Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

01 Aug 2019, 9:09 a.m.

Background Music

So in my household we have a zillion little shared references, and some of those are about pop songs of the late 20th century. For instance, if we're in a restaurant or something and we hear "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood (I just had to look that up, it's not like I knew the name of the song or the artist already), we laugh because of the time Leonard pointed out that the main lyric kinda sounds like a complaint a customer might give a server.

Bring me a higher love
This love is insufficiently high
Leave bad review on Yelp

(Upon a full listen: the synth riff from 3:04 to 3:11 reminds me of the start of the Doogie Howser, M.D. opening theme. A lot of the folks I meet are not people who went to schools in the US in the late 1980s/early 1990s while younger than approximately everyone else in their grade cohort, and thus they did not experience being called "Doogie". Nor did they experience Head of the Class which was -- for me -- sympathetic representation of book-smart nerddom in mass media. Not sure I'd feel that way if I re-watched it now.)

Every once in a while we go use YouTube to watch the music videos for songs that are in sort of the "you will hear these in public spaces in the US" canon but that we've never really listened to. Always feels like popping the hood in a car where up till now I've just been a passenger.