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Music Appreciation, Friday, 1st Period

"So," Hannibal began. "There is a holiday coming up."

//Garbage holiday,// Jono muttered. //Overrated Hallmark holiday. Too commercial for its own bloody good, is what that holiday is.//

Yes, Jono. Whatever you said. Hannibal was just giving you a fondly exasperated smile.

"A holiday that perhaps can cause individuals not in a relationship, or not prone to romance, to have a rather bad day. Or even for those in a relationship to become stressed. It's meant to be about love, but the focus on it can be anything but romantic."

//It's all roses and pink candy hearts and chocolates,// Jono continued to mutter. //Bloody chocolates. And,// he rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, //of course, soppy love songs.//

It was possible that his grudge here was about the chocolate. It was difficult to say, with Jonothon.

//So today, we're going to play love songs. Obligatory at this time of year, I know. But because I'm not about to get bloody mushy here, we're going to take a sharp veer to the left. We're going to edge into the unusual, the unhealthy, and the outright unhinged, this week.//

So, the sorts of songs they related to much better anyway.

"There are, fortunately, just as many songs of that sort as of the other," Hannibal said.

//Take, for example, Tainted Love, originally recorded by Gloria Jones. Though I imagine most students here would be more familiar with the Soft Cell version. Or even Marilyn Manson, somewhat more recently.// Jono gave his shoulders a shrug while the music played. //Nothing to be done for it, I suppose.//

He said that, but he happened to enjoy both covers himself, so…

"And on the older side, we can begin with Lucia di Lammermoor, "Il dolce suono", Hannibal said, "in which Lucia, having gone quite mad and killed her husband, sings about the wonderful life she hopes to have with the lover she gave up. While covered in her husband's blood."

He possibly sounded too cheerful about that. It was a very good aria!

//While we're on the topic of utterly twisted romance,// Jono said, shaking his head a little, //there are songs like Ludo's Love Me Dead, and Tom Lehrer's Masochism Tango, both of which highlight unhealthy or dangerous relationships in a manner so extreme that they become outright absurd.//

Hannibal could argue about masochism being unhealthy, but in front of class possibly wasn't the time. He'd just send Jono a bit of amusement. And Jono, catching that amusement, was going to just roll his eyes. He was definitely not about to get into that conversation in front of the students.

On the other hand...well, to be honest Hannibal would discuss practically anything with anyone, but he had other topics to get to. "There are also songs of less twisted but equally unhealthy habits, such as Don Giovanni's "Il catalogo è questo", in which a servant sings to a woman his master has proposed to of all of the man's extensive and varied conquests. Which eventually lead to him being dragged down to Hell."

"And because men have no exclusive rights to being terrible to their loves, Chicago's "Cell Block Tango" depicts what can happen when love goes wrong with the wrong person."

If you didn't have a good defense, anyway.

//Oh, I dunno. I'd say they had it coming,// Jono mused.

Because he was terrible and couldn't resist.

Hannibal chuckled.

"There are, of course, a wide variety of songs that do not involve death, maiming, or madness, but that still are somewhat twisted. "Bad Romance", for example." He had a special place in his heart for that one.

//The fact that you know that one makes me swoon a little,// Jono admitted. //So I'm going to see that one and raise you Toxic.//

Because this was where they were going, now.

If Hannibal were feeling particularly horrible, he could have played Sug★r K★ne.

But then Jono would've filed for divorce.

Your teachers, people.

"So, without becoming overly sentimental or cow-eyed, what songs about romance or love do you enjoy?" Hannibal asked.

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Feeling the love!

Or the murder. Or whatever.

Breq

Summer Smith

Somehow by the end of it, it degenerated into your teachers playing pop songs at one another.

So, that happened.

It didn't show on her face of course, but Breq found the lecture entertaining. Including the music.

It was like watching a car crash. It started out so well with Jono's ranting about Valentine's Day, and then slowly, you could feel it all change, and then next thing you knew, Summer was watching her teachers getting increasingly more schmoopy through the context of the class, and so help her, if it didn't remind her of her parents back when they were together.

So hopefully they'd forgive her the uncontrollable ugh sound that escaped her by the time they got to the end.

If her own relationship status wasn't what it was this time of year, she might have been singing a different tune and thought it was adorable. She liked them both! But as it was, though, they were lucky her sorry, single-with-no-prospects ass didn't just completely lose her lunch somewhere around the Masochism Tango.

Unconventional love songs! Love that isn't really love! Obsession! Lust! Are there any love songs that come to mind that aren't strictly about love as it should be? Feel free to share with the class, or to share your thoughts on the music that your teachers are playing, or just share whatever.

Breq could come up with so many examples. It was a popular genre in may places, after all. Anyway, she didn't want this discussion to become personal in any way.

"What's wrong with roses and chocolate?"

Plenty of people liked it after all. It didn't appeal to her, but then she was a ship and the love she had felt during her life had been expressed differently.

Actually, she was just trolling.

SIGH.

