Michael Northrop

This Schoolhouse Rock video is one of the first things that ever really made me think about how a story is constructed. I was still a little kid at the time and mostly just watched/read/listened until the story reached the happy ending (which it always did, right up until I encountered Charlotte’s Web. Man, I cried at the end of that, mostly out of sadness but partly, I think, out of a sense of betrayal. A story had never done that to me before. I thought my job was to follow along and its job was to end happily).

Anyway, I remember being floored by the lines, “He even had the nerve to tax our cup of tea/To put it kindly king, we really don’t agree.” That’s really the “dramatic turn” in this video, the pivot from the early history of the colonies in the first half to the fighting in the second. I was amazed that you could build up to a fight with anything other than shouts and exclamation points. “To put it kindly king…” I was so impressed by the restraint there. I also understood that it somehow made the story more dramatic.

It was like that moment in Kenny Rogers’ The Coward of the County, another big favorite at the time: “And you coulda heard a pin drop when Tommy stopped and blocked the door.” It’s like: We’ll get to the punches and shots and exclamation points, but right now, we’re going to take a moment to slowly and deliberately curl our hand into a fist. It’s about pacing and tone and structure. I didn’t know that at the time, but I think that’s when I started thinking about those things.

And one more thing: No More Kings . . .


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