Author: EMMET S

The Blame Game

On By EMMET SIn PoetryLeave a comment

In Kanye West’s 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he questions the end of a relationship in the song Blame Game. He begins the song with a hook describing the relationship he has with his girlfriend.

Whose fault?

Let’s play the blame game, I love you more
Let’s play the blame game for sure
Let’s call out names, names, I hate you more
Let’s call out names, names, for sure

I’ll call you b***h for short
As a last resort and my first resort
You call me motherfucker for long
At the end of it, you know we both were wrong

Kanye starts his hook by describing a “game” he plays with his girl where they “blame” each other for their mistakes. I believe he did this to emphasize his and her childishness because this game that they play is pointless. Nobody can win, the game ends when the relationship ends, and they hurt each others feelings and the health of their relationship for nothing. Kanye continues his hook by implying that he calls his girlfriend a “bitch”, “as a last resort”. This line conveys that Kanye’s girl’s actions have forced him to call her a ‘bitch”, yet it is his “first resort”, implying that it is also Kanye’s fault for deciding to use that word. He ends the hook by saying “At the end of it…we both were wrong”, implying that they were both at fault for the end of their relationship because they both played the “blame game”. To add, Kanye repeats the hook to emphasize the back and forth of their arguments.

On a bathroom wall I wrote
I’d rather argue with you than to be with someone else
I took a piss and dismiss it, like fuck it
And I went and found somebody else, Fuck arguing or harvesting the feelings
Yo, I’d rather be by my fucking self
‘TIl about two am and I call back and I hang up
And I start to blame myself, somebody help

Kanye’s first verse gives the listener insight on what he is thinking about his relationship, and the actions that he took. He begins by describing that despite the arguing, he still wants to maintain a relationship with her, but he decides to cheat on her because of the fact that they argue. Kanye then describes that he’d rather be by himself, yet he calls his girl, he hangs up on his girl, and he blames himself for the status of their relationship, meaning he still wants to be with her or misses her. This verse shows that Kanye truly cares for his girlfriend because he regrets an action he took to hurt her. Yet, he would rather be alone and will not allow himself to talk to her. This back and forth in Kanye’s head parallels the blame game he plays with his girlfriend, and accurately describes emotions during a break up.

All of the lights, she was caught in the hype girl
And I was satisfied being in love with a lie
Now who to blame, you to blame, me to blame
For the pain and it poured every time when it rained

The second verse on ‘Blame Game’ discusses what Kanye’s girlfriend did to him, she dragged his name “through the mud”, “never told the truth”, “blackmailed” him to buy drugs, and cheated on him. This excerpt is the last portion of the second verse and alludes to his song “All of the Lights”, where he discusses the issues that come with fame. The first line implies that his girlfriend is only with him because of the attention it will bring to her, “caught in the hype” and “All of the lights”, and that he “was satisfied being in love with” that “lie”. He ends the verse by questioning who’s to blame “for the pain”, and switches the phrase, when it pours it rains, around. This last line can mean many things, a metaphor for Kanye’s tears, a description of the “blame game” and how emotional the arguments were, or that when the relationship ended Kanye was depressed.

In all, the song Blame Game by Kanye West is a piece of art. The lyrics describe the end of a relationship and the feelings that come with it perfectly, it is relatable given everybody looses somebody, and the production and engineering was groundbreaking.

The News’ Other

On By EMMET SIn Exit WestLeave a comment

The news, social media, documentaries, and film inform the people in the World about what is happening. And much like people, these sources are biased and are created to please a certain group of people. For example, if Fox aired a broadcast about 9/11 and said “It’s a tragedy…hundreds are dead…it’s the Muslim’s fault”, the people who watch that program religiously will probably start treating all Muslim’s as the “other”, and lesser than them, even if they don’t know their situation. On the other hand, If CNN said “Hundreds of people have died… it’s Bush and Dick Cheney’s fault”, about the same situation, they might treat the Presidency and Muslim people as “others”.

Most of the time, when people hear something said from a reliable source, their first instinct is to believe it. Personally, I don’t think the man or woman who owns NBC or some social media company is qualified to speak on the life of an immigrant who just arrived from a war riddled country. Because they are rich and probably live in a mansion overlooking a beautiful view.

These large corporations manipulate people to believe things to collect ad revenue, while people treat “others” differently because of it. It’s not justifiable, and will most likely not change, so everything I hear on the news I take with a grain of salt.

Repetitive life

On By EMMET SIn StrangerLeave a comment

In Camus’s short essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Cumus argues that a human’s life is similar to sisyphus’ life. You get up, go to a job you’ve been working at most of your life, and do the same thing every day. I disagree with this argument because I don’t believe everyone leads a repetitive life. For example, a man might go to work, and go home to his family at night. He might play with his son or daughter, talk his wife, do chores, but every day will be different and will require different actions. Another example is a personal habit. Say a young boy’s habit is to play baseball, and play it everyday religiously. Every day that boy plays baseball he might hit a home run, strike out every chance he gets, or make every single clutch play. But, every single game he plays is different, and he is always improving his craft forcing change in his actions over time.

In all, The myth of sisyphus represents the torture of repetitiveness. I believe that nobody chooses to lead a repetitive life because people are always changing.

Learnt Lesson

On By EMMET SIn Uncategorized3 Comments

The end of “The Lesson” by Tomi Bambara is very open ended. Sugar and the main character race to “Hascombs”, and Sugar “get’s ahead”. Which, the main character responds with “O.K. by me”, “ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin”. In my opinion, this shows that the main character has understood the lesson Mrs. Moore was trying to teach the children. The lesson Miss Moore taught, is that American society isn’t as fair as it’s portrayed. Some people start well off, and others don’t but make it work. That lesson is very similar to the end, a race to something, and someone started better off. Except, the main character takes it a step further, and says no matter what nothing can stop him, implying he will become wealthy.

Mutual Recognition

On By EMMET SIn George SaundersLeave a comment

In the story “Escape From Spider Head”, the characters judge each other based off of their own life experiences. This explains why Absteni has the power for most of the story, and all of the subjects see each other as criminals, because they are all there for a crime they did. Absteni see’s himself as the big man in charge in the spider head, because he has the power to tell people what to do. Everybody plays their role. Although, as the story unfolds Jeff begins to see the other characters as people, instead of a criminal, boss, or whatever he thought of them as. He realizes that Absteni is like Rogan’s tattoo, “a rat with a knife in its back, stabbing another rat that just looked clueless”, and he “thought it was a little funny that” he’d “loved” Heather after hearing her crime, but still “didn’t want to kill her”. Additionally, when Jeff killed himself, the birds he flew with “did not recognize” him “as something apart from them”.

Saying this, I believe this story was written to show people to not judge a person based on your life, but to recognize they have a different situation that requires different actions. Therefore everyone should be treated as a person instead of preconceived ideas.