A Day in the Life

April 25 - May 1, 2016

Is this band emo?

By Becca Bona

Sophomore year of high school, I was enrolled in a Speech and Communications class. At that time in my life, I was a surly fifteen-year-old-know-it-all. I wore mostly black clothes (except, of course, when I had my uniform on), always braided my hair in pig-tails, and sported a weird, plastic black choker that is still a mark on my yearbook portrait.

Now, the class wasn’t one I would have opted to take, except for the fact that it was required. Luckily for me, I had a wonderful teacher who managed to make even the most boring of lectures interesting.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until I actually had to *GASP* give a speech. I had no idea what to talk about for a solid five minutes, and the timing really affected your grade. I was a nervous panic, and the only thing I could think to chose for my subject of my first go – the informative speech – was emo.

At the time, there was a song that people were freaking out about on the Internet, called, “I Must Be Emo.” You can still Google it, I believe, and it comes up.

It’s not really a song, per se, but more of a spoken series of lyrics of the stereotype of ‘emo’ or ‘emocore.’

At the time, I was just coming out of my own emo-esque stage. Think tight jeans, a jagged haircut with side bangs, lots of eyeliner and a really bad taste in music.

Depending on who you ask, emo can be a lot of things. For a pretty solid definition, I refer to the movement of music that came out of the punk scene in D.C. in the ‘80s. The lyrics were often confessional and extremely emotional. In fact, “Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington DC” does a pretty good job of showing its evolution.

To me, though, and for the class that was prepared to listen to my speech, Emo had become more of a style, focused on clothes and accessories, rather than the music.

Perhaps that’s why the group Washed Up Emo came up with the following website: Is This Band Emo? They wanted to get back to the music.

Of course, as the big day came, my name was the first called and I had to get up before the class and sputter through my shaky five minutes. I was able to survive the ordeal, and I even got to play the goofy “I Must Be Emo” song for the class.

I sighed my sigh of relief, and sat down, unaware that I would have to give a persuasive speech the next week.

If I could go back in time, I would chide that younger version of me. Not only for the horrible taste in style and my unbearable surly attitude, but also for my utter lack in understanding of emo as a genre of music.

Most of what I actually thought was considered Emo is more pop punk, but that’s a story for another day.

Becca Bona is the managing editor of the Daily Record and an award winning columnist and photographer. Contact her at Becca@dailydata.com.