisted, I attended my actual graduation during which I sat with nobody I knew. The lyrics, which describe maintaining fragile connections, the lyrics about being remembered and recognized by others, spoke to the disconnect I felt at the time.

So we'll go out on this. Thanks so much, Stephen, for taking a walk down memory lane and sharing all these stories. It was great. Robin, I hope you had the time of your life. I see what you did there. But I'm not playing that.

And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's All Songs Considered. Won't you come see about me? I'll be alone Dancing, you know it, baby Tell me your troubles and doubts Giving me everything Inside and out and Love's strange, surreal and dark Thank you. in your heart, baby. Don't you forget about me. Don't, don't, don't, don't.