Music~Metamorphoses

Mythology. Thu, Nov 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am

Themes: , , ,

We’ve been working on breaking down Ovid’s tales into their most basic elements, and I’ve often used modern works to illustrate that the themes (jealousy, unrequited love, change, naïveté) are being pondered still, two millennia after they put down by the Roman.

Your objective over the break (as you continue journaling for our discussion of Book V on Monday) is to find as many connections to these ancient stories in modern works as you can. Here are a few I may have mentioned before. I’m using music, but look in movies, television, advertising, novels, and the like for inspiration.

See if you can name the stories:

“Running Bear” is the story of two young Native Americans separated by a “raging river.” This, like many of the teenage tragedy songs of the ‘50s and ‘60s, ends badly for both. (It also gives us insight into the offensive mid-20th Century opinions of other cultures.)

 

A bit more modern, this track from the Decemberists’ Castaways and Cutouts tells the story of two other star-crossed lovers:

A subgenre of the teenage tragedy is the car crash ballad. Here’s one of the most famous:

This one had to be included:

Lastly, this song from Thrice subverts the moral from one of our myths. Or maybe they just didn’t get it:

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