I thought y'all would find this interesting. Ghostwriter are both taking (were both taking :) ) Sociology of Popular Music and our final project was probably more applicable to this particular Senior Seminar class, since we tackled the issue of authorship.

Along with a Pitzer student who's a singer, the three of us decided to perform three different versions of the same song - Jose Gonzalez's "Crosses". I don't know if you all are familiar with the song, but it's a pretty good slow acoustic number. Really folky. So Ghostwriter did a slow, keyboard-based soulful ballad. I did an uptempo, punk-ish version on my acoustic guitar, and the Pitzer student, who is Latin-American, sang it poppier and included a verse in Spanish. We were looking at how the song's meanings and style were altered in the mind of the audience when singers with different ethnic backgrounds sang it in a style more closely associated with their ethnicity. It was a great song to choose for that project also because Gonzalez is Swedish, born of Argentinian parents, playing a style that isn't really associated with either of those countries - at least in "Crosses".