By the way, this is the kind of song we ought to play at graduations instead of that sappy-ass Vitamin C bullshit or whatever replaced it for this generation.
Like, I get that you're sad that you're not going to see your friends as much, but this is just closing one chapter of your life, and imagine how much it's going to suck if you can't at least be optimistic about the future. That the end of your youth is the beginning of a time in which you're capable of great achievement, instead of having to suffer separation from the only home you've ever known.
None of that is true, of course, but you're going to be miserable anyway--might as well not be a townie at the same time.
"I Sing the Body Electric" is a perfect song for that situation--it's soaring and expansive and invokes Walt Whitman and blends various rock, symphonic and choral styles. You get great two-part harmonies and magnificent choral countermelodies, all in service of lyrics that are about ambition and optimism and self-confidence. Plus the young Paul McCrane's legendary ginger afro.
Our parents' and grandparents' generations dump constantly on Millennials snake people, but I feel like the message of empowering the youth is a positive one at all times, even in 1980, when the people who were graduating high school and college at the time turned out to be selfish shitheads who ran our country into the ground and blamed their own children for it.
Like, even if you aim big and fall short, you still wind up achieving more than if people convince you that your dreams are stupid and you're only a cog in a profit machine for some plutocrat who despises The Great Unwashed (even though that's true).
"I Sing the Body Electric" isn't about improving or even conquering the world we live in--it's about declaring one's intention to conquer the galaxy and/or transcend the human experience as we know it. Let the record show that I am in favor of galactic conquest, and anything that empowers young people to pursue such a goal is an overwhelming societal good.
