"Needle in the Hay" Song Analysis

Chapter 3, “A Community of Addicted Bodies”, traces how physical and emotional dependence on heroin creates a social hierarchy within the

Whiskey Lullaby is a song sung by Brad Paisley (ft. Alison Krauss) which narrates the story of a soldier coming back from war to find his wife in bed with another man. After this, the man drinks away his life trying to escape the pain until he commits suicide. Then the song continues to talk about how the woman follows down the same path after hearing about his death. In the end of the song they both get buried next to each other which symbolizes how they are finally together. The audience for this country song is those who have served or who have had family members serve. The unexpectedness of how life will figure itself out when the soldiers return. Also, how hard it is for families when their loved ones are out fighting, and they are

Jim, a high school all-star basketball player becomes addicted to heroin. He tries to hide his addiction, but it becomes quite prevalent when it begins to overtake his life entirely. To begin with, Jim reflects on his first experiences with heroin and refers to it as a “chippy” habit. He isn’t aware of the addictiveness of this potent drug, which shortly becomes habitual. His addiction leads to him being kicked off the basketball team, out of his own house, and then desperate on the streets of New York City alongside of his friends. This substantially progresses his addiction, resulting in him passing out in the snow one night. Thanks to Jim’s former basketball friend, Jim is forced to withstand from heroin. Jim become extremely agitated from withdrawal and escapes to look for some more. Jim later finds himself in a six-month rehab, which he notes “the

Luke Bryan who started his singing career at age fourteen chooses specific words to indicate the time period and makes it clear to identify the genre in his popular song “Play It Again” released in 2013. The repletion but also his way of saying certain words makes this song special and is straightforward for college students to understand poetry. In this song Luke Bran spots a tan legged girl who he finds attractive. Luke the instantly assumes she is taken because of her beauty. As they begin to carry on a conversation a song comes on she gets excited because her favorite song comes on and before he asked her to dance she took his hand and danced with him until the song cut off.

For a few short years, she was married to a man she loved, and she had family who would support her through anything. However, when she was 22, she was faced with the devastating loss of her mother. With her mother being the cornerstone that held her life together, it began to fall into pieces. Her family, who were once ___ close, started to wander away. “Without her, Eddie slowly became a stranger. Leif and Karen and I drifted into our own lives,” her stepfather married someone else, and both of her siblings moved away (Strayed, 34). They turned into “four people floating separately among the flotsam of [their] grief”, Cheryl felt alone and like she “wasn’t able to keep [her] family together.” (Strayed, 34). Since her family was falling apart, she began to run away from her marriage. She started having affairs with a multitude of men, the most significant being Joe. He offered Cheryl an ‘out’ at the worst time in her life, heroin seemed like an escape route for her from her problems. This would be one of the hardest obstacles Cheryl had to overcome, a heroin addiction, she has “pulled it [heroin] in with both hands,” not stopping to think about what she was really doing (Strayed, 52). This was not the last straw though, weeks before her hike she had an abortion. “That I would get an abortion was a fact so apparent it seemed silly to discuss anything else,” Cheryl knew she was not in the right

“And the band started playing one of those really slow songs, like “Stairway to Heaven” or “Freebird” that probably have really great lyrics or something but the song itself just is awful-just awful. Then this real phony guy, with the hair all slicked back on the top of his head stood up with the Sax and did a solo. I almost died. I mean, almost completely died right there. It had to be the cheesiest solo I had ever heard. I mean he was swaying back and forth and he closed his eyes like he was really getting into it and all, but it was the fakest thing you ever heard. It was like something out of a bad Howard Johnson’s. I swear, he must record Muzak for a living or drive

Often referred to as the “devil’s drug”, heroin in today’s society holds responsibility as one of the top killers next to murder, suicide, and car accidents. From 2002 to 2013, the number of deaths by heroin has quadrupled. In 2007, approximately 2,000 lives were taking by heroin, and these numbers increased to 8,000 by 2013. Heroin has affected thousands of people lives and killed many at an alarming rate; it now holds a spot as an epidemic in the United States. In a poem by an anonymous author, the effects of heroin are described explicitly, “If you try me, be warned this is no game. If given the chance, I’ll drive you insane. I’ll ravish your body; I’ll control your mind. I’ll own you completely; your soul will be mine.” Thousands of

Samantha has been roaming the streets of New York for years now and has had some bad life experiences thrown at her and she has now become accustom to habitual heroin use to get her through her daily routine. With being a junkie, she steals to find her fix and occasionally resorts to prostitution to get some cash in her hand. Consequently she gets pregnant from the random John and does not believe in abortion, she thinks that this new baby will help her turn her life around. Three months down the road her demon has caught up with her and she has her kit in front of her with a syringe of the best heroin the streets have to offer. She injects and all her problems go away for the quick bliss of time. Time then strolls by day by day and she

