Essay

Light Bulb: An Unlikely Hood Anthem

Essay by Milton Garcia

The simplistic lyrics of “Light Bulb” by Rachel Goodrich are a paean to a child’s worldview. Joy is expressed through the acknowledgment of things most adults don’t notice in their day-to-day existence: blue skies outdoors, rooftops and light bulbs indoors. More than acknowledgement, gratitude to these basic objects is expressed, and when coupled with an awareness that all of these objects may no longer be around one day, we realize the speaker is all too aware of her and her world’s mortality. Despite addressing the inanimate items directly, we begin to suspect the speaker is either a particularly precocious child or perhaps not a child at all. By the time she expresses gratitude for the halo over her head, and even the demons she “hopes will never come out,” and with it a self-awareness of innocence that no child possesses, we realize that the narrator is an adult attempting to speak in a child’s voice, and the song becomes about yearning for a lost innocence that may never be regained.

Upon first listen it is easy to enjoy the song on this level, reveling in the whimsical sounds of the kazoo and charango and perhaps even be transported to the state of child-like innocence that the speaker yearns for. To do so, however, would belie the important underlying social message of the song. Rachel Goodrich is an active member of Miami's young artistic community, most of which is based out of neighborhoods like Little Haiti and Wynwood. Despite the influx of artistic activity, these neighborhoods are predominantly populated by immigrant families of low socio-economic status. It is impossible to exist in these neighborhoods without being overwhelmed by the poverty and its impact on the children of the community.

Just as William Blake created "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" to express his dismay at the loss of childhood innocence in turn of 18th century London, Rachel seems to have created "Lightbulb" to express the same sentiment. Blake's work, while written with a child-like simplicity and joy, explores the loss of virtue through the exploitation of the industrial revolution. Rachel's work comes in a similar package, replacing London with 21st century Miami, but still exploring the theme of urban youth stripped of innocence in the shadow of a different sort of economic boom. By highlighting the ugly stereotypes of popular "hood culture" that denigrates the youth, we are metaphysically witnessing the cause (the video itself) and effect (corrupted children); the action (lifestyle of the children) and the reaction (Rachel's song).

-Milton Garcia

About the Filmmakers

Mayer\Leyva is performance artist Jillian Mayer and retired playwright Lucas Leyva. Their collaborations include short films, art installations, music videos, experimental theater, and web projects.

Their last two short films (Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke; #PostModem) premiered at Sundance and went on to play AFI, Milan, New York, Los Angeles, Winterthur, New Zealand and festivals all over the world. In 2012 four separate Mayer\Leyva projects were screened at SXSW and in 2013 they returned with another.

Named to Filmmaker Magazine’s "25 New Faces of Independent Film” list, their projects have also screened at museums worldwide including MoMA, Guggenheim Museums, New Orleans Contemporary and the permanent collection of the Miami Art Museum. This year they were selected for the New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship at the Sundance Institute.

Their music videos have been featured by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Vice, Stereogum, and NME and have been named to various year-end Top10 video lists, including IFC.

They have made three viral videos, including I Am Your Grandma, which became an unlikely sensation that has been spoofed on various TV shows and was featured on the cover of Art Papers Magazine, and the controversial Jacuzzi Boys: Glazin’ which became infamous after getting over 600,000 views in 48 hours before being banned from YouTube permanently and becoming the subject of a SXSW Panel.

They have been awarded grants from the Cintas Foundation Fellowship for Cuban-American Artists, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Elsewhere Museum/ National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Harpo Foundation, the Zentrum Paul Klee Museum Fellowship (Switzerland), and the South Florida Cultural Consortium’s Visual and Media Artists Fellowship.

Together they help run the Borscht Corporation and the Borscht Film Festival in Miami, where they work and live with Shivers, their wise and benevolent miniature chihuahua.

website: mayerleyva.com