 This video is brought to you by CuriosityStream. If you sign up to CuriosityStream with the link in the description, you'll also get access to Nebula, where you can watch all of my videos early and ad-free. Kenna Song really changed the world. That's been one of music's great questions ever since rock, folk, and soul became intrinsically tied to the social upheaval of the 1960s. Often musicians will try to answer it by turning outwards, writing songs, protesting wars, and challenging tyrannical governments. But for some, changing the world means looking inwards. In The Beatles Within You Without You, George Harrison wrote, try to realize it's all within yourself. No one else can make you change. In Man in the Mirror, Michael Jackson sang, I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. And at the 2016 Pop Awards, the Style Boys and Michael Bolton shocked the world by singing Incredible Thoughts, Incredible Minds. I'm so overwhelmed. How did my brain conceive them? Let's take a closer look. The pop triumph that is Incredible Thoughts was birthed from the mind of Lawrence Dunn, better known as Kid Brain. The lyrics were compiled from thoughts he had written in a notebook while stepping away from the limelight to become a farmer in Colorado. At a first glance, the images might seem disjointed and surreal, but with a closer reading, we can see how Kid Brain's writings come together to paint a stunning image of contemporary society. The song opens with vivid symbolic imagery, a snow-white dove in the pitch-black night. This image provides a thesis for the song. While the world might be a dark and heavy place, Incredible Thoughts can bring us a lightness, a hope for peace, justice, and equality. The dove has long been a symbol of peace, but it also has biblical ties. In the story of Noah's Ark, the dove appears as a messenger from God, delivering the news of land at the end of the great flood. Just as God sent the dove down to alert humanity of a better future, the Style Boys have come with their own message of hope. If we listen closely to their incredible thoughts, we might be able to escape our own great flood. That flood is of course modern society, as portrayed through a series of powerful metaphors. Modern technology has made many of our lives more convenient, but at the same time, it has torn at the fabric of society. The internet era in which we live is one of emptiness, of loneliness. The common connections between neighbors and communities that provided the fabric for human society since its inception are dissolving. Even the concept of truth itself is fast disappearing in the internet era. The lyrics about modern society give way to a surrealist couplet, a carrot in the desert, a camel in the garden, a man with giant ears begging your pardon. The camel in the garden ties back to the song's biblical undertones. Jesus Christ once famously said, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. And yet our modern world values wealth above all else, with evangelical preachers flying private jets and powerful CEOs being worshipped like deities. It's not just biblical illusions that Kidbrain packs into his lyrics. The image of a man with giant ears is a clear reference to the Panati, a supposed race of beings described by the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder in his natural history. Toward the end of the verse, the style boys pull us back to reality with some class conscious protest. What if a garbage man was actually smart, a common misconception that we're tearing apart? The style boys are saying that the working class is just as capable and intelligent as the wealthy. All too often people call out the supposed genius of billionaire inventors when it's actually the workers who created their technology that they make their living on. This class consciousness comes through when the style boys sing to a sock a mansion's just a big shoe. There's nothing substantive to consumerist wealth if you change the context. Where the first verse of incredible thoughts looks broadly at society, the second verse pulls in close and looks at how it's affected the individual. The drive towards consumerism and our obsession with capital has worn away at our family units. But then again, it's not all bleak, a nundunct a basketball living the impossible. For all of its modern faults, technology has allowed people to break down barriers to defy societal expectations. Thanks to mass communication, a single thought has more power to change the world than ever before in human history. At the end of the verse, the style boys make this clear with another literary illusion, this time to George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984. These small thoughts could destroy big brother. The messages in the style boys brains are capable of changing our current dystopia and making a better world for everyone. And with that, we move on to the linchpin of the entire statement, the bridge. What if one thought could cure the people? What if one song could end all evil? Imagine if a fish could play guitar and also sing it would sound bizarre. Mr. Fish might seem like a non sequitur, but in truth, he's the most powerful image of the entire song. The image of the fish is laden throughout Christian iconography, most famously with the ichthis. Furthermore, in the Bible, Jesus Christ multiplies two fish to feed 5,000 hungry people. And that's what the style boys are doing with their incredible thoughts. They're bringing happiness and peace to those who are suffering in the world through the power of their words and their songs. And if the style boys are really going to become the saviors that they could be, they'll need help from you. Because after all, a message is only as powerful as those who receive it and spread it. But together, armed with these incredible thoughts, who's to say that we can't truly change the world? Doink de doink. If you want to fill your mind with incredible thoughts, there's no better place than CuriosityStream. If you've watched my channel, you probably know about CuriosityStream by now. With thousands of documentaries on all sorts of topics, it's the best place to go if you want to stimulate that old brain of yours. One documentary that I watched recently was How To Go Viral, in which Richard Clay explores how memes are able to capture audiences of millions and be seen by the entire world. 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