It is no wonder why it is believed that music can transcend any and all boundaries: it goes beyond language barriers, and brings people together, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways. Music has proven to be consistently special and important, especially to the youth and teens coming of age. At the end of the day, it’s an outlet. During times of extreme confusion and frustration when everything is changing, music can change people’s lives. More than just this, music is also an escape.
Countless books, movies, shows and even songs themselves express the positive and overwhelming difference that music can play in someone’s life, and they market well because people regardless of age or race or anything subsidiary as such, can relate and think back on a time that music made an impact in their life.
In If I Ever Get Out of Here, music is a major plot device for protagonist Lewis, who is navigating school, his home life, microaggressions, and just being a kid in general. The Beatles is a significant theme of the novel, with the chapters being directly related to various Beatles songs. This serves to further portray Lewis’s story in another medium, through lyrics and through music.
As Lewis comes of age, and experiences new things with a newfound friend and a newfound father figure, his journey is paralleled in songs, adding another layer of dimension to the story. This is an interesting, but intelligent literary device, and it achieves more than just a simple written story usually would, because of how important music is to people, and caters to the novel’s audience. It is so very meaningful for teens to be able to relate to music, for music to say that which they cannot, and it feels raw and real to be able to experience the story not just through words on a page, but music in your ears as well.
Music’s influence on adolescents is not an unknown concept, and many other forms of media portray this. Sing Street, a film I watched a few years ago, a little underrated and a little underground, details the main character, Conor, and his entry to a new private school in 1980s Dublin. His relationship with his family is strained, and his first experiences at the new school are less than favorable, but in order to impress a girl, he creates a band composed of unlikely peers. Though quite unexpected, the band members click, and they begin to express themselves through their music, making their somewhat dull lives a little more interesting. It gives the characters newfound strength and confidence, and inspires them to dream of greater things for themselves, outside the city of Ireland.
In a clip of which I have pasted the link, it shows Conor and his new bandmates performing a ballad together. It begins with Conor singing and playing the guitar, when a new character joins in on the piano. After a slow panning transition, we see the band, now all together in Conor’s living room, continuing to perform the song. The lyrics are about Conor’s love interest in the film, but the way the characters perform the song is more than that. It shows a group of somewhat misfits, escaping from reality for a short while, and doing something that makes themselves happy, beyond anything else.
For Lewis as well, the Beatles were never just a thoughtless plot device, but an important part of his childhood. His first concert was enabled by his friend and his friend’s father, and he enjoys himself at the Paul McCartney concert, giving him an invaluable experience that will stay with him forever. He wasn’t proud of his home life, and his father was never around, so for him, music was very well an escape.
When it is difficult for kids to express themselves and their emotions, and they feel like they are alone, music is an outlet and an escape for them to take advantage of, and this is something that anyone can relate to. Adolescence in media can be a very valuable source of comfort or guidance for those watching it, and it is important for kids to be able to see themselves in the characters they watch or read about.
— Julia Popule
Representing Adolescence @ Pitt 