My Musical Introduction

Hey everyone! My name is Jared Burk and I have an extremely diverse taste of music. You'll find everything on my I-Pod from Sinatra to Ke$ha and everything in between, and I attempted to show a little bit of my variety in this assignment. I wanted to pick songs that represented where I've lived, which should give you an idea of what the place meant to me and how the aspects unique to the area helped shape me into who I've become. I also included a song that represents some of my strongest values and, finally, a song that talks about my life going into the future. I hope you enjoy the musical introduction to my life!



I was born in San Francisco, California and, when I was one, I moved to a suburb named Mill Valley where I lived until I was sixteen.

More than anything, this song captures the diversity of activites, people and places in San Francisco and other areas of California including "Marin," which is the county where I spent fifteen years of my time in California. The diversity that I experienced taught me to be accepting of everyone and that all people have a place where they can fit in and live a happy life. Due to this, no matter what situation I come across in life, there is always reason to be optimistic due to the huge variety of opportunites that are out there. Without the time I spent in San Francisco and Mill Valley, I doubt that I would have these values close to the same extent that I do today.



During the summer after my sophomore year of high school, my family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina where I experienced a completely different culture. Other than the best barbecue I've ever tasted and experiencing college sports like never before, I had never been in an area where country music was as popular among people my age as any other genre. I experienced this for the first time when I was being driven around Chapel Hill by my two best friends, and they played this song. I complained about how much I hate country, but they forced me to listen. After the song finished, I was happy to put this song on what remains to be an extremely short list of country music that I like.

Due to that scenario, this song has some indexical significance to me. However, the story that the song tells reflects more of what I took away from my time in North Carolina. The pride that the person in the song felt for North Carolina is something that I experienced with a lot of people that I had never seen before. After living there, some of the pride has rubbed off on me, and I've been able to feel a lot more pride and more appreciation for where I am and what I'm doing. The song also talks about the twists and turns that the person in the song is thrown as he's going to North Carolina but how he manages to embrace all of them. Moving to North Carolina was, in a way, thrown at me and learning how to embrace it has taught me how to make the most of any situation that I have to deal with.



Believe it or not, I'm not "the new Sinatra," I never sat court side at a Knicks or Nets game, nor did I sip a Mai Thai at any point while I was in New York City, however, the variety of experiences I had was larger than any other four month stretch of my life by a long-shot. I spent my last semester of high school living in  the town of Dobbs Ferry, New York, where I studied about the amazing city that was forty minutes away by train.

The huge array of experiences and opportunities that are presented in the song do a good job of showing how much there is to do in the city that never sleeps. The amount of experiences I had and places I went in the city taught me to be open to any situation and adventure, as long as I am smart about it. Being exposed to New York City helped me learn to adapt to any scenario I am exposed to and to be open to whatever I come across.



This song has some one of the most symbolic meanings to me of any song I have ever heard. The lyrics express how everyone is equal and should have faith in themselves and others. I have always tried to have a large amount of faith in people, and I believe that no matter where I go and what I do I will always find people there for me if I need them.  Furthermore, I believe that at the very least everyone deserves a chance no matter where they are from, what they look like or what they are doing with their life.



This song expresses optimism about the future, wherever it takes me. I am extremely excited to be here at college, in this class, and going into my freshman year and beyond at Indiana University. I believe that I will always be able to find help if I need it and I'll be able to find more great people to add onto those I've already met. I am very happy with where my life is right now, and I don't see very many reasons why I shouldn't be. I am very excited for whatever will come during the rest of Intensive Freshman Seminar and I can only hope that I will feel just as good over my next four years here.