Music & Culture

Janelle Monáe gives a commencement speech at Loyola Marymount University's 2024 Graduate ceremony.

Advice for graduates: Listeners share songs, lessons from high school

Listeners share songs that take them back to the final days of high school, and the lessons they impart.

Featured artists and songs:
1. Baz Luhrmann: "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)"
2. Feist: "I Feel It All," from 'The Reminder'
3. Brad Paisley: "Letter to Me," from '5th Gear'
4. Green Day: "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," from 'Nimrod'
5. Wiz Khalifa: "See You Again (feat. Charlie Puth)," from 'Furious 7'
6. Rickie Lee Jones: "We Belong Together," from 'Pirates'
7. Cloud Cult: "You'll Be Bright (Invocation Part 1)," from 'Light Chasers'
8. Ke$ha: "TiK ToK," from 'Animals'
9. The Head and the Heart: "Rivers and Roads," from 'The Head and the Heart'
10. Simple Minds: "Don't You (Forget About Me)," from 'The Breakfast Club'

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Feedback always welcome: allsongs@npr.org
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Ecco

Kathleen Hanna remembers her path to becoming the OG 'Rebel Girl'

Before she founded the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s, Kathleen Hanna was a teenager volunteering at a rape and domestic violence shelter in Olympia, Washington. In today's episode, the Bikini Kill and Le Tigre frontwoman tells NPR's Kelly McEvers how the anger and grief she absorbed there manifested into lyrics and performances that would take the punk and music scenes by storm. That story is at the heart of Hanna's memoir, Rebel Girl, which also grapples with setting boundaries, carrying the feminist torch of a generation and lending a hand to younger bands.

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