Annotations for Michelle duffy rachel flynn dustin sullivan charissa hogeland and aj meijer shine a light

Lyric: Let in sunlight
Annotation:
This lyric is a metaphor. Though sunlight is good for you, as it is vitamin D, it’s actually referring to letting people into your life. This connects to the songs themes of kindness, inclusivity, and respect.

Lyric: And unlock all our doors
Annotation:
I feel as though this is foreshadowing future events of JD coming in through the window of Veronica, picking her lock, then after she locks herself in the closet breaking down that door to find Veronica seemingly lifeless and hanging. Veronica isn’t really dead although JD thinks she has just committed suicide, Msr. Fleming saying that she made a tribute to Veronica’s suicide “In such short notice.”

Lyric: When pride’s on the line
Annotation:
Pride is a thing people need in this school. If they’re insecure, people use that, and so if they get attacked, they need to protect their pride in order to keep their rank in the school. Would Heather Chandler be still popular if she broke down and let people hurt her?

Lyric: Shine a light, yeah!
Annotation:
The “Yeah!” at the end of the line from Ms. Fleming shows that Ms. Fleming is delighted to have impacted the kids with her lesson.

Lyric: But if we show the ugly parts
Annotation:
Ms. Fleming encourages kids to love all parts of themselves while repeatedly calling these parts ugly and flawed.

Lyric: Who wants to share what’s in their heart?
 No volunteers? Fine, I’ll start
Annotation:
This shows how odd of a teacher Mrs. Fleming is. She didn’t even wait for any student to even respond before going on her rant, implying that she really needed a chance to talk. Also, this is an very weird amount of personal information for a TEACHER to give out to their students. Mrs. Fleming is treating this therapy assembly as a therapy session for herself.

Lyric: I have struggled with despair
 I’ve joined a cult, chopped off my hair
Annotation:
In this part of the song, Ms. Fleming is trying to convince the kids to open up to each other and stay positive. She does this by showing her greatest weaknesses. In my opinion, she does this because feels like she needs to be the bigger person, as the other teachers have no idea what to do with the repeating “suicides” in the school.

Lyric: Every day’s a battlefield
Annotation:
Another reference to that the school is kind of a battlefield.

Lyric: One, two, take me home, kids
Annotation:
This line helps to emphasis Ms. Flemming’s use of the school’s suffering to portray herself as a kind, wonderful person when in reality she contributes to the status quo that helped fuel the deaths of Heather C, Kurt, Ram, and J.D., the attempted suicides of Heather M and Martha, and J.D.’s attempted bombing. She is just as bad as the Heathers, despite being an adult and supposedly above all of the politics of High School.

Lyric: Hoo, that feels fan-freakin’-tastic
Annotation:
This can be interpreted as a faked orgasm, as she stated in the last line, but also she’s stating how it feels to tell the truth about everything

Lyric: And pray you don’t see mine
Annotation:
Note that Ms. Fleming is singing this too. Interesting…… Callback to “Beautiful”, where we learned that Kurt and Ram probably feel slightly guilty for their relentless bullying of the other students.

Lyric: And your pain will disappear
Annotation:
This is certainly untrue. Telling others about your insecurities and fears is a good coping mechanism, but in this case it will only benefit Ms. Fleming to make her look good on TV. However, in the case of Heather McNamara, telling everyone abut her pain did not make it disappear, it only added to it. The school ridiculed her and drove her to attempting suicide in the bathroom.

Lyric: Will look lovely because you shine
Annotation:
This could be a subtle jab at the heavy romanticisation of mental illnesses such as depression in the media.

Lyric: [BELEAGUERED GEEK, STUDENTS]
 But if I share my ugly parts (Ooh)
 
 [BELEAGUERED GEEK, NEW WAVE GIRL & MS. FLEMING, STUDENTS]
 And you show me yours (Ooh)
 Our love can knock our walls down (Ooh)
Annotation:
One interpretation: Ugly bits being the parts of one’s body or (more likely in this case) personality that are less than desirable. Second possible interpretation: From time to time, people will refer to what’s in their pants as ugly bits. This passage could very well be another slice of sexual humor, albeit one that slides under the radar more than others.

Lyric: Guilt, regret, anxiety
Annotation:
Guilt, regret, and anxiety are all common fears that high school students, and most likely everyone, face. This line leads up to the rest of the song, in which Ms. Fleming is telling the students that these flaws are nothing to be ashamed of and that the students can better themselves.

Lyric: In the sixties, love was free
 That did not work out well for me
Annotation:
This is alluding to the promiscuity that is associated with the hippie movement of the sixties, it could further mean that she ended up regretting it, like being in an unhappy marriage that came from an unexpected pregnancy

Lyric: My name’s Pauline, I live alone
 My husband left
Annotation:
Possibly a reference to Legally Blonde, another musical Laurence O' Keefe has composed lyrics for. In Legally Blonde, Paulette is divorced and lives alone.

Lyric: Fears we dare not name
Annotation:
People are afraid to show their true feelings. Even the popular students at Westerburg High have fears even if it doesn’t seem like it. This is shown especially after the death of Heather Chandler (“The Me Inside Of Me”) and later on in “Lifeboat”. They built a facade of happiness and the “perfect” life around them.

Lyric: Shine, shine, shine a light
Annotation:
This line can also be interpreted as a double entendre; in one interpretation it is just a simple request to the students to reveal their innermost feelings and insecurities, or it can be a reference to the lights from the camera crew filming her “good deed.” It could also refer to putting a cruelly student into the spotlight, in the light of (no pun intended) the recent, tragic events at school.

Lyric: So Steve, I’m ending our affair
Annotation:
In the production, Ms. Fleming sings this line to a random man in the front row.

Lyric: I chant, I pray, but God’s not there
Annotation:
In  Beautiful the students sing “Send me a sign, God!/Give me some hope, here!” and here, with Ms. Fleming, we see that she did the same thing, and never got anything. Much of this musical is very depressing and a central theme seems to be how people are becoming hopeless younger and younger each year. The weight of the world can be crushing and in 1989, the world wasn’t really a happy place.

Lyric: The revolution came and went
 Tried to change the world, barely made a dent
Annotation:
The hippie revolution started with a new generation in the late 60’s and is also known as the children’s revolution. It began in America and spread to the rest of the world, but then it died out and its lasting impression is just that of recreational drug use and tie-dye shirts. In some ways this is really sad and ties into the idea that changing society is hopeless, something reflected on an extreme level with JD. “The revolution came and went” is one of the authors' favorite lines. The line starts with great optimism, but then the Eighties replace the utopianism of the Sixties with cynicism and reactionary selfishness. All in five words.

