Learn new music vocabulary and the Present Perfect Tense

Intro

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

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• catchy
• associate
• jingle
• get out of one's head

• opening sequence
• sitcom
• air
• theme song

• to do with
• stuck in one's head

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

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The TV show Friends is one of the most popular sitcoms that has ever aired. There are a lot of reasons you could give for its success, from good acting to clever writing. But one feature of the show that shouldn’t be overlooked is its theme song. The Friends theme song is as catchy as a cold. And when a TV show has a super catchy theme song that gets stuck in your head, the show stays with you, too. As Marni discovers, it’s hard to forget a good theme song…no matter how hard you try.

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.

Marni

Dale

Marni:  Dale, I have had a song stuck in my head all day, but it’s actually a TV theme song.

Dale:  You know, that was a good thing about during my time. I’m going to say my time because I’m not going by age here. But it was this era where we actually got to hear theme songs for about a minute to a minute and a half. And it was so catchy that you would sing it and it would remind you of every single part of that TV show. Now I don’t know why they don’t have it that much anymore, but it’s always stuck in my head, there were some good ones from Different Strokes, Cheers, and even Friends.

Marni:  That’s the one I’ve had stuck in my head all day. I cannot get “I’ll be there for you…” out of my head. Some of them are just so catchy, and you know, you just…you hear it and you instantly know exactly what it’s from and you sort of associate it with the show. But I just…gosh, you know, over and over again these little jingles just stick in your head, and sometimes it’s great, but boy, right now, I really wish I could get the Friends theme song out of my head.

Dale:  Well, they did their job.

Marni:  You know there’s actually…some of the shows though now, actually, in some of their opening sequences it’s almost like a music video, for instance True Blood, have you seen that show on HBO, about vampires?

Dale:  No, but tell me about it.

Marni:  I really actually like the song a lot. And the opening sequence is like this…it really has nothing to do with the show, I mean some of the characters are in it, but it’s sort of this, like, video. And it’s really fascinating. And I think it’s sort of almost this new art form with theme songs.

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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