//Nothing is wrong with either, on their own,// Jono replied, crossing his arms over his chest and wrinkling his nose a little. //It's the concept of the commercialization of romance, commodifying it one day a year in order for somebody to make a profit off of it, and the expectation that if people don't prove it on that one day in particular, clearly they don't care enough. Rubs me wrong. My husband knows how I feel. Roses and chocolate on the fourteenth would be a nice gesture, and I'll likely do something regardless, but it shouldn't be a requirement any more than it ought to be for every other day of the year.//

Jono's husband did indeed know, and was amused by it.

"I have promised never to buy him chocolates for Valentine's Day," Hannibal confided cheerfully to Breq.

Heck, if he was going to do that, he was going to make them. And there were better and more appreciated things he could do instead.

Edited 2018-02-09 18:30 (UTC)

Breq looked at Jono and then at Hannibal.

"I understand that chocolates can be the wrong kind of gift," Breq said, not adding 'if you can't eat them'. "And I know not everyone likes things that verge on the sentimental. A lot of the love songs I know are though. It's a complicated emotions to express, I suppose. In music or in other ways."

Hannibal nodded. "Many emotions are, and love - I don't know that you'll find any two people with the same precise definition of it. What is love to you?"

"Yes, it is a complex emotion." Breq paused. "I... would prefer not to answer that question."

Too personal, especially for class.

Hannibal nodded, giving her that. "What are some of the versions of love you've heard expressed in music, then?"

"The ones you've mentioned of course," Breq said. "But also, for example, where a person grieves a dead lover, and how that love will remain constant after death."

She immediately regretted saying that. She had told herself not to make this personal.

"Love trapped in grief, perhaps."

Hannibal nodded. "There are quite a few of those in this culture as well." He smiled. "Opera is wonderful for that. Or conversely, for love worth dying for. Very melodramatic."

"Love songs are cool, I guess," Summer said with a shrug of her shoulder. "I mean, they, what? Make up probably 90 percent of all popular music in some capacity? But I'm more partial to the breakup songs. And I don't mean the mushy, mewling Oh I'm so sad I miss you so much oh what even is my life anymore without you ones. I mean the angry ones. The I-caught-you-cheating-so-I'm-keying-your-car, the oh-so-I-guess-all-that-stuff-you-said-was-just-BS, the ha-ha-look-at-me-and-what-you-gave-up-now-you-schlub ones."

Again, if this were another dimension where she was actually dating someone, they'd be having a completely different conversation right now.

For what it was worth, in spite of the schlub from earlier, Jono was giving an approving nod.

//I'm not much for country, but that basically sums up every breakup song I've ever heard by a woman country artist,// he noted. //Ever hear Goodbye Earl? Or These Boots Are Made For Walkin'?//

They were both actually rather satisfying.

"The second one, yeah, definitely," Summer said with an enthusiastic nod. "That one's, like, iconic. But I don't know if I've heard the first. But there's that Carrie Underwood song, too, Before He Cheats, that's country. I guess I don't mind country if it's some bad-ass chick singing about how she's just sick of some dude's shit. But none of that Stand By Your Man crap. That's a hard pass."

And she had an ex-husband in another dimension to prove it.

//Underwood was going to be my next suggestion,// Jono admitted. //That line about how she dug her keys into the side of his truck really sticks, doesn't it?//

He paused a moment, and then, as he pulled up the song and started to play it, added, //Goodbye Earl involves a wife fed up with an abusive husband. Her solution to the problem is quite satisfying.//

[OOC: Jono mentions it here already, but I'm gonna note again before anyone clicks that the song does carry depcitions of domestic abuse. And, y'know, vengeful murder.]

"Well, that's pretty badass," Summer said, listening carefully with wide eyes. It definitely had a bit more oomph to it than just ditching his dimension and taking away the source of civilization with you while you were at it. "And it's about friends, too. Very ~~meta of~~ Thelma and Louise of them."

Aaaaand now Summer was sitting there wondering if Tip or Peridot would help her kill a dude if she ever needed to. Which was...probably not that healthy, but there you go.

"I dig it."

Peridot would absoulutely help Summer kill a dude.

//Don't let it get out or anything, but I actually rather enjoy it, too.//

The Dixie Chicks really had no patience for bullshit, and that was a stance that Jonothon could respect.

"The music isn't to my taste, but it does sound rather satisfying, doesn't it?" Hannibal agreed.

He was incredibly amused. He was hiding it well, but Jono would probably be aware of his intense mental glee.

It's possible that their relationship is best summed up by a few of these songs.

Not that they'll ever tell you that.

Jono is here, and he's only slightly regretting playing a Britney song for the class.

He'll never admit it.

Hannibal is here. He regrets nothing.

Apparently I am STILL sick, my roomie is sick with something else, and the apartment water is being shut off for half a day.

Upside, I just got a job offer in a different department in the studio. I just have to stop screaming forever so that I can do the test for it.

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Music Appreciation, Friday, 1st Period

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