That's R.E.M. in the corner, sort of

My first year in college, I had a friend who was going through a bit of a Goth stage. He dressed in all black and spent a lot of his time with his guitar, playing really intense (and often really good) original music.

For his birthday, another friend of ours shot a goofy video (on VHS, I think!) about him. She asked me to appear as his bizarro-world self, so I dressed in all white (can't believe I found white pants somewhere on my dorm floor!) and showed up with my guitar. Then I improvised a major-key adaptation of "The Sound of Silence": "Hello lightness my new friend..." (I didn't get very far; should have written some lyrics ahead of the time. And, of course, interrogated my careless use of black and white as symbols.) Then I think the video shows me running off to frollick in the daffodils or something.

I remembered this when I came across the Major Scaled project, which digitally alters pop songs recorded in minor keys. It also renames them, rather cheerily ("Riders on the Rainbow," anyone?)—suggesting that a song in a major key is inherently more upbeat than one in a minor key.