In this new story, the daughter is describing facts, whereas the father wants a more complete description, full of details. Following this, we see that the daughter prefers to be optimistic, while the father prefers reality. This is illustrated by the following quotes: “No, Pa, it could really happen that way, it’s a funny world nowadays”, and to this, the father replies “No… Truth first. She will slide back.” Her story describes the life of a mother and her son, and how she becomes a junkie to remain close to her son, who has become a junkie. In the end, the son quits the drugs world, but the mother cannot. Her son leaves her, introducing the element of abandonment in the story. This theme is pursued further, but in between lines. For example, the son left his mother at a critical time, when she needed him most, whereas the narrator stayed with her dad, even in his dying days. The father does not believe that the woman in his daughter’s story is strong enough and that even though she manages to quit doing drugs, she will fall back. I would tend to agree with him, because a lot of substance abusers, who quit, eventually, fall back. Her story is too optimistic, with a sense of denial for the tragedy. As the story ends, the father says “Tragedy! You too. When will you look it in the face?” Again, here we wonder whether the tragedy refers to the

An idea that interested me in the song “Fix you” by Coldplay was how you will always have someone to lean on no matter what. When Chris sings “lights will guide home” he is using personification in this line because saying the lights will guide them is a human thing to do, as people guide each other which I think Chris is trying to demonstrate when he sings the lyrics “lights will guide you home.” It shows life itself because no matter how big the mistakes you make, no matter how bad life may seem, there will always be someone that will have your back. This reminds me of my friends who are always there for me whether its for when I’m feeling down or if I’ve had a bad day. These lyrics also emphasize that everyone goes through rough patchs in their life and they should let people try to help them. When my dog died this year, I didn’t take it well and I was distraught, but it made me going through the loss easier

Once this girl started with the drugs, she could not stop. As soon as she tried the first drug, it lead to all of the other drugs and things that she did. Her first time doing the drug was an accident, and she did not know, but she made the wrong choice in continuing to do them. She said it gave her a feeling of belonging and love that she had never felt before. If her parents or her close friends had paid more attention to her, then some of the events that happened would not have happened. Her heavy drug use lead to her runaway from home to the streets, involvement in crime, her prostitution, and her visit to the insane asylum. She found a "best friend" (Chris) - one that would give her drugs - and they decided to runaway and leave their family and friends to start their own shop in San Francisco. They thought they could not handle their parents telling them what is right and what is wrong, but that is what they needed to hear. They were naive in thinking they could live their lives alone without any rules or any authority.

The song "The message" by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five depicts the struggle of young black adults growing up in society. The struggle to make it out of poverty can be compared to survival of the fittest in a jungle. Only the strong would survive and adapt to the changes to fit in. Trying their best to make a betterment with whatever little society offers. Being a young black African American in the early 1980's was not easy. It was easier to live the fast life and gain fast money by being part of the drug community. Drugs, guns, and money was glamorized and this is what the young adults looked at as a means of getting rich. In the songs, a young man talks about how he is trying hard to hold on to the little bit of sanity he has left in his soul. He talks about the struggle he endures while trying not to get pushed over the edge. He was born an innocent child who's blind to the ways of mind kind. Growing up he faced many challenges and had to fight

The Vietnam war was a major event to America because it had major conflicts with personal opinions of the people of 1960’s. In this era, plenty of people were rethinking on why they were fighting in a war that they did not need to be fighting. and joined the anti-war movement. This can explicitly be seen from the type of music that people were listening to at the time. The song that I am going to be analyzing is “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones. This song resonated with the persona of the people for multiple reasons because it was a song that was about losing a loved one and dealing with the sadness.

Phillip Chbeeb and Renee Kester uploaded a dance entitled SLIP that they have choreographed to the song SLIP by Elliot Moss. It was published on June 11, 2015. The dance includes many things that show a strong relationship between the two dancers. What you can notice is the way they trust each other and their facial expressions. Chbeeb and Kester used these components and other movements to show a relationship between the two characters in this story that is being told. In this dance, there are two people who are in love try to stay together, but in the end they don’t because many things are pulling them apart.

Cats in the Cradle, a song by Harry Chapin, was a very popular song back in 1974, that featured in Top One-Hundred charts around the world. The song was intended to be a poem, but its deep lyrics and smooth rhythms led it to become one of the most successful rock songs of its time. ‘Cats in the Cradle’ depicts the story of a father, and the life he had with his son. As good as that may seem, the song is about how the father was absent from his son’s life, and how he taught his son to grow up just like him. The song’s message is felt by fathers across the world to this day and reminds them to take advantage of every day they spend with their sons. The message is that time is precious, and if you fail to build a solid relationship with your son while they are young, it could be too late to recover once they have grown up.