Songs You've Heard a Million Times

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• do without
• sick of
• stuck in your head
• product

• commercial
• overplayed
• music industry
• fall apart

• drive someone crazy
• played out on

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

The number one million can be positive or negative. It would be great to have a million dollars. And it’s exciting that English, baby! now has a million members. But you wouldn’t want to get stung by a million bees, right? And it’s pretty annoying when a song is so overplayed that you feel like you’ve heard it a million times.

Some songs get played over and over again, not just on the radio but also in movies and on commercials. Listen to Jason and Marni talk about overplayed songs.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Marni

Jason:  You know, one good thing about having the music industry sort of falling apart and just totally spread out all over the place, with just so many bands, is that I don’t really get played out on songs anymore.

Marni:  That is true. You know, I hadn’t actually thought about that. Songs get so overplayed. But now you have so many options.

Jason:  I mean, there were some a few years ago that I really may have heard a million times.

Marni:  Yeah, definitely.

Jason:  Do you remember that “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” song by Aerosmith? That song?

Marni:  Yes! And it was used in movies and…

Jason:  It was everywhere that summer, whatever it was, like ‘98 or something.

Marni:  Yeah. That song I could do without ever hearing again.

Jason:  Same goes for “Barbie Girl in a Barbie World.”

Marni:  “I’m a Barbie Girl?” Yeah. And there was that Postal Service song that was used in like every commercial for a while. There was like five commercials that were playing at the same time that used the same song, which I thought was so weird.

Jason:  I don’t know why you would do that, you’d think you’d want a commercial to have its own personality and not use something that’s played out.

Marni:  Right, exactly. And you get so sick of that song…

Jason:  I mean I guess maybe they’re thinking it’ll get stuck in your head and then every time you’re singing it to yourself, you’ll think of that commercial that you saw.

Marni:  Right, and you’ll want to go out and buy that product.

Jason:  But mainly it’s just driving me crazy.

Marni:  Right.

Grammar Point

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Lesson MP3

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