Day: December 15, 2019

My Way

On By Toby KIn Music Poetry2 Comments

“My Way” is one of Frank Sinatra’s more famous songs and was released on the album titled My Way. Although Sinatra did not write the lyrics, the song was immensely popularized after his rendition was released. “My Way” is a song about determination and life reflection. Here is the link to the lyrics My Way.

The song is as close to poetry as any song I’ve listened to. The song is emotional, uplifting, and has a consistent, clear rhyme scheme. The song is about someone on their death bed looking back on their life. The speaker is satisfied with his life and reflects on living it to the fullest in his own way. The speaker states he’s made mistakes and has some regrets but not too many to worry about. He reminisces on when he had to face adversity and fight through it. The song ends with some emotional lines about times he’s laughed and cried and expresses his pride in the way he lived his life.

The speaker conveys this message to the audience through the use of metaphors and emotional imagery. The poetic devices are employed to make the audience connect to the speaker and emotionally uplifts them.

And now, the end is near

And so I face the final curtain.

These are the first two lines of the song and the metaphor makes the song emotional from the start. He compares his dying days as the curtain being closed on the last part of his life.

I’ve lived a life that’s full

I’ve traveled each and every highway.

This metaphor is the speaker saying he’s ‘been there, done that’. He hasn’t traveled on every highway but he has so much life experience.

Yes there were times, I’m sure you knew

when I bit off more than I could chew

But through it all, when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out

I faced it all, and I stood tall

And did it my way

I think this is the most powerful stanza of the song because the speaker has gone away from the sad parts of the song and now he’s reflecting on his proudest moments. He employs metaphors to describe how he handled adversity and overcame some of the struggles he’s been through.

“Love You Too Much”

On By Leah JIn Music PoetryLeave a comment

Released as the only single on his debut album Painted, in April 2019, “Love You Too Much“, Lucky Daye’s near-8 minute single details the pain one goes through when their love is not reciprocated. “Love You Too Much” is a song that has various interpretations and can be applied to life in more than one area.

Image result for love you too much lucky daye meaning"

The song begins with a minute and 30 second intro of the artist speaking; admitting that he has been hurt and is currently in a pain that has been messing with his head and is inescapable. As the song begins, its meaning is revealed, Lucky Daye is feeling regret for even allowing someone into his heart to the point where they could hurt him.

You make my heart beat for you

I almost cry too often (Too often)

But I put too much in your hands

So much regret in the end

During the chorus Lucky Daye discloses this meaning and the listener is left to picture his situation. Often he ends up crying because he has reached a point where he has given his all to someone, even his heart, and now it’s too late for him to change it. He regrets leading with his heart and believing he could never get hurt. Through the song’s slow but intense rhythm and Lucky Daye’s passionate sing and strong diction portraying his emotions, we are left to picture a time in our lives when we gave something or someone our all, and ended up in a place of regret.

In the third verse, Lucky Daye asks two rhetorical questions, aimed towards whoever hurt him.

How you f***in’ lie with a straight face?

How can you and I find a safe place?

By, raising these questions, he invokes emotions in the listener that they once again can relate to. He is torn because his trust in who is speaking to has been lost, and he does not know how they will recover from this.

It’s a shame for you, it’s a shame for me

Is the blame on you? I can say the same for me

Finally, through his use of another rhetorical question and rhyme, Lucky Daye establishes that all of this is a shame, and he primarily blames himself for allowing this to happen. If he did not give so much of himself, he would not be in the same position. He trusted that love would not hurt him, but now regrets his choice.

To Kill a Mocking-Bird

On By Jane VIn Music PoetryLeave a comment

This Florence and the Machine song is one of the oldest downloads on my phone. It is from the album “Lungs,” titled Bird Song. This is a very poetic song about guilt and highlights an internal conflict using metaphor, personification, and repetition.

Image result for bird song florence and the machine

The lyrics describe a bird who sings about all the bad things the writer has done, until she brings him in and kills him because he won’t stop. The bird is a metaphor for the voice in her head that tells her she is a bad person. This adds to the meaning of the song because it is a thing she tries and tries to quiet and get rid of, but even after killing the bird, the song continues.

Well I didn’t tell anyone, but a bird flew by.

Saw what I’d done. He set up a nest outside,

and he sang about what I’d become.

After this we learn that the bird was never the one shaming her, because the thing singing becomes herself, personifying the bird’s song as she begins to realize it is coming from her. The song is almost still a living being inside of her.

But in my dreams began to creep

that old familiar tweet tweet tweet.

The singer struggles to stop singing about all the shameful things she has done, and using bird imagery, the listener draws a connection that she is the bird:

waved my arms and flapped about

Finally she repeats that the song is coming “from my mouth” for the last 15 lines of the song, almost a mantra. She realizes that the guilt and shame she feels from the past only comes from her own thoughts in her head.

I used to listen to this song when I was younger and kind of just think it was about a demonic bird that was really mean to this girl, but hearing it now the meaning is so much deeper. Everyone struggles with a voice in their head that tells you you aren’t good enough, and I think that is why “Bird Song” resonates so so widely.

“I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore”

On By Vivian PIn Music PoetryLeave a comment

Lucy Dacus communicates a very simple plea in her 2016 single. She wants to be someone else. From what the listener can glean from the almost 3 minute song, Dacus wants to change her role in the classic friend group structure. She’s currently the “funny one” but has seen that that causes more harm than good. Something I noticed off the bat from just reading the lyrics is how simplistic the syntax is. I’ve come to admire that in a way I hadn’t before. By choosing short, snappy phrases, the reader can sense a level of desperation in the author’s tone without ever hearing the song itself. To read the song in its entirety: click here.

The third verse starts: “I don’t want the joke to be on me”. In a similar vein, the bridge begins with “Try not to laugh”. These short sentences express to the audience of her friends that she’s being serious, she’s begging to be a person, not a one dimensional prop to be used for others’ enjoyment.

The second verse is her offering another position for herself:

“I don’t wanna be funny anymore
I got a too short skirt, maybe I can be the cute one
Is there room in the band? I don’t need to be the front man
If not, then I’ll be the biggest fan”

The line ‘I don’t need to be the front man’ shows, at a deeper level, she just wants to be included, it doesn’t matter her supposed rank in the hierarchy.

As someone who’s had trouble in larger groups of friends, I relate to this song. I believe that anyone who’s struggled with how they fit in can find themselves in this song.