Bad Days in Japan

I don't particularly like this song, but I have a great deal of apprecation for it. When I was an English teacher in Japan, the Japanese administrative staff used to play it at school all the time. Perhaps when you're hearing something in another language, you don't get sick of it as fast. But listening to the whiny song over and over again - espeically while trying to create lesson plans - drove me nuts. Until one day, when I was talking with my friend and staffer Satsuki, after class. Her English skills were quite good, and made all the more impressive because she tried to communicate deap and meaningful feelings. We were talking about how she came to be interested in English. She said she wanted to understand the lyrics to English songs. This was not an uncommon reason to start studying English. I often had students tell me they were taking lessons because they wanted to understand song lyrics or English TV shows. Still, they often did not have the perserverance or skill that Satsuki did.

Satsuki then told me that being able to understand the lyrics to English songs was extremely rewarding for her. She could then really connect with a song. The first time this had happened to her was with "Bad Day." She was having a bad day, and that song came on the radio. She listened to it, and could understand the lyrics. "Yeah!" She thought. "I am having a bad day." The song expressed her feelings, in a foreign language. 

I apprecaite this song now because I know that it has inspired a dear friend of mine to continue learning a strange tongue, and furthering my communication with her.