This assignment was a little more different than the others. I listened to an album released in 2001 and, for the first time in an academic manner, analyzed a number of songs. Specifically, Wainwright is very good diversifying his songs, to arrange them in a way that tells a story, his story, about how he reacts to life and how life reacts to him. My favorite tune was Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk, and it seemed to hammer home the fact that the small things in life accumulate and affect us the must. I appreciated hearing ballads that weren’t about love, although that’s all I seem to write about. It’s funny because I have been writing songs for as long as I’ve been writing stories, and I never thought about how the two can marry. Indeed, you can spin a tale with lyrics and add your soul through the music and singing. An example of the would be a song I wrote that is on my ePortfolio called The City. In it, I talk about this imaginary girl that lives in New York City that I will find myself next to someday. I think both songs and stories need the songwriter or author to dream, and to project those dreams into a format that they can share.