Americano

   One of my favorite songs is Americano written by Paul Blair, Stefani Germanotta, and Fernando Garibay and sung by Lady Gaga. As a big fan of her music and her personality, this song stood out to me because of its meaning. Gaga is a woman who feels strongly about fighting for human rights. She once said “You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way.” If you listen through any of her songs and really think about them, you realize that she doesn't just care about making money, she really cares about her fans. In her song Americano, she mentions a lot of different problems in the world. The first line of the song is "I met a girl in East L.A." The first situation is her meeting a girl in East L.A. which a highly populated Hispanic neighborhood in California. As she's singing,  she's telling the love story between her and this Spanish girl. She sings "If you love me we can marry on the west coast. On a Wednesday en el verano en agosto" when I first saw the lyrics I thought about why she was being really specific on the date and as I researched a little, I figured out that Prop 8 was overturned in California on Wednesday August 4th. Another hint to a gay rights theme is when she sings "In the mountains, las campanas están sonando. Todos los chicos y los chicos están besando" Which means In the mountains, the bells are ringing. All boys and boys are kissing in Spanish. Because of all of the hints about gay rights in this song, I can tell how strongly Lady Gaga feels about them.

   Another theme that I think Lady Gaga had in her song was Arizona immigration laws. The reason being because towards the end she says "Don't you try to catch me, don't you try to catch me. No, no, no, no don't you try to catch me. Living on the edge of the law." In April of 2010 a law was passed in Alabama to allow law enforcement agencies to require officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I think that another reason besides the fact of the East L.A. hint that she's speaking spanish in parts of the song represents the immigrants (gay people and people not American) trying to fight for the rights that they have as humans but the government doesn't understand them because they don't speak their language. She even says "I don't speak your, I don't speak your language oh no." The thing I really love about Lady Gagas songs is that they have a lot of hidden messages and meanings.

   The reason that this is one of my favorite songs is because human rights and equality is a subject that I feel strongly about. As you can tell in a lot of my blog posts, I feel like no matter who you fall in love with, where you come from, or what you look like, you should be treated the same as everyone around you. If you were at a restaurant and you were from a different country than where you were, would you be angry if you weren't served as fast as the natives of the country were? What I like about Lady Gagas songs is that although some of them might sound funny or up beat, if you look at the lyrics and unpack what she's trying to say, you can really understand her beliefs. In a way I think that her songs are really persuasive because when someone gets a song in their head and can't get it out, it's usually because it's catchy and I think that's what most music artists aim for. If someone hears that person singing that song, then they will most likely go home and play it for themselves. When that happens with Lady Gagas songs, such as an inpowering one like Americano, a message is being spread to people and it's getting them to listen. 

   Another thing that I like about this song is that it packs in a lot of sort of hidden facts such as the prop 8 one. Some people might think that it was just a date that rhymed but if you know the song and have it memorized, then you have that date in history in your head. Also, she sings "We fell in love, but not in court" which meant that when they fell in love, it was before prop 8 went into effect. They couldn't officially be in an open and healthy relationship and eventually get married. Although it's not a true story, it's still a way to get a point across. Don't you just love a good love story? 

Fight for Your Right

    In the article Lady Gaga Vows To Make Bullying Illegal by Laura Hibbard, she talks about how Lady Gaga feels about kids being bullied. "Jamey Rodemeyer, 14 yrs old, took his life because of bullying. Bullying must become illegal. It is a hate crime" is what Lady Gaga tweeted when she watched the haunting video "It Gets better, I Promise!" posted on YouTube by Fourteen year old Jamey Rodemeyer. Jamey took his own life because he was harassed at school for being gay. Rodemeyer was a big fan of gaga and that's why she was so involved. The weekend before his crushing suicide, Jamey posted on his Facebook lyrics to lady Gagas song "The Queen" "Don't forget me when I come crying to heaven's door."

    I think that by writing this article, the author wants the reader to feel informed but also sorrowed. The author wants the reader to know about this topic in hope that people will feel like they can help. By adding quotes the author informs the reader with an educated source. Hibbard includes mostly tweets from Lady Gaga instead of quotes from an actual interview. I also think that by writing this article, Hibbard wanted to inform the readers on this incident to give them something to think about every time they see someone getting bullying or embarrassed. Maybe if readers were more informed about stories such as Jamey's, they would feel more guilty about making fun of people for their sexual orientation. 

    When I read the Facebook status of Rodemeyer I thought about how this happens to kids every day. A lot of my friends post statuses of lyrics on their Facebook's but I don't always think about them meaning anything. Usually when I post lyrics to a song on Facebook it's because I like the song and I want to share it with people, not based on my emotions. Maybe if people payed a little more attention to their friends whether it's through text message, Facebook status or Tweets then they could talk to their friends and resolve the problem before it gets any worse. Although I think that their friends should pay more attention to them, maybe they shouldn't be posting 'hints' to their feelings on the internet. It conclusion, if you see someone at school or outside of school getting bullied, they should stand up for them or tell a trusted adult.