Member-only story
Music, A World-Wide Language?
Recently I stumbled across a YouTube channel where a small group of people from Pakistan were shown music videos sang in English. They did not understand the lyrics, yet their reactions got me thinking.
Language barriers exist everywhere you go. For example, I work in retail, and at least once a week we have someone who speaks Spanish, who doesn’t understand English, who is trying to ask me a question. Luckily, I can usually understand enough to direct them to what they need, or answer their question well enough for them to understand.
Watching this video though… it’s hard to describe all the emotions running through me.
These Pakistani individuals watched the music videos, and not only felt what it was the artist was singing about, but because they weren’t focused solely on the lyrics, caught so much more.
The first video I watched was their reaction to Pentatonix singing Hallelujah. They spoke about the emotions that came through, the praise they felt, and how the movements and sounds of the beat-boxer amazed them. When they listened to We Are The World, one of them noticed how tears gathered in the eyes of one of the singers. They watched the story behind the Star Spangled Banner and felt the pride and bravery behind the song.