Bob Seger Response

This song is a wakeup call for America to set a better example for the next generation. People are hurting other people. Some are paranoid of what will happen next. Life should not be scary, but there are people afraid to walk out and be among the chaos. Everybody is against one another, and they are not willing to compromise. “It’s time we stop” and look at what we are doing and what has become of us. There are wars for ignorant reasons, there are people hurting, there are innocent children watching, WAKE UP AMERICA! The riots and wars are not worth all of this pain and suffering.

This is what they call imagery. The singer is saying be yourself do not follow others, be yourself and don’t let your perse stop you. Later on in the song it say,”The ice we skate is getting pretty thin/ The water’s getting warm so you might as well swim/ My worlds on fire. How about yours/ That’s the way I like it and i’ll never get bored.” (Smash Mouth) This entire line of the song describes stress and it will try to stop you from being you, but when he rose up and he made a difference and forgot all about the stress he once had. The first part of the lyric is a simile. The final lyric in the song that is important is,” Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas/ I need to get myself away from this place/ I said yep, what a concept/I could use a little fuel myself/ And we could all use a little change.”( Smash Mouth) What he means by this is people ask him what he did to become this famous and he said,”you have to follow your dreams.” This is an example of a

The song was written by Phil Ochs. Ochs like Seeger was a college dropout, but he went to school one more year than Seeger did. After Phil Ochs dropped out of college he started his route to New York City. Sonnyochs.com says, “Phil stated out singing at open mikes and passing the hat” (Phil Ochs Biography). Phil like Seeger wrote several different protest songs and he even had a couple of albums that had his protest songs in them. His protest son “What are you fighting for” was a bit different than Seeger’s song “Bring ‘em Home”. Seeger’s protest song was fairly short and every other line had the title of the song in it. Ochs song was a bit different. Both songs got the point across but in different ways. Ochs song was more of a song the people could listen to on the radio and get some enjoyment out of it. It was a normal running song so it kept the listener interested for the whole runtime. Ochs song only had the title of the song in it 8 times to Seeger’s 42 times. One of the lines in the song “What are you fighting for” says, “And before you walk out on your job in answer to the call, just think about the millions that have no job at all”. That line has a pretty big meaning by saying that you are just going to leave your job for nothing. There are a lot of people in the country that would love to have a job and people just quit their jobs to go to the Vietnam War. That’s one thing that

The lyrics of a song often have no substance and a clear example would be any Britney Spears song. The lyrics of “All Falls Down” are very deep. They talk about the ideal situation in life; We should go to school, get a good job and make money to buy what we want. The lyrics then ask, what if this doesn’t happen? This is prevalent in the first verse. “She has no idea what she doing in college. That major that she majoring, it don’t make no money.” The song questions these everyday values because we focus so much on these things, we don’t realize there are more important things in life such as life itself. Even Kanye admits that he spent money at Jacob’s Jewellery store before he thought about a house. “I went to Jacob with

When Gaye states, “brother, brother, brother there’s far too many of you dying. You know you’ve got to find a way, to bring some lovin’ here today.” This creates an emotion not only for Gaye, but for his listeners too. He is showing that he is upset for the lives lost in the Vietnam war. During this time, clearly several issues occurred in Gaye’s life. From the tragedies that happened while his brother was in the Vietnam war and the American people protesting on the war, these were two significant issues he experienced. When Gaye states, “picket lines, and picket signs/don’t punish me with brutality” this shows a type of emotion, because he witnesses the police officers that are physically assaulting, and throwing tear gas at anti war protestors. Gaye also shows anger in the song because he is showing ways to reflect on the stories told to him by his brother, Frankie Gaye. Frankie was a Vietnam war

The song expresses how people are not living up to society's values and norms. It suggest that the socialization is at fault and that they contribute to improvement of self being. The song implies the way society goes against values and norms by one of the very first lyrics in the song. The lyric goes, “What’s wrong with the world, mama, People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas…” (lines 1-2). This makes one aware of the lack of values in one's family. Values is the belief or an idea that a person or group has to determine is correct or not. Another verse of how the band shows one disobedience of the values and norms comes toward the middle of the song. “People killin', people dyin’, Children hurt and you hear them cryin, Can you practice what you preach, And would you turn the other cheek…” (lines 50-53). These verses show of society has failed to act stable and logical way that society once viewed as correct living. These actions show that citizens have not lived up to the expectations of society. Social norms are likes the laws of society. Laws are things that are illegal behaviour and norms are like behaving in a way society wouldn’t like. For example being in gangs, like the bloods, or the crips, or a big group that goes against society's norms like racial groups. An example of a racial group would be the KKK.

