Javier’s English Corner

Well, no more classes until next September, which means I’ll be devoting most of the space on this blog to uploading some of the music I have grown to love over the years and which can help you improve your English in a fun way, so I promise I’ll also post a listening comprehension activity with every song.

Now that I think of it, I haven’t posted anything by the great Simon and Garfunkel, and it’s been almost a year since I started this blog, so it’s about time I shared one of their classic masterpieces with you all. It’s The Sounds of Silence, their first major hit which slowly climbed the charts until it reached number one on New Year’s Day 1966. You can figure out the meaning of the lyrics for yourselves, but Paul Simon once explained the song as “a societal view of the lack of communication.”

You can now watch this live performance on American television in the 60s, in which you can fully appreciate this duo’s fine voices and artistic sensibility. You can also access a listening comprehension activity here.

Summer holidays are just round the corner and I thought you might like to enjoy some good music. If you like songs from the 60s and 70s, WOGL from CBS Radio, Philadelphia, is the very thing you need. This station brings back sweet memories of the awesome two years I spent in that great city. Every morning I would drive to Ben Franklin High School listening to the Breakfast Club, a really cool show that offered a bit of everything, good music, humour, local news, the weather forecast, and so on. That show definitely woke me up on my way to work. By the way, the building you can see on the picture above is The Philadelphia Art Museum, seen across the river Schuylkill.

You can try the player below this way: click on “stations” at the bottom left-hand corner and you’ll access a pop-up window in which you’ll be offered several choices for different genres and cities. If you choose 60s and 70s pop, I recommend WOGL, Philadelphia. You will enjoy great oldies there. Why don’t you try different stations to check out which ones you prefer? Who knows, there might be something for you.

Ernesto Redruello Fernández, a former student of mine and a cool guy altogether, has been so kind as to participate in this blog with interesting information about the music he likes and of which he is a downright expert. I am talking about rap and hip-hop. He has chosen a specific song he would like me to post here, and this is what he has written about it:

Nassir Jones, born in QB(Queensbridge) hood in New York, aka Nas, started his career in 1994, when his first album “illmatic”, which is considered the best rap album ever made, was published. I consider that his best album is “it was written”, from where I’ve dropped this cool track.
I love everything that surrounds “If I ruled the world”: the lyrics, the rhythm, Nas’ flows and, of course, Lauryn Hill’s beautiful voice, a perfect complement to complete the binomial.
That’s because I’ve chosen such a beautiful rap song, and also because Nas and Lauryn Hill are two of my favourite rap artists (adding rnb and soul with lauryn hill).

Nevertheless, Nas’ last album, called “Hip hop is dead” (an idea that is enormously wrong, I absolutely disagree with him and the music inside this album), has been a complete disaster, but I hope that he will return with his best tracks soon.

Here is my space: www.myspace.com/ritmoypoesiaerf
You can listen to my own rap tracks, and also download my rap radio show, called “RITMO Y POESIA”
And you also can listen to my rap radio show throughout www.radiosedna.net, on Thursdays, at 8 o clock p.m. live