The song’s character is just a member of the majority, even if the songwriters condemn his way of thinking. The criticism of the average citizen becomes much clearer during the second section of the song.

We can use the words of Akeel Bilgrami in his essay “Notes toward the definition of ‘identity’” to help us analyze and question Chesney’s song. In his essay Bilgrami says there is an “outset between the ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ aspects of identity. Your subjective identity is what you conceive yourself to be, whereas your objective identity is how you might be viewed independently of how you see yourself” (Bilgrami 5). These definitions can easily be applied to say that Chesney only provides us an objective view of the overall group. This causes wonder as to what the subjective identity of being an American these teens may have, then bringing us to question, is it possible for an objective identity to represent the subjective identity of a person? To answer this question, we must analyze how Chesney builds this identity and use outside texts such as that of Bilgrami, “The Citizen and the Terrorist” by Audrey Lorde, as well as “What does it mean to be an American?” by Sarah Song to assist in this analysis.

When I hear this song I connected it to Congress of how they could increase their pay raised whenever they want, but because of the twenty-seventh amendment they cannot do

This song implies that individual’s are violating the norms and values of society. They start the song with a verse that expresses

In a 1979 interview for Frets magazine Pete Seeger expressed the driving force of his music in one word--responsibility (Hood 30). In his view there are no causeless songs; each one has a message. Seeger dedicated his life to challenging the status quo and combating the establishment with his favorite weapon, the banjo. Inscribed on his banjo were the words “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender”.  Pete Seeger became one of the leaders of the folk revival, rousing his audience with his mastery of the banjo (Rosenberg 75). However, his influence extended past the musical scene. He gave a voice to the overlooked, working class and he created a model of musical activism that other groups could emulate.

“My music is not for everyone. It’s only for the strong-willed, the (street) soldiers music. It’s not like party music-I mean, you could gig to it, but it’s spiritual. My music is spiritual. It’s like Negro spirituals, except for the fact that I’m saying ‘We shall overcome.’ I’m saying that we are overcome.

He sings "I was told, when I get older, all my fears would shrink/But now I'm insecure, and I care what people think" (1:5,6) and we finally realize how scared he is. In a world where he, just a moment ago, was a small boy, he now has to be an adult. He is very self-aware, and other people's opinions are important to him, which makes it difficult to be who he really is or who he aspires to be. The drummer, Josh Dun, once stated in an interview, "We try to be as honest as we can, even at the risk of not appearing to be super cool" (Catlin, 25). The fact that "Stressed Out", as many other songs by Twenty One Pilots, goes against the accepted norms is probably one of the best examples that confirms Mr. Dun's statement. Honesty, however, may not always be optimistic, and the performers know

During this period, Pete Seeger began writing books. His greatest publications include The Bells of Rhymney and Other Songs and Stories and American Favorite Ballads, Tunes and Folksongs as Sung by Pete Seeger. In the book “Carry it on! A History in Song and Picture of America’s Working Men and Women, Seeger and Reiser tell a story with songs describing every little aspect to the struggle of workers, specifically what they did in order to make things right. “Farm workers have been treated like livestock, herded into overcrowded dormitories or housed in shacks. In the prosperous 1960’s, the average farm worker made less than $2000 a year” . This example is followed by a song called “Deportee” which is written from the perspective of a farmer. Another book “The Incompleat Folksinger”, explores the many aspects of folklore music and what impacts it has had on Pete. He describes his songs to “tell of

An another example representing a character in this song would be “You don't know what it's like to mind your business,And get stopped by the cops and not know if you 'bout to die or not ,You worry 'bout your life, so you take mine”(Joyner Lucas) which represents black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and in 2015, 30% of black people who were shot were